It’s been about thirteen years since we played our last show I think it was end of 2005. I did a bit of music after the band with film and TV music. Other than that I’ve just been living life, getting a normal job nothing too exciting.

 

Does it almost feel like you lived two lives?

 

Yeah Motor Ace was such a long time ago it almost feels like I was another person to some extent. I have been doing a little bit of music in the last couple of years with Damian in another band Nighthawk but other that that I’ve pretty much been out of music for ten solid years. It is pretty surreal after all this time.

 

After the band ended did you miss playing live with Motor Ace much?

 

Not at the very end no. We were pretty relentlessly touring for six years there. We are talking five or six days a week on long tours that was pretty non stop for a long time. So I think we pretty much got playing live out of our system I guess you could say. I was always more inclined to be in the studio so I was definitely happy to stop playing live. But doing five shows in three weeks with this tour is definitely much more exciting and doable to be honest. We are not spring chickens anymore. At the end of Motor Ace I had tired of loud guitar music but I am back into it now. So I’m looking forward to playing loud guitars on stage again.

 

Back in the day you played alongside bands like Foo Fighters, Oasis, Blink 182. Do you have any wow I can’t believed we shared the stage with those guys kind of memories?

 

Yeah you pretty much summed it up. They were the highlights particularly the Oasis tour that was a massive highlight. I was pretty terrified meeting those guys that they might shatter some illusions, turn out to be jerks or worse boring. We got really lucky and they were really funny, cool and smart guys. It was heaps of fun and a real surprise. The Foo Fighters shows we did with The Hellacopters as well. I’m a massive fan of The Hellacopters so to be on a bill with those two bands was amazing. 

 

Album wise you guys were really known for having solid albums start to finish. That must be something you are proud of?

 

Yeah definitely. Obviously the first record you have some years to write it so that helps in that regard. The second album I thought there’s one or two filler tracks but I think it’s generally pretty good. The last record we spent a long time on that one trying to craft something a bit different. For us the appeal was always that the fans were into our tunes more than anything else. I guess looking back we probably didn’t sit in a really clear genre. At the time we would always have discussions in amongst the band how we were walking some weird line between alternative Triple J and a little bit of a commercial rock vibe. We always felt a little bit lost in that regard, the thing that bound us together was the quality of the songs. Three albums is still a very short career when you think about it. A lot of bands pump out five to ten albums.

 

Having your song “Death Defy” used for the TV show Secret Life Of Us is that something you were happy about at the time?

 

Yeah we were happy about it at the time. We had no idea the show was going to get past a pilot stage. When it ended up being a huge show it definitely had a massive effect on us in terms of being accepted by commercial radio. It was a little bit weird that we had released it two years earlier as a single and it hadn’t really had any traction. Then once it was on a TV show it took off. It makes you realise how important exposure can be to a band if you are lucky enough to get exposure, you can connect. There’s so many great bands out there that never have the exposure, sometimes that can be all it takes.