Next Aussie band riding 5SOS wave
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Next big thing … Little Sea have been given the 5SOS seal of approval. Picture: Supplied
Source: Supplied
ONE Direction’s social media support for 5 Seconds Of Summer helped propel the pop rockers to global fame and now the Australian chartslayers are championing homegrown band Little Sea.
If the script plays out as it did for 5SOS, by this time next year Little Sea will be playing gigs in Europe and America, conducting dozens of interviews daily and spending their down time trapped in hotels by hordes of hysterical female fans. Good times.
So far reality is following this postmillennial plot for pop success.
Little Sea started posting covers on YouTube about 18 months ago and staging pop-up gigs to gauge how many views would translate to actual fans.
“We had only been a band for about three months when we went to Newcastle to do one at Foreshore Park and I saw all these girls there, wondering if they were there for us,” bassist Dylan Clark says.
“It was ridiculous; we hadn’t even released a song.”
Fandemonium … Little Sea scored one of the biggest crowds of their career at the Amplify festival. Picture: Supplied
Source: Supplied
Then they released their own composition Thank You, which is their most viewed clip and the record labels took notice. Everyone was looking for the next 5SOS by then and Clark, frontman Andy Butler, guitarist Oliver Kirby and drummer Leighton Cauchi eventually signed with Sony.
The buzz was building and the band sold out all three shows on their first east coast tour which kicked off the day before they released their debut EP, Wake the Sun.
Support slots with 5SOS on their national tours in the past year have kept them momentum rolling and won them international fans as evidenced by the constant Twitter pleas from young ladies in Europe and America for the band to tour abroad.
When 5SOS drummer Ashton Irwin tweeted a link to their new With You, Without You EP, it scored tens of thousands of favourites and forwards.
Good mates … 5 Seconds of Summer have been championing their friends Little Sea on social media. Picture: Tim Hunter.
Source: News Corp Australia
It may be early days for the young rockers but as 5SOS can attest, when your band blows up, it happens quickly.
“I feel like all eyes are on Australia with so many acts breaking here and then becoming overnight sensations elsewhere. The success of 5SOS and Iggy Azalea is helping younger Australian artists to get noticed,” Kirby says.
“Hopefully it is the perfect time for us.”
Some of my pals from home just released and EP, LISTEN with those beautiful ears❤️ http://t.co/dF8lpaUBkB @LittleSea pic.twitter.com/lmXce5YdN9
— Ashton Irwin (@Ashton5SOS) June 26, 2015
Their label biography refers to them several times as “songwriters” to make the point Little Sea aren’t just good-looking blokes who can play a tune.
No one wants them called a “boy band” despite the fact that moniker never did any harm to a group who found favour with millions of hormonal young girls.
Butler said the distinction is imperative if they want their pop shelf-life to extend beyond the adolescence of their fans.
“The fans are going to grow up, we are going to grow up and we want to take them with us. We want them to love us for the music,” he says.
More sold-out signs have been posted at venues for their EP launch tour which kicked off in Melbourne yesterday and, as Butler desires, the music is finding favour with fans with With You, Without You hovering around the iTunes top 10 since its release last Friday.
Current single Change For Love was co-written and produced by former Evermore frontman Jon Hume, a man with the Midas pop touch.
The band joke they are going to have to increase their budget for replacement drum sticks as it has become a thing for fans to break into their dressing rooms and souvenir Cauchi’s stash.
“Andy lost his favourite T-shirt and I keep losing all my sticks; they are about $ 30 a pair and I don’t mind throwing them out to fans at the gigs but you need to keep some so you can keep playing,” Cauchi says.
Like most of their pop peers, the members of Little Sea are permanently glued to their social media feeds.
When Clark says he was “talking” to fans on the morning of the EP release, it means he has been direct messaging them. Many of their most ardent fans have become friends, more than just a Twitter handle or familiar faces in the front row of a show.
All four members are tempted to check their phones several times during our chat, just a little concerned that on EP release day, time spent away from the fans could be misconstrued as a snub.
“The only time we are not doing anything for this band is when we sleep,” Butler says.
Cauchi, who will wake up a few times a night to check communications from fans in the northern hemisphere, jokes he needs the validation.
He stresses positivity is important when dealing with their legion of young admirers.
“It’s a very big no for us to have attitude, to be negative, to have a go at other bands,” he says.
HEAR: With You, Without You out now
SEE: Little Sea, Little and Olver, Melbourne, today; Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, July 8 and 9, The Old Museum, Brisbane, July 11, Astor Lounge, Fremantle, July 16 and Fowlders Live, Adelaide, July 17.
