The Getaway Plan

With a new line-up, a self-produced and fan-funded album that just went to number 10 on the ARIA Charts, it’s fair to say that The Getaway Plan are back in action in 2015. Killyourstereo.com recently spoke with vocalist and guitarist Matthew Wright about their album, ‘Dark Horses’.

Regarding the tour, you’re playing quite a lot of shows, about 21 or so, and you’re playing a lot of places that most bands skip in favour of purely East Coast shows, so you’re really covering a lot of ground there, especially in WA and NT. Do you think that’s going to help provide further incentive for people to get out to a show?

Yeah, we like to think so at least. We’ve always found it important to get out to those regional places and play for them, as they rarely ever get bands. Some places don’t get the chance to see live music that often. We like to bring what we to them and people have always been pretty stoked about that.

The other reason why we’re doing such a big tour is because we wanted to cover a lot of ground here before next year, as we’ll be pretty quiet on the Australian touring circuit. As we’ll be focusing on touring overseas.

Right on man, with ‘Dark Horses’, that album hit #10 on the ARIA’s.

Yeah man, that was fucking crazy. That was the highest debut we’ve had, and considering that it was the first record we put out by ourselves, we were just blown away. We didn’t even expect to crack the top 100 as it was independent. It was just huge.

Yeah, it’s awesome. The last time you guys had a big chart success like that was with ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’ on the AIR Charts.

Other Voices… did really well back then, and it was number 14 on the ARIA, and if I remember correctly, Requiem hit number 17. So this is mental to be at number 10 now.

I always love hearing and reading about articles declaring that Australian music is dead or that our rock/metal scene isn’t good enough, yet Amity, Northlane, Parkway Drive, Thy Art Is Murder all crack the top 20 and even hit number 1 in some cases. What do you think about bands like that and yourself making such a strong impact?

I think it’s incredible, for alternative music to have such a strong place in the Australian music scene is awesome. It makes me feel really proud to be an Australian musician.

It’s always great to see our own bands have the success that so many overseas acts get here. With ‘Dark Horses’, and to an extent ‘Requiem’, they’re both quite mature and not as poppy as the first album or earlier EPs. How do you view the evolution?

You know, I think it was the break up. That’s when we really learned about ourselves as musicians and as people. When we got back together, we brought all of that with us.

The main inspiration behind Dark Horses is about all of the shit that’s happened to us, that a lot of people aren’t aware of. I think that because we’ve had about four years between each record, I think it would be difficult and weird for us not to progress.

This album is much longer than the others, it’s just over an hour long, and I get the feeling that this record was really meant to be picked apart?  

Definitely. For me, I think the album is better to be heard in two halves. If you start from Dreamer Parallels, which is track seven, it works really well. I think to listen to the album in one sitting is pretty fucking intense, so I think of it like back with vinyl, where people didn’t have a choice but to have a break in the middle of the album.

Would you break a set up in to two halves if you were to play it full in the live setting?

I think so man, but live is quite different as the people don’t really have a choice. Well, they do, they can always leave [laughs]. But you know, it’s a different kettle of fish in that regard.

Perhaps the album going #10 in the ARIA Charts proves this question wrong, but are you worried that some people will miss out by just taking the record as face value?

Even if we made a bloody 40-minute pop record, there’d be people who would overlook areas. We like to think that our fans have more patience than that, and already people have shown us that they understand what we were trying to do. It may be a long record, but I want to think that it’s a journey and that that it wouldn’t bore people.

I think there’s a good balance of quality and quantity on the album. As you say, the fans have really come through for you, helping to smash out the Pledge Music campaign you guys used to fund the album.

That was crazy. It was either we did that or go and find another label, as we didn’t have the money ourselves. We were really nervous, as some people really don’t understand the monetary side of the music industry, they may think that because we’ve seen some success we have all the money. It’s quite nervous asking people to front money before we have a product to give them, but I think that a) the response was incredible and that they have faith, and b) there was a pressure created to give them something that didn’t exist yet. I think that pressure from our fans to make the best record you can is the best pressure you can get.

We’ve had that pressure from a label, and it fucking sucks. It’s no good, and it just feels awkward. It’s really obvious when you’re working with a record label that they’re just in it for money, which is their job of course, but we don’t see eye to eye with that mindset.

Well the fans are going to be consuming the music, so you might as well make it solely for them.

For real, that’s exactly it man.

Right on Matt. Well that’s all I had for you today dude, thank you so much for taking the time for this, and I hope the tour goes well.

No worries Alex, thank you so much man.

‘Dark Horses’ is out now.

The Getaway Plan tour this September through November. Details and ticket information via - http://www.thegetawayplan.com/