The Smith Street Band
Short Interview
Originally named after the street in Melbourne, Australia separating Fitzroy from Collingwood, The Smith Street Band is a contemporary punk band that, in their own voice, captures and recombines all the positive aspects of Bruce Springsteen and The Replacements. They are Will Wagner on vocals/guitar, Chris Cowburn on drums/vocals, Lee Hartney on guitar/vocals, and Fitzy Fitzgerald on bass. They have released three LPs: No One Gets Lost Anymore (2011), Sunshine and Technology, and Throw Me in the River (2013); two EPs: South East Facing Wall (2010) and Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams (2013); and two 7-inch-singles: Wipe That Shit-Eating Grin Off Your Punchable Face (2015) and I Scare Myself Sometimes (2015).
To add more about their band name, frontman Wil Wagner says that the actual Smith Street in Melbourne has changed significantly since he was nineteen-years-old. For example, he says in an interview with V Music:
When we first started, I was living above a pub on Smith Street and I was about 19 years old, so it was an incredible party time. It’s in Fitzroy, in Melbourne, which is a hip, cool place with a million venues . So, it was a formative time and it was a place that did mean a lot to me. But, I don’t know… I don’t know about it now. You can see it being gentrified and all the venues are closing down and replaced by weird shops with one chair in them and a really good looking girl behind the counter that doesn’t seem to actually sell anything. Just strange shit like that (1).
Furthermore, The Smith Street Band has gained an international audience since their inception. For instance, in an interview in Germany with Sound Infection, Wagner says:
I love Germany, man. From everywhere we’ve been in Europe, Germany’s my favorite. People are so nice. Venues feed you, get you drunk, give you a place to sleep, and it’s the best country in the world for me to play. I really mean that. I didn’t just say that yesterday in Switzerland. I really mean that. Like this tour is thirty-something shows and on this tour eleven of them are in Germany. It’s just… it seems like a very kind place…. People are just happy that you come, I think… But the best thing is when people come up and say with German accents, ‘Oh, I love this line!’ It’s great — it’s awesome! Yeah, it is quite interesting that people who don’t speak the language connect to it… And I think people connect with… if not know exactly what I’m saying, they can tell that I mean it, I guess. And I think people connect with that… with the passion and the energy (Wagner).
Wagner is right — their songs inspired by suburban Australia are very relatable. Their band’s career arc from growing out of the suburbs to touring the world, in fact, follows their lines from “My Little Sinking Ship” that go:
You’re my little sinking ship, not quite built to hold such weight
We were raised for the suburbs but we took to the waves
And you carry me around, from little town to little town
Never knowing how much I need
Never asking a thing of me
Wagner has also expressed the importance of the place where one comes from before, saying:
I grew up in Boxhill in Melbourne, which is about 40 minutes, half an hour out of the city. It’s about as “suburban” a suburb — if that phrase makes any sense — as you can get. But yeah, I had a great childhood. My parents are both creative people — they write books and work in the publishing industry. It was really good to grow up in a house full of books and full of music. I was a pretty happy kid — a bit miserable in high school as everyone is. But I think, at this age now where I’ve done that , “Gotta get as far away from where I grew up as possible,” and done that pointless, yet fun, rebellious thing, it’s nice to go back to where I grew up and hang out at my parents’ house and have all these kind of nostalgic memories. I think that’s really important — it’s really important to remember where you’re from (1).
But, moreover, The Smith Street Band are a sincere and lyric-driven act that bring a visceral vitality back to the classic sit-down-at-a-typewriter-and-let-open-a-vein storytelling that is characteristic of past bands, such as The Replacements or, more recently, Jeff Rosenstock and Frank Turner, among others. But their squishy-heart-holding anthems also deliver that positive propulsion of punk, persuading listeners to gnash their teeth and pull themselves up off the ground for one more go-around at life’s day-to-day battle. Their popular song “Surrender,” for example, fiercely belts its dogged chorus:
But you don’t have to surrender,
If you don’t
You don’t have to surrender,
If you don’t
You don’t have to surrender,
If you don’t want to
and emphasizes how youthful exuberance for life is worth maintaining, singing:
We should be climbing chain-link fences with backpacks, nowhere to go.
They are bent on keeping chins-up, looking forward. It’s the spirit of punk — music for anyone that feels beleaguered. And Wagner, too, notes that this is directly related to his desire to maintain level mental health, explaining,
I use [songwriting] as a form of therapy, I guess… I have quite bad depression and anxiety and these kind of things, so, for me, I write a song everyday, and that keeps me sane and keeps me level. And a lot of the time I don’t know how I’m feeling about something and I write a song about it, and I’m like “Oh that’s how I felt about that… I was really pissed off about that, I didn’t even know.” But I think it’s very therapeutic, and it’s very… You know, when you write something and play it the next and think, “Oh, that’s not horrible” it’s just… the most beautiful feeling in the world, so I try to write lots of things. I write rap songs, I write weird hardcore songs… I just like writing (Wagner).
