Having only ever scratched the surface of touring Australia as part of festivals with just one club run in the mix, news of a headline run from Bayside was enough to put their fans in a frenzy.
Music Feeds caught up with vocalist and guitarist Anthony Raneri about the run as well as the glorious, yet hard hitting new record which brought them here, Vacancy and the self-inflicted torture needed to create it.
Music Feeds: I’ve been fortunate enough to hear the new album, it’s cathartic, doesn’t mince words and goes straight for the jugular. Is there any part of the album you might be apprehensive about sharing with the world?
Anthony Raneri: Yeah – the whole record. I’m apprehensive about the whole thing. For one thing, it’s always nerve-wracking putting out another record because we have been so fortunate to have this reputation of being really consistent and a lot of our fans like so many of our records and we’re lucky with that because it’s rare. So there’s always this lingering feeling of “Oh man, is this the one? I hope this isn’t the one that we blow it on.”
But then on a personal level, it’s the most honest and personal, lyrically, that I’ve ever written. I played it for friends, sitting in the car with them and I feel weird. It’s almost like they’re reading my diary.
MF: It’s a very personal journey, one line that sticks out is: “Six albums and two marriages later I’m still here paying my dues”. That’s some heavy shit. Do you think this will help people get through their struggles?
AR: I don’t know! I write songs that mean something to me. I get them out how I want them out, they’re cathartic and I write them because I need to write them. How everyone else connects to it – I mean, I’ve written political songs which people think are break-up songs – that’s fine with me. However they connect or whatever it means to them it’s cool with me.
MH: For me, personally, the album played out kind of like a manual to being a grown up. Am I close to the message there?
AR: For sure, I would say that’s a pretty big theme on the record. Like I said, it’s uniquely personal. Usually I’m writing in hindsight, or of a bigger idea of life. For this record, I was going through something, I was living in a place I didn’t want to be in, in a situation I didn’t want to be in and I was just putting it all on paper.
A lot of the lyrics are ripped straight out of my mouth. They’re things that I said to myself or other people.
MF: When you pen these personal struggles, when does the healing start for you? Once it’s written, recorded, performed or years after the fact?
AR: When I write it, oh yeah. It’s good to get it out. Being a songwriter is like being your own therapist, but you also torture yourself. Some people could have a job and they hate their job and their boss is an asshole and get into a fight with their boss and get fired or quit and can walk away and say “That guy’s an asshole, screw him, screw that job” and you’re satisfied with that. But as a songwriter, that doesn’t make for a good song.
As a songwriter, you have to say, “Well, why is he being an asshole? What did I do do deserve that? What’s going on in his life that makes him that way? Or what does getting fired now mean for my life?” That’s what being a songwriter is. It’s fucking torture. I wish I could just walk away and say “Fuck that guy” but I can’t.
MF: Another reason I’m excited for the album is that it will bring you down for your first ever Australian headline tour.
AR: Not only our first headline tour, it’s only our second club tour. We’ve only done festivals. So when we were first talking about doing the tour, we didn’t even know if we had fans! When all you do is festivals there’s no way to gauge it.
But now that everything’s started going it’s starting to look awesome. We’re going to some places we’ve never been before, which after being in a band for 16 years doesn’t happen much.
MF: What are the odds of you bringing down a few cases of your Bayside Black IPA you recently had made up?
AR: Oh I wish it was that easy. There are states in the U.S that can’t get it because of their liquor laws. It’s so hard to do. Technically Bayside is a company. We’ve been selling merch and coffee and all these things for years. So we’ve gotten pretty good at retail and marketing – that’s what we do when we’re not on tour that’s our day job.
We thought we really had it all figured out until we decided to make a beer. This industry is a nightmare. The beer’s going to be in bars and like, in stores. It’s like a really, real product it’s pretty crazy that we pulled that off.
We’ve all been getting involved in things outside of the band. I own a merch thing here in the states and do a lot of writing for other people, we’ve all been venturing out. It’s all fuelled by the band, but outside of it.
Right now we’re focused on the record and the beer but we’ll see. We’re always into big ideas.
MF: I’ve got one for you, Bayfest…
AR: We have brought that up! Maybe doing it in New York. There are bands that do that but, again, that’s a lot. The beer’s a new venture for us, headlining Australia is a new venture for us, we love new ideas.
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Bayside’s new album ‘Vacancy’ is out now. Their Aussie tour kicks off this November. See details below.
Bayside 2016 Australian Tour
With special guests Young Lions & Far Away Stables.
Thursday, 3rd November (18+)
Prince Of Wales, Bunbury
Tickets: Destroy All Lines
Friday, 4th November (18+)
Amplifier Bar, Perth
Tickets: Destroy All Lines
Saturday, 5th November (Lic/AA)
Fowlers Live, Adelaide
Tickets: Destroy All Lines
Sunday, 6th November (18+)
Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Tickets: Destroy All Lines
Wednesday, 9th November (18+)
The Basement, Canberra
Tickets: Destroy All Lines
Thursday, 10th November (18+)
Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle
Tickets: Destroy All Lines
Friday, 11th November (18+)
Manning Bar, Sydney
Tickets: Destroy All Lines
Saturday, 12th November (18+)
The Bridgside, Brisbane
Tickets: Destroy All Lines
Sunday, 13th November (18+)
Shark Bar, Gold Coast
Tickets: Destroy All Lines
