As Boo Seeka (Sydney) announce more regional shows, they reflect on their tour of America and playing SXSW

Currently touring the country in support of their new single “Does This Last”, and fresh from shows in the USA, we caught up with Sydney duo Boo Seeka. The pair have just added a slew of regional dates to their current tour, which will see them on the road until the end of June. In the interview, we talk about the upcoming shows, their experiences in the USA and at the SXSW festival in Texas. Read on:

How does it feel after getting back from the USA? You jumped straight back into shows, you didn’t seem to take much time to rest!

Ben: We don’t really know of anything different really. We’ve been doing that since this thing started. It’s just been, get on a plane, go, land, and start the next tour.

Sam: It’s epic. We’ve gotten used to it now. Put the feet on the ground and keep running.

Now that you’ve had a couple of weeks to look back at your time in America, and at SXSW, how are you reflecting on that tour and that experience?

Sam: It was pretty awesome. Funny you ask that though, because we actually filmed a lot of what we were doing, just Ben and I on our phones, over the course of the five weeks. It actually worked well with the latest song we put out, so we’re going to make it the video clip for it. So we’ve been watching all of that footage back, and we just went, “Holy shit, we actually did so much more than we thought.” We saw so much of the country, and did all these things and met all these people. We had all these amazing experiences. It’s really cool looking back on those kind of trips.

And SXSW itself was just so awesome, it’s just a week long party and you get to meet lots of people, fun shows, good environment, see lots of great bands. I’ve got heaps of new music just from listening to bands while I was there.

Who did you discover there?

Sam: Yeah one dude, Ron Gallo, just epic, indie punk, doesn’t give a fuck kind of music. The guy looks like a young Shia LaBeouf, innocent as a flea but real ballsy.

And you mentioned as well that you did all these things you can barely remember doing. Does it kind of become that blur whenever you’re touring?

Ben: Yeah it definitely does. it makes me think now, I wish we filmed everything we did, everywhere in the world. We’d have the most epic movie to show, just for our own personal reasons to look back on after all this. Because you do so much, it’s all go go go. We’re playing and then driving an RV around and sleeping in that. We’d spend 6 hours a day driving. And over the course of a month you’re covering a lot of ground. Seeing a lot of places. And you’re only in these places for such a short amount of time that you can’t really take it all in.

Were there particular favourite spots (if you can remember!) you’d like to get back to?

Sam: We love the west coast, we never get to spend enough time there. And we really havent had enough time to look outside of the venues. But even just chilling out around the blocks around the venues, it’s so cool and such a good vibe. But we also felt like that in Manhattan, New York… just the culture, it just oozes coolness really. It’s amazing.

Now you’re back, you’ve got these shows around the country, it’s a pretty epic run…

Sam: Yeah, and we’ve just extended the tour by about 20 dates. We’re going to hit a heap of rural areas though June. It’s just good to be back man. Probably for us, one of the biggest milestones is that the Corner Hotel was the first show we ever played, supporting Kim Churchill, and to now be a point where we’re going back and selling out two shows ourselves, two years later, it’s pretty ridiculous really. It’s cool to keep going back to some of these venues that we played with Sticky Fingers, SAFIA and Kim… to be selling them out ourselves, is pretty awesome.

One distinct about SXSW is just how little time you get to set up on stage. Those incredibly quick changeovers. Do you take away from that a new appreciation of the luxury of the set up time for a normal show?

Sam: Massively. You come back and don’t know what to do with yourselves with two hours to do a sound check!

Ben: It’s part of the rush though I reckon!

Not always a good rush, but a rush none the less.

Ben: I think you’ve always got to embrace that shit. Like what’s the point… we saw some bands carrying on and what not, and we all want good sound, at every show, let alone at SXSW. But I think if you stress out about that shit, it makes your short performance pretty stale. Probably 3 out of the 4 shows we did had pretty average sound, the Aussie BBQ was probably the best one. But are we sitting around kicking ourselves? No, not really. You’ve got to play to it. And the crowd and the industry accept it. And that’s about as punk rock as me and Sam get with that kind of stuff. Whatever happens, happens.

