The Open Season

The Open Season really seem to know what they're doing, and what they're doing is leading a substantial change in the Adelaide scene...Taking a leaf out of a number of music books by local heroes Gyroscope and After The Fall as well as internationals such as Thursday, Taking Back Sunday and Hawthorne Heights, they do all they can to meld their influences into an affluent sound. There's plenty of potential here. - Blunt Magazine

The Open Season is seeing the continuing quality of bands coming out of Adelaide. More rock than core, but I've not found a recording so catchy since first hearing Sans Chavelle. Looking forward to hearing and seeing more of these guys. RATING 95. - Pee Zine

Pleasant surprise number one: Adelaide's own The Open Season. Despite the fact that I love their debut CD-EP 'The Chase', I'd only managed to check the guys out live once before, and a horrible mix at Fowler's left me disappointed with their live show. Tonight, however, with a crisp mix blasting out of the Uni Bar front of house, The Open Season proved themselves impressively tight and entertainingly energetic. This band is ace; if you like a bit of emo and you aren't into local music yet, buy 'The Chase' and get down to an Open Season show. Now. - dB Magazine

Fowlers was considerably more packed out for Motion City Soundtrack than the UniBar was for Matchbook, which was surprising but definitely good to see. Most of the audience also turned out in force for the local contingent, represented by Sumi and The Open Season. As they had only 24 hours earlier, The Open Season played superbly, and as they progressed into their half-hour set, the audience became more vocal, their reactions building from polite clapping to cheers and whistles by the time closer Never Forget was over. They seemed to get a better response than Sumi, who followed. It's not particularly clear why that is: like The Open Season, Sumi's set was tight and energetic, driven by some punchy emo-rock songs. I think it's just The Open Season's melodies and dynamically woven guitar lines that set them apart tonight, because Sumi's set was certainly nothing to be scoffed at. - dB Magazine

"You caught us mid-song," laughs Steve McGrath when I ring, just in case I had any doubts as to The Open Season's commitment to rock. The band are diligently rehearsing in preparation for the launch of their AWSAM chart-topping debut CD, 'Chase'. Not bad beginnings for such a young band. "Our first show was in, what, August or September last year," McGrath muses. "and we'd only started jamming a couple of months before that."

I was surprised at their youth, given their accomplished and solid sound. I'd assumed they'd have been older, or at least had some sort of serious Adelaide band credentials. "Well, nothing really that established,' McGrath shrugs when I ask whether they'd been in previous groups. "We're only, like, 21, but me and Damo [Slattery], the bass player, we had been in a pop-punk band called Too Many Malcolms. Then we started a band called Open Season, but that fell through and we just recycled the name. And Travis [Wright, drums] and Jeremy [Gryst, guitar] had been in a few things, but I don't know if they'd actually played shows. We just started out a three-piece - I'd met Trav probably a year before we started jamming properly - and we tried to get a few songs together and then decided we should get a second guitar player, so Jez came in."

Despite their impressively focussed sound, McGrath denies that there was any great thought put into their approach. "Ahhh, no," he assures me. "It's probably only really been earlier this year that we've been thinking that maybe this could be more serious and making plans and stuff."

They've certainly been following through: in a scant 14 months they've played over fifty gigs and are preparing to launch 'Chase' interstate. "We've booked some shows in Melbourne and Sydney following [the Adelaide launch], and I guess the plan for next year is to tour as much as we can and get the name out there, just play shows and build up our abilities as a band."

That said, they're not about to follow the likes of Day Of Contempt and relocate overseas any time soon. "Whaddya think about overseas?" McGrath asks the rest of the room to low mutters. "We'd love to, but you'd want to get really well established in Australia first. I mean, we wouldn't want to pack up and go somewhere else until it was viable to do so."

Well, they could see how things work out for Newtonheath and then stay at their place in Canada, of course. "Hey, that's true!" he laughs.

The disc was produced by Darren Thompson at Soundhouse Studios, but McGrath is momentarily stumped when I ask what attracted the band to him. "Aww..." he exhales heavily, before putting the question to the rest of the band. "I'll ask the boys again: hey, why did we go with Darren?" There's an animated discussion in the background before McGrath gets back on the line: "Because Jezza is a Thinktank [Thompson's former band] fan," he explains, "and because we'd heard his other recordings like Mere Theory and Blueline Medic, he's worked with a lot of Adelaide bands, and we'd heard good things about Soundhouse and we thought we'd like to get a bit out of those punk sort of sounds and that Darren might have a bit more insight into that. We went in for ten days and stretched it out for fifteen, so it cost a bit more," he laughs.

The band are clearly looking forward to the launch and have assembled a fine lineup of punk talent. "We've got Forgetting Yesterday, who are from the Central Coast: they're a great band, we've played with them before and they're coming with us to Melbourne and Mount Gambier for the couple of nights after [the launch], and we've got In Fiction, who used to be Short Term Gain, and also a young band called Her Latest Flame: they're all sixteen, seventeen or something and have been playing around a fair bit - I think this'll be their first Enigma show, so I hope they step up and have a good time." - dB Magazine