The Neurotransmitters
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The Neurotransmitters

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"The Neuro's with Gersey"

The Neurotransmitters step up first with a repertoire full of swaying ballads infused with a country flavour. At times the vocals smack of Michael Stipe plaintiveness and the song structuring confirms these guys have been reared on thinking man's rock. - Time Off


"The Neuro's with The Panic's"

In his ardent, argyle-vested splendour, The Neurotransmitters’ main man is mixing it up with pick and fingers. The drummer holds it together with a slow and deliberate execution combined with agreeable harmony. A song about the lead singer’s girlfriend’s mother being burgled sounds promising, but it’s a strain to disentangle the lyrics. The last two songs are lively and the lads work up a beery thirst. - Time Off


"The Neuro's on Tour"

Transmission of honesty, integrity
NO BULL: The Neurotransmitters, at The Lucky Country Hotel on Saturday.
HONESTY is a virtue, especially in
songwriting, says The Neurotransmitters frontman Darryl Gray.
‘‘I hate listening to stuff that is just a put-on or a facade of someone trying to be cool, that’s
the last thing I want to do,’’ he said.
‘‘You need to make the listener trust you and to make sure you’re
not pulling their leg.’’
Drawing on bands like The Shins or The Decembrists for inspiration, Gray has used some home truths
from his disadvantaged upbringing in the Sydney suburb of Macquarie Fields in the band’s new self-titled
EP.
‘‘It sounds like us, which is all you can really hope for,’’ he said.
‘‘I like to think that I am a fairly honest songwriter and that part of
my life is a fairly chunky part, so I can’t really move forward without sort of touching on those bases.’’
Described as part of the thinking man’s school of rock, The
Neurotransmitters have supported The Panics and Gersey.
While Gray, guitarist Bart Lucas and drummer Aaron Millard now call
Queensland home, they’ll be heading south as part of a tour to convert as many as possible before
launching an album next year.
‘‘We recorded this EP and a full-length album at the same time, that’s why it’s taken [two years],’’ he said.
‘‘So this is like part one of a two-part series.’’
The Neurotransmitters will play at The Lucky Country Hotel on
Saturday. - The Newcastle Post


"The Neuro's in Canberra"

Darryl Gray is not afraid to bare his secrets to a complete stranger. The lead singer of Brisbane based The Neurotransmitters has an ulterior motive to releasing their self-titled EP - he's hoping they'll get rich and famous enough to justify the recording of a passion he's haboured deep for many years. "Yes, I admit it" Darryl croaks. "I have an obsession with doing puns on Beatles songs. My favourite is 'Ellen Or Rugby', where a guy has to choose between his wife and rugby. If I ever get the chnce, I'll do a whole album of them. Yes, I know it's daggy". Not as daggy as you may think. There's a Beatles pun on the EP and it's nowhere near as innocent as the original. Darryl explains, "my girlfriend helped me with the lyrics of A Day In Your Wife. I think I would have had my ass kicked if she hadn't"

When he's not indulging in a passion for sexing up Beatles classics, Darryl can be found pursuing other, somewhat more contemporary musical avenues with his band of merry men (and a female bass player), The Neurotransmitters. "We had this great idea at the time to record the album and EP together" he says with a weary sigh. "We just did about 36 days worth of recording ina yearand a half." Choosing which of your musical children to put on an EP is never going to be an easy task, and Darryl admits he "can't make a decision to save my life. It was tough figuring out which ones should go on the EP and which ones should go on the album."

The end result of much tearing out of hair is a nifty little debut EP. dripping with what Darryl lkes to call "good old three and a half minute pop. The EP is going to show people that side of us, but the album will have a bit more soundscape to it." 'Happy poppy' is not a term Darryl is ashamed to use either. The band has always found being true to their nerd foundations keeps them with one foot firmly planted on the Brisbane pavement. "Yeah, everyone you meet these days is like 'my cousin's in a band, my sister's in a band, my dog's ina a band'. We gave up trying to be cool a long time ago." How so? "We're kind of trying to start the nerd revolution", Darryl declares. "Living in Brisbane, we were a bit on the outside because we weren't a 'cool band', so a lot of us became friends because of that. I guess we became friends because we had to."

