High Tropics get tipsy with new single, 'Vodka Soda' - interview Sydney's Civic Video and Supahoney

Following up on the success of previous singles, ‘Girlfriends’ and the QMA-Nominated ‘Bipolar Disaster’, indie-rock outfit, High Tropics have once again upped the ante with new single, ‘Vodka Soda’

Reminiscent of ‘Room On Fire’-era The Strokes, ‘Vodka Soda’ is slacker romanticism, soaked in NYC fumes and dowsed in Russia’s finest. Melodic, driving, and going down easy, High Tropics don’t mess about with the catchiness, with the track evoking an easy sway and bounce.

To celebrate the release, High Tropics head down to Sydney town for the first time in over three years, heading to The Lady Hampshire on August 26, bringing along Civic Video and Supahoney for all the good times.

In the lead up to the launch, we had Josh from High Tropics do a band on band, on band series of questions.

For those unfamiliar with your music, can you give a brief description of your band's sound and influences, and tell us when and how you got together?

(Civic Video) - Our music's roots stem from across the state - with Zac being born and raised between Newcastle and Sydney, Hamish being Sydney born and bred, Belle hailing from Bathurst and Riley from Moruya - this mix creates a lovely fusion of city-style indie rock and country. Some key influences can be seen in Spacey Jane, Rum Jungle, Coldplay and Inhaler just to name a few. To put it simply, our sound is a little shimmery, a little swirly, and a lot summery.

(Supahoney) - Our sound could be simply put as Post-Rock, with elements of Shoegaze and Math rock. We met in Year 10 and would just go to the music rooms at lunchtime and learn Smashing Pumpkins, Pixies and Radiohead stuff. At this sophomore stage, we were a 3-piece with Dylan singing and playing bass, Ben playing guitar and myself on Drums. After we graduated, we knew we needed to start doing gigs, so we got my brother Declan to join in on bass guitar and slowly started doing shows around Sydney. Our first gig was at one of the MCA GeNext events out in Parramatta, mfs from the Sydney scene know what’s up.

What's your songwriting process like? Is it a collaborative effort or is there one main songwriter?

(Civic Video) - Zac will come up with the chords and lyrics of a track, often sending a bunch of videos or voice memos to the group to see what we think.Then when we rehearse and try out the track, the rest of us will come up with our own parts for the song. Sometimes we really vibe with the song and it could be added to the setlist straight away, and others we never touch again. It's a beautiful process.

(Supahoney) - Dylan and Ben do most of the song writing, regularly holding writing sessions at Dylan’s home studio in Peakhurst, 2210 represent. However, the two often write songs individually, and bring them into full band sessions to workshop and build upon. Declan puts forth the occasional fleshed out demo and I contribute ideas more than full demos; melodic runs played on piano or rhythmic ideas played spasmodically on whatever surface I can bang my remarkably well proportioned hands on. We all contribute to lyrics once most of the instrumentation and song structure has been laid out. Although, our best song writing is always when we get together and, I say this unabashedly without any reticence, Jam.

Do you have a favourite song to perform or that you’ve put out?

(Civic Video) - It’d have to be the new tune we wacked out recently called ‘If I Could Make You Dance’. It’s a pretty upbeat number, gets the people moving n dancing n singing n throwing shit, exactly what we want from releasing music so it’d have to be that one.

(Supahoney) - I think we all love playing Zygoat, especially that really fucked loud part near the end and getting off on the reaction of the crowd losing 10 decibels of hearing. Yeah, that really does it for us. Otherwise, Supahoney (the song from our first EP) has always been a funny meme sorta song for us that we always muck around with live. Speeding it up heaps for no benefit, changing the instrumentation to a more devolved version for our own amusement or simply while playing it, to gaze at each other with a sense of self-masturbatorial achievement for writing such a kitsch song.

What's the most memorable concert experience you’ve had, whether as performers or audience members?

