Battlesnake And The Rise And Demise Of The Motorsteeple

The rise of Battlesnake continues as they return triumphant from their recent European raid.
As they laid waste to venues across UK and the continent, they gathered an army of new followers and have cemented their place as a band you simply must experience. Plans to return and conquer new lands are already in motion. Now it is Adelaide’s turn to experience. The Rise and Demise of the Motorsteeple. Elliot and Nick talk to Hi Fi Way about the tour so far that comes to an end tomorrow night in Adelaide.

It definitely seems like it is all happening for Battlesnake at the moment, it must be a great feeling that the hard work is starting to pay off?
For sure and it feels that way that all our hard work is coming to something. People are starting to take notice, which is really nice, but still working really hard trying to make it happen.

How’s the Australian tour gone so far?
Sick, so good. Everyone’s been braving the braving the cold temperatures. Tell you what my favourite part of the whole tour has been so far, it’s the hoodies. Our first ever hoodies and they’re fucking sick. They’ve got like swords down their arms and they’ve been selling like crazy, I don’t even have one yet. I’m going to get one in Melbourne but yeah, that’s been my whole my favourite part of the whole tour.

Are you saving the best for Adelaide being the last stop on the on the tour?
Oh, naturally, naturally.

How has the Australian tour compared to what you’ve just completed in Europe?
It’s just a totally different experience. In Australia, it seems like you can only, especially the level we’re at, we can only really play weekends and so it’s broken up over three weeks or four weeks with ten shows. Over in Europe, it was just city after city after day after day after day and there didn’t seem to be too much of a difference in attendance to shows where it was a weekend or a weekday. If you played Bristol on a Tuesday night, there’s just still a full room, which is crazy if you did that in Adelaide tonight, there might be like five people there because it’s so cold.

Do you feel like the band is starting to make some serious inroads overseas?
Yeah, I think so. It feels that way, the album’s been received really well. It’s good, it’s been as good as we could have hoped for from my perspective, and it feels like we’re starting to, finally gain some traction. Australian touring is still fantastic as it’s at home. We love playing at our home in Sydney as well but it’s a different beast touring over there.

Are there any stories of tour hi-jinks you’re able to share?
Just lots of injuries, lots of injuries, illnesses and sicknesses. There are always injuries on stage for some reason I guess because we just go so hard in our live performance. Sam got injured two nights ago, I hit Ben in the face with my bass accidentally. There’s always something. Billy got really sick, I can’t share that story! There’s always something!

So it’s not a case of being able to walk it off?
It reminds me of that Parkway documentary where the drummer, I don’t know if you’ve seen it where the drummer is so sick, throwing up when he’s on stage playing and he’s throwing up. It’s crazy, they’re like playing to fifteen thousand people and he’s just throwing up in this thing and kind of getting on with it. So, you just have to crack on no matter what level you’re at.

Have you been stoked with the fan reaction to the album?
It’s really been cool. This is probably the best one of our records that’s been received yet and seeing the songs that people gravitate towards and enjoy the most.

Was this a challenging album to make?
It was a bit of a different process for this one like. In the past we’ve been very meticulous and had everything sorted out. Everything like played out before going to the studio, whereas this one the songs weren’t even finished being written. A lot of it was just get in the studio and then figure out stuff as it needed to be and figure it out. Probably the cool thing about that is most of the time when you’re agonising over a small part, it doesn’t matter, you come back to that part anyway, and so we cut out that whole process. When I listen to it now I don’t really hear anything that I would change, which I think on previous records, that’s been the process of listening to demos, thinking we’ll change that to perfect it.

It’s like that same idea of always recording with an analogue keyboard as opposed to using soft synth set so that it’s locked in. With us on this record was like that idea is locked in because we just don’t have the time to be to be wasting. We wrote half of the record and recorded it in ten days in the studio, it was a crazy whirlwind and we just didn’t have time to be like mucking around with a bunch of stuff, so be it, that sounds good. Let’s stick with that, yeah, moving on.

Were there any songs left over that you might revisit next time?
There’s one song that has failed to make both records. Will we ever crack it? It’s like our arch nemesis. I think we’ll keep giving it a go, yeah. It’s so cool. We just haven’t managed to figure out the right way to gel it together. The more that time goes on, the more records that it gets left off, the more pressure there is to get it right and make sure that it’s perfect on the one that it does go on.

What’s the plan beyond this tour? Do you get a breather in there?
We’re back in back to Europe in September. Not much of a breather, no. I think after September I will have a little bit of a breather, but it’s more writing and recording. I think that’ll be it for touring until probably mid next year. So, if anybody from Adelaide wants to come and see Battlesnake live, this will be their last chance until mid 2025.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Battlesnake at Jive on Saturday 6 July, tickets HERE…