Perth Music

The Galvatrons are here to put some fun back into rock, but there’s also a serious side at work with their hook-laden productions. It’s the start of the future – rock & roll as it was always meant to be. For now, enjoy The Galvatrons with their stunning debut EP, When We Were Kids which is out now. They are currently touring the country and lead singer/guitarist Johnny ‘Galvatron’ chatted to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (10:07 - 1.1Mb)

Johnny explained the process of choosing the songs for the When We Were Kids EP and getting signed by their record label after only a handful of gigs together; “It was pretty easy to choose the songs (for the EP) because we really didn’t have that many songs at the time. We got signed after our fourth gig so it was really early on and we had only been together for about three weeks. We had some songs we knew we wanted to save for the album and I think the songs for the EP were pretty good choices. We played quite large shows early on and I think our 20th gig was the Meredith Music Festival in front on 10-12,000 people and that was absolutely terrifying. We still weren’t that confident with our material but we played a really good show and got a lot of really good reviews for that gig which was cool.”

The EP was recorded in Melbourne by Lindsay Gravina (The Living End, Shihad) and mixed in Hollywood by the legendary Tim Palmer (David Bowie, Pearl Jam, U2, The Cure). I asked Johnny what it was like recording with them both. “The old Lindsay! Who sounds like he’s been up all night. I don’t think he’s done much electronic stuff, he’s a mega rock guy and I guess we needed the rock side of things beefed up to compete with the electronic side of things and have a good match. So that was good for us. The hero of the recording was Tim Palmer, he’s mixed Pearl Jam, U2, INXS, the guy’s a genius. We sent him a copy of the tracks and he got back to us the same day and said he really wants to work on it and he digs the tracks. He mixed it in Hollywood which makes it sound really exciting.”

Johnny also explained the quick creation of the band “I lived in Melbourne and started ghost writing for a lot of DJ’s and pop acts and playing a lot of session guitar but it wasn’t really my thing and I wanted to get back into rock n roll. I wanted to take all of the electronic stuff I had learnt, the analog, the synths, different beats and electronic drums and work it into a new rock band. So I started writing these tracks for this project I was starting called The Galvatrons and I rang up one of my mates Manny who I played in Battle Of The Bands with back in high school. I rang him because he was the only drummer I knew in Melbourne and he was signed to another record label at the time so I asked him to help me find another drummer. He asked me to play him the music and he’d point me in the right direction and after I played it to him he said he’d join the band. Later that night we went to this other gig to try and find a bass player called Condor who was meant to be quite stylish. It was just one night of breaking up people’s bands which was probably quite mean. And Gamma our keyboard player…..I have no idea where he came from, he was just hiding in rehearsal one day under a towel.”

I asked Johnny how the name The Galvatrons came about. “The most evil transformer. When I was looking for the direction of The Galvatrons, this electronic/rock thing really late one night after a really big night someone put on that 1986 Transformers film. The animated one which has the best soundtrack of all time of any film ever made in any generation. One of the main characters in it, which isn’t in the TV show is Galvatron so I thought it was a fitting name.”

When We Were Kids EP is out now. For more info on The Galvatrons visit www.myspace.com/thegalvatrons

Tour Dates
Fri May 9 Empire Hotel, Brisbane
Sat May 10 The Elsewhere Bar, Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast
Thur May 15 The Karova Lounge, Ballarat
Fri May 16 Rocket Bar, Adelaide
Sat May 17 Enigma Bar, Adelaide
Thur May 22 Prince Of Wales, Bunbury
Fri May 23 The Railway Hotel, Fremantle
Sat May 24 Shape, Perth
Thur May 29 Repubic Bar, Hobart
Fri May 30 Sirocco’s, Bernie
Sat May 31 Batman Faulkner, Launceston
Fri June 6 The Espy, Gershwin Room
Sat June 7 Come Together Festival, Luna Park, Sydney

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Touring, Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.