The Beautiful Girls

The Beautiful Girls are a relatively young band finding their roots on the east coast of Australia. Their most recent release, 'We're Already Gone' from late 2005 has already found acclaim not only in Australia but overseas as well. They've only just finished their tour of America and Canada, with record crowds and sold-out performances over there.

Front man Mat McHugh tells me the band had a fantastic trip - the crowds in America knew their music and came to the show to have a good time. Not only have the gigs been good over there, so was the surf. The Beautiful Girls are actually beach boys down to the core, having spent much of their time surfing and just generally hanging out when not rehearsing.

McHugh explains that Vancouver came next on the band's tour dates - with shows not only in the city itself but up at the gorgeous ski mountain, Whistler, where The Beautiful Girls got to find out first-hand how many Australians gravitate towards the Rocky Mountains of Canada. McHugh tells me that there seemed to be more Australians than Canadians at the Whistler gigs!

"It has been great to go overseas and see your fan base expand because of travellers," but to the same extent - if The Beautiful Girls wanted to play to Australians then why didn't they just stay in Australia? Hmm...

McHugh tells me that Japan actually came before America and was none-the-less of a climax. "The Japanese people came out in hordes and we ended up playing to packed out concerts every night. Not only did the Japanese people know the words of our songs - most of them knew the words better than the Anglo audiences did. Yet even though they obviously didn't know what the words meant - they still understood the vibes of the song," McHugh says. "It's true, they seemed to understand what the songs are all about and that in its own way reinforces the clichˇd idea of music being universal. I mean, it's clichˇd for a reason!"

With influences ranging from hip-hop to blues and soul, it's no wonder that The Beautiful Girls are one of the most original bands out there today.

"It doesn't matter what genre it is, in my opinion, music has to have a heart and a soul - it has to be able to be felt by the listeners, and yeah, we certainly try to go for that with this band."

After their long-awaited Australian tour The Beautiful Girls are planning on heading off to some pretty exotic destinations. As well as going back to North America, they will be heading down to Argentina, Chile and then jet-setting over to South Africa. McHugh hopes that they will be received over there in the same way that the Japanese fans have received them.

"It will be a new experience, not only because they may not even know our music at all but because The Beautiful Girls have never been to places like South Africa. Most bands don't get the experience of playing in exotic countries and so we are very lucky for this experience," McHugh says.

The Beautiful Girls are coming to Adelaide in the near future, the singer promises, and McHugh confesses that, as "typical" as it sounds, Adelaide is one of his favourite places to play because the audience really gets into the vibe of the music and seems to know what he is singing about.

Personally, I recommend that anyone who gets a chance to see The Beautiful Girls should grab it and go.

Jess Law

The Beautiful Girls play at the Governor Hindmarsh on Thurs 27 and Fri 28 July. 'We're Already Gone' is out now through San Dumo/MGM