Coldwave On Their New AA-Side Single, SXSW Sydney and the Reality of Touring
Coldwave will bring their new music back to Adelaide with a headline hometown gig on October 25.
Interview by Zara Richards // Photo by Mayah Salter
It’s impossible to pigeonhole Coldwave. The controlled chaos that emits from the post-punk six-piece – comprising Harrison Evans (vocals), Kiran Memisoglou (guitar), Anthony Griffin (guitar/vocals), Sean McGowan (trumpet/synth/vocals), Lara Patzel (bass) and Jordan Maywald (drums) — continues to evolve with every release, evidenced by the lush textures, frantic energy and dynamic breakdowns woven throughout their latest AA-side single, The Ants / Italia ’06.
Sustained by Coldwave’s signature jagged guitars and booming horns, vocalist Harry Evans takes a wide-angle lens to introspective viewpoints, pushing the everyday to the forefront and giving mundane moments a chance to be heard and digested on The Ants / Italia ’06. It’s a sound that’s fresh yet familiar all at once – a reason why the outfit continues to prick new ears across the country with each tour.
We caught the band on the fly at SXSW Sydney -- where they played three sets at the creative industry showcase as part of their AA-side single tour -- to hear about life on the road, new music and their forthcoming headline show at Jive on October 25.
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You’re currently at SXSW Sydney! How important is this event to Australia’s arts, technology and creative communities?
It’s a really good opportunity to connect with different audiences – not just the regular pub gig attender. There are over 100 bands in the same city for the week, so you get to hang out with them, whereas you’re usually just sharing the bill with three other bands. It’s kind of like Disneyland for the music industry!
What does it bring a band like Coldwave to showcase there? What does it bring to Adelaide's reputation?
Every time we play interstate, there’ll be a few people at the show who have seen an Adelaide band before, and they’re always like “There’s something in the water down there”. It’s nice to hear that when we enter other states. Adelaide has this good reputation going and it’s great that we have the opportunity to also be another band to watch from Adelaide.
You’ve also ticked off shows in Melbourne and Wollongong on this tour. Why is it important for you to build an audience interstate from the ground up via touring?
You’ve got to connect with as many people as you can. I think we know that our music is fairly niche – we’re not going to appeal to everyone. So, when people get the opportunity to see our live show, it’s the best chance to convert the audience.
I think we bring a really strong energy and, hopefully, that connects with people -- whether that’s in Adelaide or another state. We just want to build more relationships with people across Australia and overseas, eventually. Touring is bloody expensive and it’s tricky, but it’s a lot of fun. We want to just meet as many people [as we can] and hopefully, they’ll like our music.
It’s the perfect time for you to play SXSW Sydney showcases as you’ve just released your double single, The Ants/Italia ’06. Tell us more about these tracks.
‘The Ants’ came together really quickly. Kiran [Memisoglou, guitar] was writing this riff, and it had this real emo influence to it, which made me think about being young – the music just had that mood about it.
We were playing with the idea of it being emo and referencing a sculpture in Emo Park – the big blades of grass, a thong, a fish bone – and [how] it’s the ants’ playground. I really like how that sculpture plays with scale – you feel small -- like you’re part of the big colony of things, you’re all kind of the same and you’re all marching together. That inspired the lyrical tone of feeling young and like you’re just another human being.
With ‘Italia ’06’, it’s about this Aussie battler who feels hard done by and like they can never win in life, when it’s actually pretty good. Jordan [Maywald, drums] and I were chatting a lot about soccer at the time and the 2006 World Cup when a penalty was awarded to Italy in the dying minutes of the Australia versus Italy game. Australia was kind of at the peak of its football powers – you know, [when] Tim Cahill, Harry Kewell [played]. Lucas Neil went in for a slide tackle, got one of the Italian players and they dove for a free kick. It ended up in a goal to Italy and the heartbreak of Australia.
It wasn’t even the quarter-finals yet – I think it was like round 16 or something – but Italy went on to win the World Cup. People always say “We were just one goal away from winning the World Cup,” when that wasn’t really the case. But there’s that feeling that they were so close but not good enough. So, I was just having fun with that.
You also worked with Bonnie Knight (2024 AIR Independent Producer of the Year – Amyl & The Sniffers, Angie McMahon). Tell us more about that experience.
Bonnie was really great to work with. For Kiran especially, he could push the boundaries on what kinds of sounds we want in our music. Bonnie really encouraged that. Kiran has always been trying to find these interesting textures, whether it’s a broken glass shattering or an ice cubes in a glass. That working relationship was really cool to see – exploring all these different sounds and pushing it until it’s almost unlistenable.
Is this double single a sign of more new music to come?
Yeah! On this tour, we’re playing two new songs in our set that we finished writing on Thursday and then played on Friday. It was pretty intense, but we made it work. I think that pressure pushes us forward with writing songs – you have to leave it somewhere. It may never be perfect, but sometimes you just have to go, ‘Ok, that’s enough’.
Is the stage somewhere that’s good to test how the song actually feels with the band?
There are still melodies changing in the song live. Sean [McGowan, trumpet/synth/vocals] actually sings on one of the new songs. Even how that evolved from practice to playing live is completely different – now it’s stronger in its identity, which is cool to see. And now that it’s road-tested, I think it’ll stop us from tinkering with them. We’re still a young band and working out our sound. I hope we always continues to evolve – our tastes will change, and at the moment, we’re trying to be more dynamic in our sound.
You’re playing Jive on October 25 to close out the tour with a hometown gig. What should people expect?
I think Maisie B. will be joining us on sax, who played the saxophone ‘Italia ‘06’. But, like always, it’ll be fun and it’ll be loud – we’re just so excited to play the Adelaide show, it’s a really nice way to round out this little trip. We’ve been driving so much – we drove to Melbourne, drove to Wollongong and then drove to Sydney and we’ll be driving back to Adelaide. So, hopefully, we’re not too tired!
It feels like we’re racing towards 2025. What would you like for Coldwave next year?
Hopefully, a lot more shows in Australia and Adelaide. We just want to play as much as we can – that’s what we love doing. And hopefully, we’ll be writing a bunch of music and there will be more releases, whether that’s a full-length or something smaller!
Coldwave play Jive on October 25, supported by Swapmeet and The Munch. Tickets are on sale now and you can grab yours here. Listen to The Ants/Italia ’06 here. Stay up to date with everything Coldwave on Instagram here.
