CATALYST COURT… (from left) Liam O’Kane (bass guitar, backing vocals), Nick Smith (lead vocals, rythm guitar), Jarrad Parker (lead
guitar, backing vocals) and Julian Buonanova (drums)
“We record the drums acoustically in a
studio using a scratch track, then take that,
and do the rest ourselves,” Nick said.
“We send it all over to an American
company and they mix it, and master it.”
And they no longer need to practise in a hired shed...
by using digital equipment, they can play through
a mixer into headphones so they can bop and jump
along to the loudest music only they can hear.
The ideas for songs come thick and fast and sometimes
are not about subjects they expect to tackle.
“Girls are, naturally, a big subject... but
they’re not love songs,” Nick said.
One of their biggest hits judging by Facebook
and social media network is about girls.
The Hardest Days, is a song with a play on words about
beautiful women who never have to work hard at life.
Blink-182 and Yellowcard are two US punk rock bands
that write lyrics in a way that fires Nick’s imagination.
“I write the lyrics quite apart from the music,” he said.
“When I get an idea, I just write the lyrics to
express the idea, then add, or remove words, to
make it fit the music when we get to write that.”
Blood Wine, the title track on their first
album is about relationships.
“Blood is for the relationships you have
with family, wine, being the relationship
you have with partners,” Nick said.
32 | SEPTEMBER 2016
Unsurprisingly, their first album is
mostly about nothing much... there is no
overarching theme, or message.
Nick’s long term musical ambition is to be able to
command enough audience to tour nationally, but
definitely not at the expense of his Army career.
Already having had both knees surgically
replaced, he knows his next serious injury might
lead to an unwanted ticket out of uniform.
He did think briefly about transferring to Band
Corps, but wasn’t attracted to the idea that his
music might actually suffer by moving.
“They spend so much time playing music at work, some
of them don’t even play in their own time,” Nick said.
“I wouldn’t want that to happen to me.”
For the moment, he just wants to drive the band
to the next level locally, write more songs (and
give them away), get more people interested in
their music (and more people at their gigs) while
he extends his Army career for as long as he can.
“I feel like Army holds my career goal and
music holds my dreams,” Nick said.
It never hurts to dream does it?
Click on the album cover to send
Nick your details so he can send you the
band’s Blood Wine CD, no charge.