Kingswood

According to Kingswood frontman Fergus Linacre the key to happiness for an artist in any medium is that they have the ability to express themselves freely from the heart and soul. This line of thinking was crucial for the band during the creation of their latest record After Hours, Close To Dawn.

Whilst Fergus believes the signs of experimentation were there to see in their debut album Microscopic Wars, he can admit that they were fully aware this album was going further down that route rather early on.

“It just started happening and then people started telling us that this was a really weird and different album to what people were going to expect. Yes we were well aware of that fact but it didn’t stop us, if anything it sort of spurred us on to make things a weird as possible.” he explained.

Very early on in the process Fergus said the band did have a “very small discussion” regarding whether this was the right move to make but quickly decided to push ahead.

“We often have similar discussions when we’re doing the instrumentation for a song, particularly in regards to how the four of us going to perform the songs in a live setting. We tend to have this thing where we say we’ll figure that out later lets just make the best thing possible.”

Figure it out later they did, so much so their live show now features nine people on stage.

“We needed a soprano and tenor so we put a callout on our Facebook expecting to get five audition videos but we had nearly 200 so that was amazing.” recalled Fergus, “We’ve now added a couple of horn players, a fifth musician and a bassists. It’s so much fun with nine people up there, it’s just a big party now.”

Looking ahead the core members of Kingswood have all begun working on music for the next record. “At the moment Alex is in Nashville, Justin is in Spain and I’m in Melbourne with the studio all to myself working towards a new record potentially next year because we don’t want to leave such a big gap between the albums like we had previously.”

Before then though the band are set to return to Sydney which Fergus explained is a great privilege having performed at The Metro earlier this year. He did sheepishly say though, “I’m hoping that I don’t drink so much and actually remember this one.”

Oct 27. The Metro, 624 George St, Sydney. $42.50+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.metrotheatre.com.au