Tired Lion

After a year of slogging it out on multiple tours around the country, Perth’s Tired Lion are now beginning to reap the benefits of their hard work. Selected as winners of a slot on the Splendour In The Grass lineup from all of the acts competing in Triple’s J’s Unearthed competition. The timing couldn’t have been more opportune for the band, as their second EP Figurine releases this month.

“I don’t think we ever really thought this was going to happen, we had already booked our tour around the Splendour dates so we never really thought we were going to get chosen to play” said drummer Ethan Darnell. Despite not expecting it, Ethan said the band is “super happy and really looking forward” to the festival particularly because they are “just a local Perth band” who now have the opportunity to showcase their talents alongside the likes of Mark Ronson, Blur and Florence + The Machine.

The lead-up to arriving at this moment has been a bit of a whirlwind ride for the band, particularly in 2015 which has included three tours around the country and now the release of their second EP. “[The tours this year] have been really fun and positive…we’ve found the little things we need to do to get through the days and we’re really comfortable with each other now,” said Ethan.

Amid their stacked tour schedule the group has been hard at work putting the finishing touches onto the follow up EP to their successful debut release. This time around it’s has been a much longer more methodical, thought out process for the group as they make sure each individual track is “perfect before moving on to the next”. Given this new mentality Figurine has essentially been in production for over twelve months from initial recording sessions up until its release now, which Ethan believes means this record is “a different representation to our first EP, which we out-grew very fast in terms of a maturity in the songwriting, and is more so what we tried to achieve with the first EP but couldn’t because we lacked the experience.”

Looking ahead at the upcoming shows Ethan says laughingly: “We’re not going to be anything like the KISS tour with fireworks or anything, but we’ll play our best and hopefully get a good vibe going.”

Following the tour Ethan is “excited to get cracking on” more writing and hopefully achieving their next milestone of an album.

Jul 22. Goodgod Small Club, 55 Liverpool St, Chinatown. $10+b.f, Tickets & Info: goodgodgoodgod.com