Foxton Kings

Perth band Foxton Kings have dropped their new single Getting Old about not conforming to the modern world. Stacked with the infectious Foxton Kings sound the new single gives us a taste of the new album in the works and drummer Alex Barker spoke to the Hi Fi Way about what’s new and the future for the band.  

Your new single is Getting Old, tell us what the song is about?
The song is written from the perspective of our vocalist Joel’s alter ego Harry Foxton which he’s like a big thing in our band and many of our songs are written from his perspective. The Harry Foxton character is an older gentleman who is very conservative and traditional with outdated values. He’s got a bit of a chip on his shoulder being a Greaser in his heyday and worked around engines and that’s something that Joel can relate to so I think that’s largely where that character’s come from.

The song Getting Old is about Harry’s inability to keep up or struggles to keep up with modern society and modern life like technology and the influence of social media. The hook is “Shake my hand or take my soul, but you better hurry up cos I’m getting old.”

So, I think what Joel’s trying to go for there is acknowledging the lack of authenticity through social media. It’s easier to be deceitful through social media and to be honest that’s probably something that struggling bands and bands like ourselves who are trying to get off the ground and get the ball rolling feel. There’re all kinds of false promises out there and plans that don’t go through. I think it’s just a nod to how much that happens in this realm and it’s through the guise of Harry Foxton.

Is the song writing a collaborative effort by the band or is it an individual process?
Well it’s a bit of both. We each have autonomy over own parts. Joel has final say on the lyrics while I will have final say on the drums and with the guitar and bass, we all kind of jump between instruments. The way that this song was actually written was on a weekend trip to Nannup (3 hours south of Perth) where we hired a place and stayed there for a long weekend and just hung out, partied, jammed and recorded music the whole time.

Getting Old was the first tune that we jammed on the night we arrived. We pretty much set up, didn’t have a plan in mind and started messing around and came up with that song in about an hour and took it back to Perth and to put the finishing touches. So that was the first song we recorded from that whole process.

I hear a bit of an old school rock sound like say the 70s. How would you describe the Foxton Kings sound?
We definitely have a lot of modern influences like Jack White, Royal Blood, Queens of the Stone Age and Rage Against the Machine but we each have our own personal influences as well. I draw a lot from Led Zeppelin in terms of the drumming and Joel listens to a lot of classic Rock n Roll like Elvis Presley and old Blues stuff as well.

Chris has a big 70s and 80s streak as well. Dan (bassist) and Joel they used to play in metal core bands when they were younger. We have a lot of different influences but I think we found especially for this release we went for more of a live studio approach. I was very much trying to draw off some Led Zeppelin vibes to the drums and just keep it raw and not too produced so that’s where the old school 70s and 80s sound is coming through.

How long has the band been together?
The band started in 2015 and its gone through a few different line-up changes but it’s been pretty consistent but yeah its coming on to 5 years now.

Do you think with the different line-up changes over time it has that helped define the Foxton Kings sound today?
It has been consistent through the line-up changes I think . The original sound going back to the first album Crooked Tails was much more alt-rock driven and had a real buzz distortion on the guitars and it was a more bluesy approach but now we are gearing more towards a party/dance/rock vibe. You can imagine being at Frankie’s Pizza late on a Friday night and very boozy, loud, Rock n Roll dancing and that’s the kind of vibe we are going for.

So, is there an album in the works?
There’s an EP in the works. We’ve got a bunch of ideas that where working from for this EP and it comes from that weekend in Nannup last year and a few other ideas since then. With COVID-19 and everything that’s going on has thrown our plans into the air for now but Getting Old is our first release from the next EP we are going to put out hopefully late this year or early next year.

After the isolation period is over what does the future hold for the band?
For the moment we be doing  what we’ve been doing for he last couple of years which is write and gig an focus on some short tours like getting over to the east of Australia and playing in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. We really want to focus on the next release.

Interview by Anastasia Lambis

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