And, Wagner notes lots of influences, too — from artists like Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, and Bob Dylan to hip-hop artists like Sage Francis, Aesop Rock, and Astronautalis, saying that hip-hop
is like new folk. It’s like that traditional… long songs, storytelling, not-so-much-about-music-just-about-what-you’re-saying and, yeah, I connect with that a lot (Wagner).
The Smith Street Band, too, is concerned with public issues as well as their most recent break-ups. For instance, they released a single last year called “Wipe That Shit-Eating Grin Off Your Punchable Face” featuring cover-art of a painting by Shaun Thatcher of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. The Smith Street Band described what their intentions were with the song through a statement they wrote on their Facebook page, accompanying the track, explaining that it is:
about something we’re fiercely concerned with — Our government’s dehumanising stance on refugees and the empty promises of our current government in general” and that “to further assist the already amazing efforts by those who put together the Australia Day shows in Melbourne, we’ll be donating the majority of the proceeds from this record to assist various asylum seeker and refugee organisations throughout Australia.
In addition, their lyrics express their frustration and disagreement with Abbott’s policies, singing:
It is not enough to be quiet on the train back home
A change is gonna come, our country’s mind can’t stay this closed…So wipe that shit-eating grin off your punchable face
these people are human beings that you’ll destroy and displace
when you sit in Kirribilli House and there’s no one else around do you know just to keep your job you’re putting bodies in the ground
drowning refugees at sea, kiss babies screaming vote for me
I’ll take you to the future via the 1950s
Excitingly enough, too, frontman Wil Wagner was generous enough to answer nine short-interview questions of my own after I reached out via E-mail:
1) When did you form SSB? Why did you name the band SSB? Where were you expecting it to go when you formed it?
We started the band about 6 years ago as an extension of my solo stuff! We were originally called Wil Wagner and the Smith Street Band as an homage to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band but dropped my name from the front because it was always very collaborative. I basically just wanted to play my solo songs loud with a band and it’s all grown naturally from there.
2) What do you consider your influences? What are some of your favorite bands and/or albums? Books? Movies?
Musically, I’m influenced by anything that is lyric driven, I was first inspired by Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg and Paul Kelly but have since grown to love all music that is telling a story, especially hip-hop artists like Kendrick Lamar and Aesop Rock. I love reading, and my favourite authors are Raymond Carver, Haruki Murakami and Steve Toltz.
3) What is your favorite thing about touring? What is your least favorite thing about touring? What is one of the best experiences you’ve had playing a show? Explain.
Being able to spend so much time out seeing the world is a constant source of excitement and inspiration butt spending so much time away from home can get very difficult at times. Going on tour through China or Eastern Europe or anywhere bands don’t traditionally play is always an incredible experience.
4) What was the primary inspiration behind the album Throw Me in the River?
A shitty break up and becoming a full time touring musician.
5) Are you optimistic for the future of music, especially with the influx of technology, the Internet, and file-sharing?
I think it separates the wheat from the chaff and means that more and more people are getting into music because they have something they really want to do or say. If you make good music and you tour hard it is so much easier for people to find you now and that can only be a good thing.
6) What are you working on now? What is the inspiration behind this current project/album?
Writing our next album which we’ll record in a few months and working on some other musical and non musical projects with friends at home. I’m always inspired by my own dramatic life!
7) What is the album you’ve made that you’re most proud of? What seems to be fans’ favorite of your albums?
I think Throw Me In The River for both but maybe that’s just because it’s the newest one.
8) Are there any contemporary artists that you really like? For instance, bands that sound similar to you? Label-mates?
Hard Girls, Jeff Rosenstock, Hop Along, PUP, The Courtneys, Camp Cope, AJJ, Elvis Depressedly, Martha, Diners
9) If you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring musician/artist today, what would it be?
Write, rehearse and play as much as you possibly can, go to shows and talk to people, show up on time and, most importantly, be nice!
If you liked the article, then hit the ❤ button below, and, if you cannot you get enough of the Smith Street Band, you can you learn more and support them by following the links below:
You can visit their website for tour dates and to buy music and merch here.
You can follow them on Twitter here.
You can like them on Facebook here.
You can follow them on Instagram here.
You can listen to them on Bandcamp here.
You can subscribe to them on YouTube here.
Sources:
Wagner, Wil. Interview by Nathan Wood. VMusic.com. V Music. Web. 25 Mar 2016.
