Kisschasy Reunite For A Special One-Off Australian Headline Tour
Straight off the stage from performing at Good Things Festival across three cities over the weekend, alt-pop-rock national treasures, KISSCHASY have announced they’ll reunite for a special one-off Australian headlining tour in May 2023. The national tour begins in Brisbane, before making its way to Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, Wollongong, Sydney, Newcastle, Melbourne, and Torquay. This will be the band’s first national tour in eight years, with lead singer Darren Cordeux making a special visit back to Australia after relocating to Los Angeles in 2015.
Forming in Mornington Peninsula in 2002, Kisschasy released three studio albums, two of which are gold certified, two gold certified singles alongside scooping up multiple ARIA Award nominations. They became festival darlings with performances at some of Australia’s biggest festivals including, Big Day Out, Splendour In The Grass, Groovin’ The Moo & Homebake, alongside countless sold-out headlining tours playing at some of Australia’s most landmark venues. Don’t miss seeing Kisschasy live, performing all their hit songs including Do-Do’s & Whoa-Oh’s, Opinions Won’t Keep You Warm at Night and Spray on Pants. Darren Cordeux talks to Hi Fi Way about the tour.
It must be exciting and really humbling with the amount of support for this tour coming up?
It really is actually. It wasn’t something that I expected whatsoever. We did those shows last year for Good Things and even that I was kind of like, we had a few offers since we broke up in 2015 and it never quite worked out. I’m one of those people I like things to be in their time capsule and unless there is a really good reason for us to do this again, let’s just leave our legacy intact. We left at a good time and to me that made sense. Then Good Things came along and it seemed like the right time and I think we were all ready at that point to see how it felt again.
Even then I was still apprehensive cause I was like, okay, well they want us to do this album, which is weird for a festival to do at the beginning. Usually you would play your greatest hits at a festival. I was like, for just one whole album that’s kind a bit boring the beginning of the day on some weird stage. We went on stage we were on stage three, so I was thinking there’s going to be no one there. Then we got up and played these shows at Good Things and it was packed and people were singing all the words for all the songs. It was just very humbling and very mind blowing. When we announced this tour and the fact that most of the shows are selling out and, and we’ve just had such an overwhelming response. It’s something that I honestly did not expect and has galvanized us giving us this energy that we’re definitely going to be bringing to the stage.
In the back of your mind were you ever worried about whether the fan base was still there or had moved on to other types of bands?
I think that’s one of the reasons why we chose to do a festival first, because that was less pressure on us. We can rely on all the other bands to bring the people and we can just play and that was the case. After we played Good Things, it gave us a little bit of confidence to then announce the tour, and we felt that maybe this could be something bigger than we thought. Low and behold it has been, it has been incredible and it’s given us this renewed sense of pride in our body of work. The fact that it’s been able to stand this test of time and it still holds a place in people’s hearts is really, really cool to us.
Was Good Things primarily the catalyst to getting back together, or have there been some conversations about it over the past few years?
I think the first probably first five years of us breaking up, I can only speak for myself personally, but as a songwriter, I actually get really restless, so I was just like so interested to see where else I could channel my creativity, because when you’re doing it through one vessel, I listen to a lot of different music and so have having to, to channel that through one thing that’s got very much got its own sound, which was Kisschasy, after we broke up I was very interested to see where else I could go, what else I could do.
I wasn’t really thinking about that. I moved overseas, I moved to Los Angeles, it wasn’t until the discussion about Good Things came up that I was even like, oh, okay, well maybe, maybe we could do that. I didn’t want to lean on Kisschasy here as being like, I did this thing, look at me! It was more about that I was very proud of it, but I wanted to see what was next. That’s what I’ve been focusing on the last seven years. Then that came up and, a few life events had happened, you see things like your parents getting older. My dad had a stroke and that was a big thing, where I was shit, and my parents are very proud of everything Kisschasy achieved. That became a factor. I was like, well, I know they would probably want to see me play again. There’s certain things like, you miss the other guys and one of the things that I didn’t realise that I’d missed was when I got into that room was when we started rehearsing for Good Things, which we only had one day by the way to do, because I landed on a Monday, we had rehearsals on a Tuesday, and then we had a secret show in Melbourne on a Wednesday.
We got together on the Tuesday, we get into the room, we, we went through the set once and it felt like it was over in a flash. It was like an out of body experience. I remember all of us just looking at each other like, whoa, I mean, we didn’t even have to do that again. It just felt like it we were all there sitting in our subconscious this whole time. Then I realised what I’d really missed as well, which was playing in a great rock and roll band. I’ve been playing with a bunch of different musicians here in LA and, and just getting to that room with those guys was, it was this visceral feeling and has a weight to it that I didn’t realised that I missed until now.
Will have your parents looking make for more of an emotional sort of experience as well?
One hundred percent! That’s what happened at Good Things, there was this stressful moment where we were playing very early and was trying to race them into the festival, my dad’s in a wheelchair now, so they were getting him to the disabled viewing platform. I could see from the side of the stage that they weren’t there yet. I could feel my palms getting sweating. I was like, I’m really wanting them to see this. This is why I like one of the main reasons why I’m doing this.
Literally just in the nick of time I could see them there. I could see my dad’s hat. I was like, oh my God. I got out there and serious, that was like chills when I got out there and saw them over there. Um, I think that feeling would definitely be the case when we’re playing in Melbourne again, especially at The Corner Hotel, which is a venue that holds a special place in my heart. Remember my dad taking me there to see one of my first shows when I was younger. It has such a legacy and it definitely holds a dear place to all of us and Kisschasy because we’ve played there many times. Every time it still feels surreal because it was a place that I dreamed of playing ever since I saw those early punk shows when I was younger.
With the tour coming are you starting to feel nostalgic and are there a whole raft of emotions you are feeling?
Yeah, for sure. I think that’s very much the case. I think it is a strange feeling because a lot of life’s happened. Even when we got together in at The Good Things Festival, it’s funny how many things have changed, but how many things stayed the same. Getting into that van and the jokes are the same. Our interactions are the same. I think we’ve all become better musicians because we’ve kept doing our thing that when we came back together I think we’re even better than we were when those records were fresh. There’s definitely that feeling of like breathing new life into the material and that’s the unknown as well because for me personally, I’m definitely not opposed to putting out, and I was before by the way, like I said, I like to keep things in a time capsule and now I’m open to the idea of doing some new stuff with Kisschasy because I think that I just needed that time away from it to see what else is out there. That doesn’t mean that’s a definite yes either.
I’m about to release my own record under the name Daz & The Demons, which I’m really excited about. That’s taking up a lot of my creative drive and I’m definitely leaning into that. If Kisschasy material comes to me, and that’s usually how it works, when I’m writing songs, especially for myself, as opposed to for other people it has to come to me that can’t be forced. If something comes to me out that leans itself into Kisschasy and that sound that’s what I’ll use it for. That’s definitely something that I would’ve given a no to a year ago. It’s not a yes or a no, but there is that unknown being maybe, moving forward.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch Kisschasy on the following dates, tickets from SBM Presents…
