Melbourne’s fave three-guitar rock’n’roll power poppers The Prize have released their long-awaited debut album In The Red on Anti Fade Records in Australia and Goner Records in the USA. The album’s release follows the prior release of album tracks First Sight which was released August 2023 ahead of their first European tour (with King Gizzard) and Had it Made which was released last October ahead of the band’s second European tour (with The Chats) late 2024 and more recently the album’s first single From The Night.
The Prize made their debut for Anti Fade in 2022 with the EP Wrong Side of Town which prompted global interest in the band. They began recording the album in 2023 but the international tours caused delays, as did the departure of original bass player Jack Kong in early 2024. New bass player Ethan Stahl (formerly of UK band Chubby and the Gang) came on board a year ago after Jack helped the band finish the tracking process. Initial album sessions took place with Paul Maybury of Rocket Science at his A Secret Location studio, with subsequent tracks recorded with Matt Blach of The Murlocs at Gizz Studios (following The Prize’s European run with King Gizzard late in 2023) and, in January of this year, with Robin Mukerjee of TV Colours.
The band, which features drummer Nadine Muller sharing lead vocals with guitarist Carey Paterson together with guitarists Joseph Imfeld and Austin Haire as well as new bass player Ethan, is known for its powerful three-guitar frontline and melodic twin lead guitar. It combines punk and classic hard rock with power pop and new wave and cites its influences as Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick, Pretenders, Blondie, Rolling Stones, Faces, Flamin’ Groovies, Tom Petty, Dwight Twilley, Phil Seymour, The Toms, The Nerves and The Motors. Nadine Muller talks to Hi Fi Way about the album.
It must be really exciting for the band to finally release your debut album?
Yeah, finally!
For people who don’t know much about the band, how would you describe the music, particularly now that you’ve released your debut album?
Well, I think our sound’s changed a little bit, and I think the first bunch of things we put out, people were using the term power pop a lot. I think that is still in there, but I think it’s gone a little bit more rock and roll, a bit more traditional, sort of 70s rock and roll. I was listening to a lot of the Divinyls and bands like Cheap Trick and stuff at the time. The boys all loved those bands as well, so I think that those influences are coming through a bit more, whereas the other stuff was a bit more like the Nerves, and… the Ramones, and yeah
Do you feel the pressure with the debut album and trying to have something that sort of typifies what your sound is?
Yeah, I think so. I think when we were writing it, and when we were recording it, at the start, I was a little bit conscious of that. It ended up being quite a long process, and towards the end, I was just sort of like, we sound how we sound, and I think it captures how we sound live. I think we have, progressed a bit with our song writing and pushed ourselves a little bit. I’m happy with how it’s turned out.
Did it feel like a labour of love and a really long time in the making?
Yeah, at times. We started recording it before we did a five-week tour in the UK and Europe and in hindsight, always record after you play thirty three shows, because you’re much tighter afterwards. Then we came back, and we’re all a bit, sort of, burnt out from touring and being on the road. It took a bit of time to get back into the studio and get the momentum happening again, so that definitely contributed to why it took us two years to finish it, but yeah.
Do you feel like the hard work is finally starting to pay off?
I think so. I think, I mean, honestly, from the get-go, I felt like we got a lot of really great opportunities, and I wasn’t expecting to be offered a tour overseas with King Gizzard, or with The Chats, or anything like that, so we’ve been lucky from the start. I appreciate all of the good things that have come our way, and hopefully we’ll get to do more now that we’ve got a full length.
Have you been able to gauge the level of interest since touring overseas?
I think the album pre-sales have done really well, and we’ve built up a bit of a fan base overseas now, having gone over twice and done relatively long tours, and we’ve got to play to Chats fans, Merlocs fans, and Gizzards fans, so we’re lucky in the sense that we’re playing to pretty big rooms, and got to hopefully poach a few of their fans. The reception’s been really good to the single we’ve put out from the album.
Do you learn much from the bands you’re touring with, like King Gizzard?
No one can compete with those guys. That’s intimidating. Gizzard have played the industry in a completely different way to most bands, they’ve kept it very DIY from the start, and I guess that’s allowed them to have complete creative control and control over their output. They have a really good team of people around them. I got to see that working with people that align with what you want to do, and your goals and that’s really important, and having a strong work ethic. I think some people can just treat it like a bit of a party kind of thing, because there’s always that aspect of it too, but finding the balance is important.
When you translate that over to your debut album, do you feel like it’s your one big opportunity to strike while the iron’s hot?
I try and not think about that. I remember talking to Stu about this once with the output of music and the pressure of doing something really great. He was like, oh, if you do an album and it doesn’t land, or you don’t like it that much, just do another one. I’m like, yeah.
Was the vision pretty clear to you in terms of what you wanted the album to sound like?
I don’t think we’ve ever really thought too much about that, like, we want it to sound exactly like this or that. We always have our inspirations, and for me, personally, like Blondie, and the production on a lot of their albums and recordings is something that I aspired to lean towards more a little bit with this album. It’s a little bit more high production. Whereas the first seven-inch we put out, we went into studio, we recorded it, did all the vocals and tracking and finished up about 2AM, but we got everything done in a day. It was a pretty different process this time, and a little more time went into it. We weren’t like, we want to sound exactly like this band or anything. All of our influences get thrown in the pot, and then it just comes out sounding the way it does.
Do you let it all come together in the studio, or do you do quite a bit of work beforehand?
Yeah, bit of both. We usually have the bones of a song down, and then we’ll go into the studio and get the rest down, and then we’ll layer it up a little bit, and some of that will be on the spot. The guys will come up with a guitar lead line, or a solo, or something. A lot of the time, I’d written half the lyrics for the songs I was doing, and then I’d finish them off in the studio.
Was it really exciting for you when you started to get to the finishing stretch there and see it start to come together?
Yeah, yeah, it was a big sigh of relief.
Interview By Rob Lyon
In The Red is out now, order now through Bandcamp…
