The Holy Soul are one of Sydney’s longest serving bands, having plied their dirty trade through this difficult city, showcasing a level of performance and songwriting that makes most other local rock bands look like a bunch of try-hard fuckwits. If you’ve ever seen them live you’ll know what I mean. They fucking rock.
Having toured to South East Asia, played with David Thomas of Pere Ubu and Damo Suzuki of CAN (with whom they’ve just released an improvisational live LP on Repressed Records) and releasing a series of LPs and EPs, they are a band who know their job and do it fucking well. With their fans including such local luminaries as Dave Graney, Murray Engleheart and pretty much every local muso who’s been part of the scene for longer than a few months they wipe the floor with the current troupe of limp-wristed hair cuts, before picking them back up and using them to wipe their asses.
If you’ve never seen them, you owe it both to yourself and the tradition of live music in this city to do so. Guess what, you’re in luck they’re headlining the Chocolate Jesus Stage (Iguana bar) at Mum Presents Go Here Go There this Friday Dec 3rd. We caught up with bassist Sam Worrad for a bit of a chinwag before the show.
Music Feeds: The Holy Soul, a religious bunch are you?
Sam Worrad: We’re yet to find a religion that commands you drink young coconut juice and read ‘That’s Life’ all the time.
MF: You guys just finished playing some shows with legendary CAN vocalist Damo Suzuki, and you’ve got an album out with him now, can you tell us a bit about that?
SW: Sure. The album is called ‘Dead Man Has No 2nd Chance’, and it’s an improvised live set recorded in Melbourne a little while back. The band was expanded a little to include Peter Newman on electronics and Dan Luscombe on keys. Repressed Records were nice enough to put it out, and it was a blast doing a launch show a week or so ago. He’s a super nice fellow, and can really cook.
MF: I know you’ve played with David Thomas before as well, are there any plans to bring out any other legends of yore? Even if not if you could bring anyone out to play with who’d it be?
SW: No plans. These things usually happen by accident. Chuck Berry??
MF: Last time we spoke you mentioned Jon was putting his studio back together, has that happened, should we be expecting any new material anytime soon?
SW: Still building! But coming soon. We’re working on a new LP that will hopefully be recorded early next year.
MF: You guys are one of the few bands in Sydney at the moment who can pull off the whole, blues, swamp thing and not seem like a bunch of posturing dickheads, what’s your secret? Does it help that none of you are uni students?
SW: Why, thanks. We were probably much swampier and bluesier when we WERE uni students…maybe it was the bayou at the Kingswood Campus of UWS.
MF: How important is it to the band to keep a solid work ethic?
SW: Hrm, I dunno. We’re somewhere between quite hardworking and quite lazy. I guess that’s a good way to be.
MF: This show on Dec 3rd is in Kings Cross, are you excited? Planing on hitting the strippos at all, maybe drop a dinga and head on down to DragonFly?
SW: Sure, I like the Cross quite a lot. It’s a strangely calming place. Maybe I’ll go up to the Swans Club after the gig, get a couple of cheap members rates drinks and sit on the dark balcony. It’s nice!
MF: What’s coming up for the band after this Go Here Go There show?
SW: More shows, more recordings, the usual etc etc. We’ll head overseas somewhere next year…either Asia or Europe, but hopefully both .Anybody got any money?
