TheMOXIE

The Evelyn is the perfect setting for a relaxed evening. With its comfy sofas and dangling chandeliers oozing a certain je ne sais quoi, it is hard not to just want to sit back and enjoy.

With the Evelyn starting to feel crowded, a sudden flock of girls rush forward as The Moxie take to the stage. Clearly unaware of their appeal to the opposite sex, they launch straight into their set, which is met by piercing screams at every turn.

Tom Snowdon is easily one of the most compelling frontmen out there. With a vocal that fuses Morrissey, Jeff Buckley, Antony Hegarty and Alison Moyet, he stands static but effortlessly commands attention. Supported by Brent Monaghan, Bill Guerin and Jack Talbot, The Moxie mix The Pixies with The Smiths and come up trumps with every track. An onstage nonchalance defines the troupe and they make for an effortlessly charming live experience. With new material superseding their earlier works, The Moxie have the audience eating out of their hands and the close of their encore is met with screams for more.
- Inpress (pp 38)

Having built up a solid fan base in the Northern Territories, Jack Talbot and his friends found they had reached a point in the musical journey that required a change.

“We’ve been in Melbourne for two years, but we were playing music, Tom (Snowdon), Bill (Guerin) and I, before we came here. We have been playing as The Moxie for about 6 years.” Though they were big fish in a small pond, the band, who to date have only thrilled on the live circuit but not put their sound to record, decided that in order to achieve the musical success they so desired they would have to make a big change. However, in making their big location changing decision, they realised that the move would cost them their guitarist Declan Furber Gillick. Talbot explains, “he didn’t follow us to Melbourne, so we went on a hunt and found Brent (Monaghan), who is originally from Bendigo.”

Though their move was instrumental in the continued journey of The Moxie, the timing coincided with prospects the trio had lined up. “First and foremost, Tom, Bill and I wanted to continue pursuing music and we wanted to try our luck outside of the Northern Territory. We thought Melbourne was a pretty good place to start…Tom and I have been at uni for the past two years and Bill has continued his apprenticeship. So there were other reasons we came, but primarily it was to pursue a career in music.”

In making their big move, the band soon realised that a new location meant upping the gears. By adding Monaghan into the fold, they gained that the new dynamic that was perfect to further explore the sound they so craved. Snowdon explains, “It was a really big direction change in sound…A bit more thoughtful, considered and darker than we were doing before. We came here on the premise of writing that kind of music and thinking in those kind of terms.”

With the quartet currently focused on committing their sound to record, they are insistent that there is no point in rushing a release. While they are more than proud of their most recent writings, they veer towards the self-deprecating as opposed to the self-praising. “The music that we have written is a lot more vocally and melody orientated, more so than a lot of the guitar orientated rock we were writing before. Brent has had a lot to do with that, he produced a real sort of shoe-gaze element to it all. We are on the way to finding our sound in that area, but we aren’t there. It is dark, ambient indie.”

Though the move was provoked by the old cliché ‘small town, big dreams’, The Moxie soon found that suddenly being surrounded by lots of bigger fish was far from off-putting. Instead, they simply their channeled their energies to ensure that they could compete. “Being immersed in Melbourne is a massive thing. We moved here and are living on our own, being grownups and paying our own rent, buying our own food. It was a big jump in the deep end. That changed spurred us on in wanting to create something a little more special than we could have done in Alice Springs…Coming to Melbourne there are so many bands and you have to distinguish yourselves by offering something a bit different. We really pushed ourselves to write songs that are a bit different and a bit special.” - Laneway Magazine Melbourne