We’re a little over a month away until the release of the second issue of Happy Mag! Our cover story features none other than Sydney locals DMA’S, and amongst the many things we touched on with Johnny and Mason, the issue of the city’s lockout laws inevitably came up. Check out what the guys think of the issue and how Sydney’s changing live scene effected the early years of their band.
MASON: They should make sure all the venues that shut down can open again. We did that Rage guest programming thing, and the guy who was running it was running that Keep Sydney Open rally. He got us to sit down with this sign and take some pictures. It was good to be a part of that.
JOHNNY: It was actually one of the reasons why we didn’t play in Sydney for so long. The Hopetoun was closing down. Good God has closed down now too. There’s so many venues that are just dying and we weren’t inspired to play, we’re not ragging on any venues, but we weren’t inspired to play because heaps of places were shutting down. I think that’s why we were a studio band for so long.
MASON: I think we were one of the last bands to play at The Annandale.
JOHNNY: We were, we were the last band to play The Annandale. Which is fucked!
MASON: I popped in there the other day, I was walking to this store to buy a keyboard or something, and I just popped in there for a bit and it wasn’t very cool.
JOHNNY: The old manager of Tommy and mine’s old band use to be the licensee there. So getting into Sydney music there became a bit of a thing for me. I was real young and discovering new bands and meeting new people. It’s a real shame that those kind of venues are shutting down. But again, that’s one of the reasons why we didn’t want to play gigs, we just wanted to write music.
You can read the whole DMA’s interview in Happy Mag 2, where the band discuss their touring life, being branded as a ‘Newtown’ band and all the cool gear they used on their debut album Hills End. To get your paws on a copy just follow this link and subscribe to Happy Mag!
