Children Collide

The story of Children Collide’s debut EP, We three, brave and true, is a classic in the
making. On spec, the band sent a CD-R version of it to legendary Australian You Am I
skinsman and boutique distribution service Reverberation mainman Russell Hopkinson.
Accompanying it was a letter penned on the reverse side of an unemployment benefits
application form simply stating who they were, where they were from, and that this was their
debut EP.
Before the band knew what was happening, they were releasing their first EP and touring the
nation to increasingly rapturous response. Now, with the band ready to take on the world, it
seems as if they’ve got to the point in time where they’re creating chaos at every turn, almost
inciting a riot at a recent show in their home base of Melbourne.
“Someone let off mace or capsicum spray in the gig,” outlines vocalist/guitarist Johnny.
“Everyone was suddenly pouring out of the venue coughing and spluttering, with their eyes
watering. Later on someone said it was a gas leak.”
Either that or the many over-excitable fans of the band simply had too much of a good thing,
and the riot police had to break the gig up. “It was pretty weird,” he laughs.
The first EP was about Children Collide doing it themselves – it was never their intention for
it to gain the attention that has been lavished upon it. It’s amounted to a great deal of interest
being cast towards the band from labels, management teams, lawyers and the whole kit and
caboodle that comes when a band has a batch of killer tunes in their arsenal.
Of course, at this stage Children Collide are incredibly raw. There’s caterwauling guitars
here, flexible bass there, and one-two step drumming too. But what’s most exciting is what
lurks beneath the noise – there are some absolutely brilliant songs at play on We three, brave
and true, with the likes of “In the clouds” getting the EP off to a hooky start, while “Look
good on paper” scrounges around with scuzzy guitar work.
But it’s when drummer Steph adds backing harmonies to Johnny’s raspy howl on “Frozen
armies” that Children Collide really make their music leap out of the speakers. In six tracks
and a tick over seventeen minutes, Children Collide announced themselves as major players
in the Australian and international music scene for 2006 and beyond.
“When we originally started jamming we started communicating,” Johnny outlines, “and
[bass player] Heath always talks about it being a triangle, and this constant sharing of ideas
between three peoples and bouncing off of sounds and influences.”
“Amphibious” not only contains the catchiest chorus of all the songs on their debut EP,
finding Children Collide using stop-start rhythmic patterns to great effect, but also contains
the strangest of all influences – Sir David Attenborough’s Life on Earth. It’s something that
crops up regularly, with Johnny’s influences not necessarily being ‘normal’. “I was reading a
book about societies the other day, a story about how the Vikings colonised Greenland and
then essentially wiped themselves out after about 400 years, and that for some reason got in
my head as an idea for a song. But it came out through hearing Boney M – it came into my
head as music and I started putting guitar to it and I’ve written the song now. It's good to keep
your writing grounded and not so self-centred,” he explains.
This is what’s most exciting about Children Collide – unlike a lot of groups these days,
they’re not just aurally exciting but they also have that touch of something different to them,
both in terms of their sound and their influences. The excitement that they’re capable of
generating on stage is mirrored in the sound of their debut EP, and also the new material that
the three-piece are constantly developing and refining. From here, Children Collide can go
anywhere, and do anything. The power is theirs.