(Civic Video) - We’ve had a couple good ones up and down the coast in Bellingen,  Lennox Head and Wollongong, mainly cuz we expected no one to be there and we ended up getting pretty good turnouts. Our most recent gig at the Vic was pretty special, the first time we’ve had proper sing alongs to our tracks from the crowd which warmed our little hearts and made us feel very special. Also got a full case from Lennox Hotel as the rider, that’s pretty special, def one to tell the grandkids about... truly extraordinary stuff.

(Supahoney) - As performers, I think we all remember the performance we did for a Battle of the Bands for an Australia Day event 2018. We get on stage and Dylan yells out ‘Happy Invasion Day!’ to a crowd of about two or three thousand, mostly just families and regular people trying to enjoy their national holiday without the likes of a Dylan, who at the time was growing his hair out and only wearing Che Geuvara shirts at gigs, placing unsolicited nationalist guilt on them as they attempt to enjoy their chip on a stick whilst keeping and eye on little Lincoln and Larissa who were cart wheeling a little too close to the stage. It didn’t go down well. Unsympathetic bubbles floated silently through the air in front of the open air stage, we began our first song with no bass, Declan's shit wasn't working. To stall the situation a little, giving Dec time to sort it out, Dylan yells “Anyone else got ass-sweat right now? I know my Dad does, he’s right there!” Points at Harry, band Dad and #1 Supahoney stan. Someone yells “Get off the stage!”. The sound guy goes “What the fuck did you do mate?” to Declan as he finally gets it working, and we play our song and leave. Dylan put up a post of it the following week, which I promptly deleted. As audience members, I think some of those early gigs we went to fresh out of high school stuck with us, seeing bands like Egoism, Shady Nasty, Johnny Hunter and The Lazy Eyes, all of whom we would consider friends and contemporaries now.

What can fans expect from your live show on August 26th?

(Civic Video) - WHY DON'T YA COME AND FIND OUT EH? - nah should be fun, good amped up indie rock, Hamish our drummer will take his pants off if there’s enough people there so if you don’t care about music come for that.

(Supahoney) - Fans can expect some material from our first album, so we’re talking your Zygoats, your Timothies and your Kumails, you get the jist. We’ll be serving up some new stuff from the highly anticipated 2nd Album, it’s wild, it's wacky, it says something, “Blaguard!” a made up obscenity! It screams, hit the deck and breakdance, it says “shut the fuck up and listen muthafucka!” So yeah we got some new stuff that we’re eager to showcase. We’ve all just come back from some time off, Declan and myself were in Ireland and Ben was in Morocco. Dylan schlepped a large sack of contraband around the streets of Balmain for a month while we were away, touting himself as a merchant of fine goods, he made enough money for us to go record in a nice studio (Rancom Street Studios) for the final touches of Album 2. 

How can fans best support you in the run-up to the show on August 26th and beyond?

(Civic Video) - Buy a fkn ticket, tell all ya friends to come, buy some and merch come to all our other shows yew!

(Supahoney) - Fans can support us by liking and commenting on things we post, and legit just buying tickets to the show. Saturday Aug 26 at The Lady Hampshire, link bio you know the drill baby. Stay engaged, trust the process, and believe in Supahoney. Also, if anyone knows a booking agent, please put us in touch at supahoneymusic@gmail.com or supahoney.com.au.

Any final words or messages you want to convey to fans and potential concertgoers about the upcoming show?

(Civic Video) - This ain’t one to miss I tell y’a that much. Get a babysitter and wear your worst pair of socks cuz they’re being blown off whether you like it or not.

(Supahoney) - Come to the gig! It's gonna be mad. Thanks for booking us for this one High Tropics :)

High Tropics head to The Lady Hampshire (Sydney) on August 26 to celebrate the launch of ‘Vodka Soda’, along with Civic Video, and Supahoney. Tickets available here.

‘Vodka Soda’ is streaming now via all digital platforms.