Super Fun Happy Band!: Indie R/Evolution
You may not know the name, but you better get into them now so you can say “I liked Super Fun Happy Band before they were big” because they most assuredly will become so.
Nathaniel, synth-maestro from SFHB is not yet the quintessential rock star; working a stiff day job (Lisa: “Rock stars don’t have day jobs”. Nathaniel: “They do when they wanna keep eating and living”) until the indie wave takes them high into the realms of the success they warrant.
The band began as most do: “Looking for a way to combine talking to girls and getting free alcohol, this is the best way we could think of”, and has since morphed into an indie-electro fiesta, supporting the likes of The Scientists of Modern Music and Paper Scissors and getting booty (or, boo-tay) shaking along the way.
We talk about the massively burgeoning indie scene of the moment and I am grateful to hear his loyal response- “Out of the indie scenes, Melbourne would have to be my favourite. We think a lot gets lost in translation now, because indie ten years ago was kind of like guitar-rock like Death Cab but it’s branched off now. I don’t think ten years ago you would’ve been called an indie band if you had synth and stuff in your band…it’s a great time for synth players (laughs)”.
As all things great and small must, indie-electro et al must, indeed, die. It’s the nature of fashion, don’t shoot the messenger. But Nathaniel is cautiously optimistic: “It will die, but it’s always reborn in the form of something else…it’s kind of like an Indie Phoenix…once it dies, something is always gonna come out of it, whether or not it’s positive remains to be seen…”
So you’re probably thinking to yourself: Hey Lisa, I really wanna see this band, they sound like way cool party cats, where can I witness the magic, man? Oh, hey, and also, I have, like, nothing to do this Friday 25th January, can you help me out, padre?
Yes I can! With a shameless- and unwarranted- plug for SFHB’s gig tomorrow night with the indie likes of Junior Anti Sex League and Tonight Is Like Space Invaders at Miss Libertine’s in Melbourne. So get your tail down there. With that out of the way, what can a lucky punter expect from a SFHB show, then?
“None of the band really go for the heavy drinking but I would’ve probably been sitting around in my underwear, drinking since 1 or 2…my day off… The audience can expect a drunk band wearing weird masks…and our guitar player is going through a phase where he falls down a lot, so we’ll all come unplugged from the amps…it’s interesting to watch”
After a lengthy discussion on the perverse nature, and possible cannibalism, of emos, I feel the topic should move to the future of SFHB (it doesn’t for quite a while, what journalistic integrity): “We wanna make it sound different. Right now were focusing on kind of fast-paced post- punk electro indie and the songs never go for more than three minutes. Were going to Sydney in March, and then onto Newcastle, so things are branching out. It’s an exciting time”
SFHB also made an appearance at the Falls Festival- whereupon cigarettes and beer belonging to Kings of Leon may or may not have been stolen, perhaps or perhaps not by SFHB- where they got the crowd reaction they wanted: “Everyone was kind of having breakfast, but there was about two or three hundred people up the front dancing, so that was good for twelve o’clock in the afternoon. I think most of the people dancing didn’t go to sleep the night before (laughs)”.
Alright, as I often do, I end the interview with my atypical inquiry: what fruit would be King, Nathaniel? “I would have to say pineapple…pineapples are badass, I wouldn’t go near one if I was a nectarine or a peach”. The kid is wise.
