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Speedstar.
 Given their heavy touring schedule last year, it was with open arms Speedstar welcomed the Christmas/New Year break. As if the festive season wasn't enough, January and February saw the Brisbane five piece take an unscheduled break, letting the dust settle in Brisbane. Ben Smith, one of the band's guitarists, says although the break has been nice on the one hand, it's also meant he's had to go and get a job at the local supermarket. In typical Smith style, he's very matter-of-fact about it.
"If you're not playing, you're not making any money. We're not pulling royalties from album sales or anything; you get your odd bit of money here and there, but if you want to live a normal life for a few months..."
I suggest the need to go out and get a day job would probably make him look forward to doing the band thing, no matter how hard it gets. Smith agrees. "It does make you look forward to getting back out and playing some more shows again and being on the road and not waking up in the morning and having to go to work," he says. "It is actually better to wake up and go 'Shit, we've got to drive 12 hours to such and such a place and then play a show'; it's far more enjoyable than having to go to work.
"Our aim has always really just been to keep doing this as long as we can. It's always hoping that we're just good enough to make another album, and hope that one goes well so that we can make another album. You don't really expect to make a million dollars from it and be able to retire and never have to work again, but the longer you can keep doing what you love, and not have to get a full-time job just for money's sake, the better."
Aside from his 'other' work, Smith says the past couple of months have yielded little obligation, other than recording some B-sides for the new single 'Are You Feeling Better, Angela?'
"We took a big chunk of time because we toured pretty extensively last year, and when that all finished in October, we knew we were going to have another single from this album, so we didn't have to start work on a whole new album or anything," explains Smith. "So we were at a bit of a loss of things to do for a while. We didn't go, 'alright, let's have a break for three months' , and as a consequence, didn't really do much. But we did write some new stuff and ended up recording some new songs for the B-sides and stuff, so that was good."
The sound of the latest Speedstar LP offering is not quite as grandiose and rounded out as Bruises You Can Touch. In fact, on the whole, it's a rather more depressing album than their first release, and Smith agrees that even the musically uplifting songs have their own irony.
"I think there are some pop songs on it... And the ones that are 'up' musically tend to have actually sadder lyrics than a lot of the slower ones, I think, so it's kind of a bit contradictory," he muses. "Some of the actual nicest, not happy lyrics, but non-sad lyrics, are on the sadder sounding songs, and it's vice versa. I think it is still a pretty sad album; a lot of people were saying it's a much more 'up' sounding album than our 'depressing' first album, but I think this one's still pretty depressing."
Lest one surmise that the band actually is a bunch of bitterly depressed guys, Smith is jovial when asked about the time the quintet have spent together recently.
"Instead of having band practices, we've taken on more of a Speedstar Social Club vibe, and we've just been doing that instead! Although we have started getting ready for the next lot of shows, and it has taken a little while to remember what we do," he laughs.
"But it's good; it allows for some reinvention of older songs, so it's actually a bit of fun to get back into it and decide what songs we are going to do and how we're going to do them!"Ann Marie Sosnowski
 | Speedstar play at Jive on Sun 17 April with Special Patrol. |
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