Festival of the Sun this year saw Sydney’s Gang of Youths top the bill at Port Macquarie, drawing in strong numbers for what was to be one of their first festival shows of the summer. After spending 2016 on the road with The Positions and the Let Me Be Clear EP, the boys have hit the studio hard in recent months working on their sophomore album.
Before the holidays creep up and the band hits both Lost Paradise and the Woodford Folk Festival for New Year’s shows, we sat down with bassist Max Dunn and drummer Donnie Borzestowski to see what tidbits we could snare when it comes to new GOY music and what’s coming up next for the boys.
“Things seem to be coming together pretty smoothly,” Donnie says of their new album.
“We have this freak in the band called Dave,” Max adds. “He’s the beautiful Samoan one. He’s written a bunch of new songs that are really cool. If The Positions looked inward, this is Davey looking outward and responding to how he feels about what it’s like to be a human being.”
Playing to some of their biggest crowds yet in 2016, the boys reflect on where The Positions and Let Me Be Clear has been able to take Gang of Youths over the last year.
“We did a bit of overseas stuff,” Max says. “…we’ve just making new music, man. It’s been a really productive year for us; it’s been a really shitty year for planet Earth, which I think will mean music has a really good year next year, in response to Donald Trump’s cabinet and Peter Dutton, people like that.”
“I think the goal is to do what we’re doing here, over there.” he says of future international tour plans. “I think that’s the way for a band like us; we’re not overly cool, we’re a bunch of bros who play music together, but our show is really important to us.”
“We’ll try and get it [Album Two] all sorted pretty early on into next year,” Donnie adds, looking ahead to 2017’s schedule. “Whilst we’re doing that, we’re heading overseas and doing a few shows in New York, then hopefully relocating to the UK and playing a bunch over there. Trying to play as much as possible really, overseas. With all this new stuff, it’s exciting.”
Check out the full interview below!
Gang of Youths play Lost Paradise and Woodford Folk festivals over the New Year, before returning to the Australian tour circuit in the January & February for the St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival.
Photo by Jess Gleeson.
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