The Scare

Originally hailing from sunny Queensland, Birmingham's The Scare play a savage, heavy brand of post-punk/hard rock that is winning audiences everywhere, including UK radio luminaries such as Zane Lowe and Steve Lamacq. Speaking to guitarist Liam O'Brien on the eve of their Australian tour, he tells of their incredible journey so far.

On the back of one EP, 2005's 'Vacuum Irony', The Scare found themselves touring with The Blood Brothers, Alexisonfire and Pretty Girls Make Graves - "It was fucking awesome!" O'Brien mentions of the latter. Building up a steady fan base here and winning plaudits from the critics for their blistering live shows, they decided to leave the scene of the crime in February 2006 and uproot to Birmingham in the UK. I ask what influenced such an important decision.

"We found that we were playing all the same venues and seeing the same people and we wanted a new scene. There's just so much more going on over there, more bands, more venues and more opportunity. It was hard, but we're really enjoying ourselves," O'Brien explains candidly.

After a relatively short period of working at the Barfly to cover the rent, they began playing gigs in warehouses and anywhere that would allow them a space to play. By May, the EP got into the hands of BBC1's Zane Lowe and Steve Lamacq who spun the track Cry Junkie on their influential radio programs, as well as on Kerrang Radio and XFM. Soon, The Scare begun to find themselves mentioned in NME, Kerrang and Rocksound as a band to watch.

Being picked up by booking agents Helter Skelter and the strength of their live shows had major labels knocking on their door.

"It was incredible how quickly things happened for us, it was not what we expected at all. We definitely had high hopes and believed in what we did, but for it happen like this was amazing," marvels O'Brien.

The Scare's music is of the angular, heavy, scream-filled kind. I ask if this tension and angst is representative of their headspace, as a way of expressing their feelings and thoughts by sound. "Definitely, we're all pretty tense people and this is a way of getting it all out. I love playing live and going completely crazy, just letting that energy out and having fun. Hopefully those who see us play will have a similar experience," O'Brien agrees.

For those new to The Scare's music, they would do well for themselves to check out 'Vacuum Irony' - an EP of only 16 minutes that carries you on a whirlwind of guitars, a maelstrom of vocal intensity and a barrage of intense drumming. Tracks like If I'm Choking, Make A Scene and Cigarettes And Birth Control display the raw, energetic spirit of punk to its full effect, the lyrical content always strong and obtuse - "I'm a skeleton that breathes/Yours is the skin that I need/When he was mine I fed him fear/I fed him fear till his carcass oozed."

O'Brien informs me, "Kiss [Reid, vocalist] is always writing stuff like that, I guess we express the darkness in our lives or the things we see or hear. We're always trying to challenge the preconceptions of what a song needs to be, we don't always feel we have to write a chorus, per se, we just want to get our point across in any way possible," O'Brien explains. "We don't have any particular influences or bands that we name-check. We listen to a whole heap of stuff and meld it into something of our own. We don't want to sound like anyone else or rip off someone's material. We think we are definitely original in what we do and that's really important to us."

This will be the second time around that The Scare have visited Adelaide, having previously played at the Governor Hindmarsh.

"We definitely like Adelaide, I'm not just saying that. There's a really good punk scene there and we always feel very welcome and at home. There are some really good venues as well and we're looking forward to playing at Jive soon too," O'Brien enthuses.

If you love your music raw, fast and hard, then you'll enjoy The Scare, well, scaring you with their intense live show. It's best to catch them before they return to the UK and become huge.

You've heard it here first, kids.

Lauren Boxhall

The Scare play at Jive on Sat 28 October. 'Vacuum Irony' is out now through Inertia.