Luckily, this enforced collaboration of nerdom has proved an extremely positive venture for The Neurotransmitters. At least they all have jobs, he admits. "We actually formed in Hervey Bay. Our drummer went on to study pure maths at Uni. It took me a while to ask our guitarist to play with us because I thought he'd make us sound like 80's rock, and I wasn'treally keen on Foreigner at the time." As for the other members of the band, Darryl expalins that The Neurotransmitters "go through bass players like Spinal Tap goes through drummers." Darryl ponders this for a moment, "for some reason they all want to play slap."
Slap or no slap, the EP is finally out and these neurological specimens are heading toward fame and fortune witha very Zen-like attitude. "We share the same philosophy toward our band that Saab does toward their cars," Darryl tells me while polishing his collection of 1960's cutlery that may or may not have been used by The Beatles. "Basically, if your'e never in fashion you can never be out of fashion." - BMA


"Five Minute's With The Neurotransmitters"

I am.....
Darryl Gray, singer/songwriter with Brisbane band The Neurotransmitters

People call me...........
Darryl when I'm in trouble. It's usually just Daz

I Like..........
to collect old board games, clocks and salt and pepper shakers. I only read non-fiction books, having recently completed on called Coal, A Human History. I also have an unhealthy obsession with maps.

I want to be................
successful enough now so that I can perform a series of sell out shows at RSL's in my 50's.

I wish I did't like...........
ABBA, creamy pasta and cheap red wine. Too much of any of these is never good.

My ideal tour would be with.............
The Shins, Cake and a reformed Grant Lee Buffalo

My ultimate rider includes...............
one that I could actually drink. I'm always designated band van driver.
- The Newcastle Herald


"Time Off 6 pack"

For those not yet familiar with the work of The Neurotransmitters, they are a four piece Brisbane band who describe their sound as 'power-pop noir.' While they have been together for a couple of years, next week sees them launch their debut EP.

"I am wildly happy about how the EP has turned out," singer and guiatrist Darryl Gray says. "We actually sound like ourselves, which is more complicated than it sounds. Bryce Moorhead, who we recorded with, and myself are both perfectionists and could have recorded and mixed forever, but we just had to draw a line. You are always treading a fine line between how you actually sound and the hypothetical band in your head, and I think we found a cool mix between the two."

Gray is chief songwriter for the band, and when coming to record the EP, was faced with the dilemma of selecting a mere few tracks from over three hours worth of material the band had in their repertoire. With such a prolific output of songs, what is it that inspires his writing?

"It is actually non-musical things that will influence me more than music or lyrical peers," he says. "Whilst hearing a beautiful chord change or turn of phrase will make me want to write, it is generally conversations - in particular overheard or passing conversations - that will inspire me more. It generally makes me finish the scenario in my head, and conjer up the details, and I will try to capture that snapshot in time. I'm also particularly attracted to writing about situations or characters that often get overlooked by the general rock milieu"

Expectations within the band seem high when it come to the launch of the CD next week.

"I expect to be a tightly-honed military fighting machine", Gray quips. "Without the military. Or the fighting" - Time Off


Discography

EP - The Neurotransmitters - released July 2007

Photos

Bio

Chief Neuro Darryl Gray has always liked things sweet and sour. Perhaps that is why he so diligently chronicles the lives of the downtrodden and desperate within the realm of epic, life affirming music. Or maybe he is just a morbid bastard.

Everyday vignettes that chronicle the absurdities of real life pepper the story-songs of The Neurotransmitters. Each character appears to exist uneasily inside their skin, with euphoria or despair never far away. Indeed, if he had an attention span any greater than 5 minutes, Darryl Gray would make a fine novelist, albeit one obsessed with sex and death.

Great lyrics are nothing, however, if the music doesn’t compliment the overall feeling and drama of the picture being painted and this is where The Neurotransmitters come into their own. The lively and thoughtful drumming of Aaron Millard and the hooky, spidery guitar lines of Bart Lucas definitely have their focus on conveying emotion and underscoring the sentiments in Darryl’s words.

Although an avid Anglophile, Darryl Gray’s songs with The Neurotransmitters find an affinity with the new breed of North American bands such as The Arcade Fire, The Shins, The Dears, The Decemberists and Band Of Horses. However, The Neuro’s still furrow a similar vein to that of Icehouse, Died Pretty and The Sunnyboys with a sound both Australian yet universal at the same time.

A recent review in Time Off noted,

'At times the vocals smack of Michael Stipe plaintiveness and the song structuring confirms these guys have been reared on thinking man's rock.'

The abused, confused, pathetic and indifferent all find homes in the halfway house that is The Neurotransmitters. It’s a place where the profound meets the profane, the majestic meets the mundane and the extraordinary meets the ordinary. And a place you can visit simply by slipping on a CD and losing yourself.

2009 will see the release of The Neurotransmitters debut album.