Screamfeeder to bring three decades of Brisbane indie rock to Murwillumbah

BRISBANE indie-rock outfit Screamfeeder is set to perform at Murwillumbah’s M-Arts Precinct this month, drawing on a catalogue that stretches across more than three decades of music.

Frontman Tim Steward said the band emerged in Brisbane in the early 1990s, when the music scene felt unbounded.

“It actually felt like this completely wide open plain where anything could happen, and you could just be as creative and as out there as you wanted to… and it was all very spontaneous and quick,” he said.

He said that event bookings required less planning in the early days, making it easier for new bands to get their start.

“It was all just happening on the spur of the moment, and you could make a phone call and organise a gig with one week’s notice, whereas these days you’ve got to have four months notice kind of thing,” he said.

He said the city’s live music spaces were central to that culture, describing venues such as The Zoo and Ric’s Bar as artist-first environments.

“They were run on the principle of promoting music and art,” Steward said.

“So they weren’t run with money as the primary objective, they were run with more of a cooperative, almost hippie-ish kind of vibe, really, or a punk kind of vibe.

“It meant that we could experiment with our sound and try things without any fear of failure or repercussions… there was just always an atmosphere and a feeling of anything goes”.

It was also a simpler time, with fewer distractions in everyday life.

“If people heard about a gig with three or four days’ notice, chances are they could go, and they didn’t have anything else planned.

“Life in general was just quite a bit simpler and it was easier and freer being young in that era.”

 

Looking back, Steward said the Queensland capital’s relative isolation helped shape a distinct local sound.

“Because Brisbane seemed to be a bit more remote back then, it seemed to be that the bands were even less affected by other music in the country than bands in Sydney and Melbourne might have been,” he said.

“So Brisbane bands had a slightly more unique, weird and unusual sound than other bands around the country I guess.”

Steward described touring in the early years as relentless and physical, with the band constantly travelling between cities in a stripped-back DIY setup.

“We’d just get in the van, lie all the amps and the drum kits down in the back to make a sort of platform that we’d then chuck a mattress on top of,” he said.

“We’d be driving around the country and we’d have breakdowns all the time, and one time we crashed into a kangaroo and wrote off the vehicle.”

Despite these challenges, he said that their status as a young Brisbane band generated interest beyond the city, helping them rapidly establish connections within national music networks.

“In Melbourne we’d be playing with Spiderbait, in Sydney we’d be playing with Tumbleweed and bands like that,” he said.

“We had lots of interest and we had great gigs and we went back again and again.”

Steward pointed to the cheap cost of living as a key contributor to the 90s music scene.

“All the band members were young and on the dole, so they had enough money to live and heaps of time to do things with,” he said.

“And also, back then Brisbane was pretty boring, there wasn’t a lot going on, so you had to make your own fun.

“So it was easy to get a band together because you knew all these people who were players and it was easy to get gigs at a house party, because there were house parties everywhere all the time.”

Screamfeeder will perform at Murwillumbah’s M-Arts Precinct on Friday 10 July from 7pm–11pm. Tickets are available via Humanitix.