With Meredith Music Festival on the horizon, the newly reformed Hot Snakes have caused quite the fuss with their name not only appearing on the bill, but also announcing a serious of headlining dates. The seminal post-hardcore punk outfit left a long lasting impression on the scene during their short lifespan, and founding member John Weis caught up with Feeds to chat everything past, present, and the newly formed future of Hot Snakes.
Speaking to us from the his own city of refuge San Diago, Weis, who has been making the most of his time off fishing and enjoying the picturesque San Diago summer, was obviously excited about his upcoming trip to Australia. “That’s one crazy little continent. You guys have tiger sharks and all that there right?” Tiger sharks, and everything else that would want to eat you, I informed him, though he seemed undeterred, still eager to get some fishing time while in town. “Australian’s have a great connection with nature, out of anyone else I’ve ever seen in the world, you’re always out in the sun, well most people.”
Australia has actually played a big role in Hot Snakes history. The last time the band were in town, they recorded a live set on triple j only to break up on their way home, and now locking in the dates for an Australian reunion tour. “We love Australia, we all really do and I think we also feel pretty bad not to be able to spend more time there. It’s awesome, I think one of the main goals once you make a record and start playing shows, one of the biggest goals is to use rock ‘n’ roll to see the world.”
Many years have past since Hot Snakes formed, and many years still since the release of the award-wining Audit in Progress. We got to talking about how things have changed now that the band have got their touring hat on. “it’s a lot easier, before we broke up, and you know, we all took this very seriously and we still do. It was more or less one of our main forms of artistic releases. All these other bands around us were winding down, but this was the main vehicle for me. With half the band on the East Coast and the other half on the West Coast, it was really hard to develop music and evolve. There was always so much pressure to get things happening when we were together. It’s all about playing shows, playing songs we love and having fun. It’s been a lot more relaxed for me. It’s been easier”
Weis explained that he is continuing to chase his bliss now that the band is back together, the conversation turned towards the climate amongst the band now that the gears have begun to turn once more: “We’re all doing it cos we love doing it. We’ve played a lot of shows since we started doing this. It was so hard to get together before, now that it’s a bit easier, there seems to be more interest in the band than when we were around the first time. As long as we’re not away from home too long, as long as it doesn’t take us away from other things we are involved with at the moment, there’s no reason why we can’t keep doing this for a little while…it really is still fun.”
This isn’t the first appearance from the band in recent times either: in 2010 the band made a very brief appearance on stage, which got as talking about reunions, verses comebacks, “Every time you start playing again, new music, all that – it starts to feel like a comeback. Life is a serious of comebacks. This is a reunion. We said we were done, we were done! This is a reconvening on old material, no new songs, a couple of covers in there just for fun but it feels to me like a reunion, for sure.”
Though the band are very excited for their Meredith Music Festival performance, they can’t wait for their small headlining gigs. “We don’t have pyrotechnics you know? We’re not one of those bands you can watch in a festival setting, I mean, we love playing festivals but there’s nothing like being crammed into a pressure cooker, everyone’s real sweaty. It’s also sound-based. There’s nothing really that technical about it either. I’m far more interested in recreating the sound in small club venues, where sound has no place to escape.”
There is no doubt, however, that Hot Snakes will rise to the occasion and belt out their massive wall of sound to the thousand strong crowd at Meredith. With the band as excited as they are of the recent, and soon to take place, happenings, we can only hope that they re-catch the bug, or re-ignite the flame, whichever, and stick around for that little bit longer.
Hot Snakes Tour Dates:
Thursday, 6th December
Annandale Hotel, Sydney
Tickets: http://www.custommade.com.au & http://www.annandalehotel.com
Friday, 7th December
Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Tickets: http://www.custommade.com.au & http://www.cornerhotel.com
Saturday, 8th December
Meredith Music Festival, Meredith, VIC
Tickets: http://www.mmf.com.au
