The ARIA Award nominations for this year were announced yesterday morning and in amongst the big, chart-dominating pop stars were four boys from Mansfield, Queensland who play guitars and sing choruses made up of the word ‘Yeah’ over and over.
In fact, Violent Soho managed to score a total of five nominations for their latest album, WACO, including nods for Best Group, Best Independent Release, Best Rock Album, Best Video, and Best Australian Live Act.
The nominations pit them against big-name acts like Sia, The Living End, The Avalanches, and The Veronicas, something the boys themselves acknowledge. Speaking to triple j, frontman Luke Boerdam said the most important nod is the one for Best Independent Release.
“That’s important to us, we like to make music on our own terms,” he said. “Being put up there with someone like Sia; it feels good to be recognised when your budget is about 1/100th of what these guys get to spend.”
“We recorded the album ourselves with our friend, Bryce Moorhead, who’s an incredible producer but doesn’t really work with any big artists. We’ve been working with him for a decade. I think truly we do feel like an independent group, that’s the essence of our band.”
Indeed, as Tone Deaf reported at the time, Soho’s budget for the WACO sessions was so lean they actually ran out of money during the final stages of completing the album and had to finish work in Moorhead’s basement.
“We just ran out of coin so we’re finishing mastering in [producer/mixer] Bryce Moorhead’s basement in Brisbane,” Johann Ponniah, the main man behind I OH YOU, the Australian indie label that Violent Soho, DZ Deathrays, and more call home, told Tone Deaf.
And no, it wasn’t an especially decked-out basement a la Foo Fighters recording in a garage that was actually a multi-million dollar studio inside a garage. “To my knowledge it’s just a standard basement with the necessary gear needed to finish off the mixing,” said Johann.
Are the ARIAs a total mess bordering on farce? Well, yeah, pretty much. Are they totally in the pocket of the major labels and have more to do with who sold the most units than who made the best record? Again, probably.
But to see a band like Violent Soho, who admittedly struggled to get noticed in their home country for years before experiencing a breakthrough with the single ‘Covered in Chrome’, acknowledged by the industry’s top award (for better or worse), well, it matters.
Likewise, seeing a band like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, a totally DIY, grassroots operation, who sell the bulk of their records on Bandcamp or in the form of vinyl to their rabid fan base, get nominated for an ARIA is also significant.
The ARIAs will likely always be a pat on the back to the major labels and we still can’t figure out why we have an award for Best International Artist (though we have a hunch), but it’s good to see names like Soho and King Gizz still warms our hearts.
