Hands Like Houses are a band from Canberra, Australia. They have already done countless tours and released two albums, are signed to Rise Records, a label known for giving a strong foundation for many bands of a certain genre, and it all started when the members met in school “Most of the boys went to high school together in Canberra – Trenton and Al joined what was then the band via playing together in the local music scene. Was the good ol’ MySpace days and we all ended up in each other’s Top 8s for the most part haha!”. The interesting name stems from a movie called ‘The Science of Sleep’ by Michael Gondry, where there’s a “character discussing having giant hands, a recurring nightmare in Gondry’s childhood. Interestingly the Foo Fighters clip for Everlong was directed by Gondry, hence the giant hands in that film clip! Coming back to the band name – it just felt right for the direction we wanted to take musically and it stuck.”
With an interesting name comes an interesting sound, one which is hard to exactly place into a genre, with elements of post-hardcore and alternative rock among others, and the band say that it doesn’t really matter what their genre is, they don’t set out to fit in to any specific category, “We’re a rock band, post-everything… alternative, we don’t know. It never really bothered us. We just play what feels right. It’s loud and it’s heavy but it’s personal and easy to sing along to, at least that’s our goal with our writing!”
Furthermore, with their diverse sound, they say that they continue to grow, and with a busy couple years behind them – releasing two albums and an EP between 2012 and 2013 – their inspiration comes from everywhere. “Our focus has just been putting ourselves in a position to make and take every opportunity we can. While ‘Ground Dweller’ only came out in 2012, we’d actually written and recorded most of it in 2011 so while it feels like a dense period of output we actually had a lot of time to grow and mature personally which obviously affected the sound and soul of ‘Unimagine’. We don’t think it was change, it was growth, taking on everything we learned and using it as fuel. And we hope the same progression continues into our next album.”
Having so much released in such a short amount of time it seems that the band don’t have any problem making new material, and in such a restricted time period, where does the inspiration come from? “Honestly anything and everything inspiring. Books, movies, other music, playing songs live, personal struggles, beautiful things we’ve experienced. We try to always have our eyes and ears open so that there isn’t so much an issue of ‘time to be inspired’ but just a case of being always open to inspiration and always ready to write it down for later.”
In so many ways Australia seems to be worlds apart from everything we know, however over the recent years we have seen more and more bands make it over this side of the world, from bands like Parkway Drive, Tonight Alive, to bands who are in the middle of achieving more mainstream success like 5 Seconds Of Summer. However, it might not be as bustling of a scene as it appears from the outside, although there is talent there that deserves to be recognised, “Truthfully Australia’s music scene isn’t huge. We have exceptional talent but not always the fan support to make those bands successful. It’s kind of strange, but we feel like the bands that work hard and work smart are the bands that succeed and usually those bands are the bands with quality music that gets noticed overseas. We’re pretty fond of a few Aussie bands who could take on the world if things fall the rightway – Drawing North, Faraway Stables, Safe Hands, Atlantis Awaits, Young Lions, and a bunch of others in a hundred different genres.”
Hands Like Houses are about to make their third appearance in Dublin, their first headline show. They have previously played with Pierce The Veil and Sleeping With Sirens here and they have enjoyed the Irish crowd “Ireland was fantastic, Dublin especially! We’d already played the Academy with Pierce the Veil a few months prior [to playing with Sleeping With Sirens] and had such a great time on both tours that when we received the initial tour route for this headliner (that didn’t include Dublin or Belfast) we actually requested Ireland dates be added if possible! Thankfully local promoters believed in us enough to take on the shows and we’re stoked to be able to get out there again.” . The band seem to have barely stopped touring and they seem to be having lots of fun doing it, however the extensive touring doesn’t mean that the band are delighted to get away from each other: “when we’re together we enjoy playing games, whether it’s card games, board games, FIFA, handball (aka foursquare, not sure if it’s an Australian thing but it’s typically a schoolyard game with a tennis ball) or just hanging at a pub with friends. Off tour we tend to disappear into ourown lives for the first week or so, spending time relaxing and catching up with our fiancées, friends and family, but usually before long we end up all back together hanging out again anyway. I think we’d be lost without eachother sometimes!”
As the band seem to take their live shows seriously there is one song that stands out for them when they perform, “Definitely ‘Introduced Species’! It’s bouncy and high energy with plenty of opportunities for the crowd to get involved singing, dancing or just nodding their head. But ‘Wisteria’ and ‘No Parallels’ have been crowd favourites lately as well, and thoroughly enjoying them being part of the set.”. When they are on tour, they have a “pre-show psych-up playlist” which includes: “Tonight Alive’s ‘Lonely Girl’, Don Broco’s ‘You Wanna Know’, Deaf Havana’s ‘Boston Square’ & Last Dinosaurs’ ‘Zoom’.”
Hands Like Houses will be appearing at The Academy 2 tomorrow May the 2nd, with support from Tonight We Live.