Well that’s indeed the only way to do it. It’s the best way to sort out the professionals from the…

Ben: Prima donnas…

Yes! And people remember that. They remember when you were standing on stage and complaining. They don’t remember though if the sound was bad, if you pushed on and gave it a go. So you’ve won half the battle already.

Ben: Well that’s good. We’ll keep trying for the other half then. One day.

*Laughs* That’s right. Though from what I saw you don’t need to worry about that. So now that you’ve experienced that, what advice would you have for the next group of Aussies going over to this event, and others like it?

Ben: I thought I had a pretty good idea of what SXSW was going to be about, talking to a lot of people who had done it. It was the complete utter fucking opposite to be honest. We went there thinking we’d do the shows, eat really healthy and go to bed, and then do the really professional stuff… but that turned into meeting a bunch of cool people and going out until 6am every day. So you have to go in with the acceptance to embrace SXSW, really.

Yeah I have to agree. You just have to roll with it. And you never know, those people who meet at a bar at 3am might be the people you work with one day. While no work gets done at SXSW per say, it’s amazing how many conversations get started…

Ben: Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Do you feel that a tour of the US helps improve you as live performers?

Sam: Yeah I think we are. It’s something that we’ve put a lot of effort into, trying to give people the best live experience that we can. It’s always been within our means. But as things keep growing for the band and keep getting bigger, our means do as well. So we only feel it’s far to give a better show every time. So we just did our Sydney show, and from a punter’s perspective it was probably the best show we’d ever played. So I’m hoping the rest of the tour is like this, and that every tour from here on out just gets better and better.

Will you be going back over to the US anytime soon?

Ben: Yeah, we love it there, we’re going to try to get over there as much as we can. There’s a bit of talk that we might get back before the end of the year, so let’s hope that happens.

Boo Seeka “Does This Last” Tour Dates:

APR 14 | MELBOURNE, VIC | CORNER HOTEL – SOLD OUT
APR 17 | BRISBANE, QLD | WOOLLY MAMMOTH – TIX
APR 22 | HUNTER VALLEY, NSW | THE GUM BALL 2017 – TIX
MAY 05 | PERTH, WA | JACK RABBIT SLIMS – TIX
MAY 06 | BUNBURY, WA | THE PRINCE – TIX
MAY 07 | DUNSBOROUGH, WA | CLANCY’S – TIX
MAY 12 | ADELAIDE, SA | FAT CONTROLLER – TIX
MAY 13 | MILDURA, VIC | THE SANDBAR – TIX
MAY 20 | DARWIN, NT | BASS IN THE GRASS 2017 – TIX
MAY 27 | SUNSHINE COAST, QLD | THE BIG PINEAPPLE – TIX

NEW REGIONAL SHOWS ADDED:

MAY 28 | GOLD COAST, QLD | MIAMI MARKETTA | TIX
JUN 02 | TAMWORTH, NSW | FAMILY HOTEL | TIX
JUN 03 | COFF HARBOUR, NSW | COFFS HOTEL | TIX
JUN 04 | PORT MACQUARIE, NSW | PANTHERS BASEMENT | TIX
JUN 08 | ALBURY, NSW | KINROSS HOTEL | TIX
JUN 09 | DUBBO, NSW | GARDEN HOTEL | TIX
JUN 10 | GRIFFITH, NSW | AREA HOTEL | TIX
JUN 11 | WAGGA WAGGA, NSW | RAMANO’S | TIX
JUN 16 | MILTON, NSW | COMMERCIAL HOTEL | TIX
JUN 22 | RYE, VIC | BAHA | TIX
JUN 23 | GEELONG, VIC | UNO BALLROOM | TIX
JUN 24 | BALLARAT, VIC | KAROVA LOUNGE | TIX
JUN 25 | BELGRAVE, VIC | SOOKI LOUNGE | TIX

For more details on the tour, and to find out more about he band, head to Boo Seeka’s official website.

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Larry Heath

Founding Editor and Publisher of the AU review. Currently based in Toronto, Canada. You can follow him on Twitter @larry_heath or on Instagram @larryheath.