ROCKIN’ OUT
Luca Brasi frontman Tyler Richardson lets TasWeekend behind the scenes of his punk band.
Discovering his band had been nominated for one of the nation’s most prestigious music awards was mindblowing for Luca Brasi frontman Tyler Richardson. The 31-year-old from South Hobart says picking up a nomination for Best Rock Album ahead of this Wednesday’s ARIA Awards ceremony in Sydney was a “massive” reminder of just how far the four-piece punk rockers had come since hanging out together as youngsters in the schoolyard at St Helens.
Richardson (lead vocals and bass guitar) has been playing with Thomas Busby (lead guitar) since 2009 when the band was formed, with newer members Danny Flood (drums) and Patrick Marshall (rhythm guitar and vocals) joining about six years ago to replace outgoing members Saxon Hall and Mitchell Dobson.
They’ve been mates for much longer, with Richardson joking the four have “100 years of friendship” between them.
Initially Richardson says, they were just happy making music for anyone who wanted to listen, with no bold ambitions. But two-and-a-half years ago, before the release of their third album, If This Is All We’re Going To Be, the mates decided it was time to get serious. So they sat down and set some goals.
“We decided we should have a crack and see what could happen,’’ says Richardson, who is a wood and metal work teacher at Taroona High School. “Before that it was just us having fun, not knowing what we were doing. We were touring aimlessly, we didn’t always have a manager and an agent.
“So we thought we’d go a bit harder. We figured if it didn’t work out we hadn’t lost anything.’’
Go hard they did. Their single Aeroplane from that album marked the band’s first appearance on the ARIA Album charts. Then Anything Near Conviction was voted into the 2016 Triple J Hottest 100, at number 90. Their Like a Version cover of Paul Kelly’s How To Make Gravy was listed at 127 in a supplementary Hottest 200 list in 2017. Luca Brasi’s fourth studio album, Stay, was released in June and peaked at number 10 on the ARIA charts.
Luca Brasi played to more than 20,000 at Triple J’s One Night Stand in St Helens in September, which Richardson says was amazing given the band formed in the East Coast town.
Despite the band’s success, Richardson says there’s one question that keeps being asked — when will the Tassie boys be moving interstate? It is, after all, the first thing many starryeyed bands do: relocating to Melbourne or Sydney to be closer to the bustling music scene of a bigger city. But Richardson says moving away has never been part of the plan.
All four have day jobs in Hobart — two have young children — and Hobart is home. “We’re all so proud to be from Tassie and we don’t want to live anywhere else,’’ Richardson says. “We constantly get asked when we’re going to move to Melbourne or Sydney or move overseas. But it’s just not going to happen.’’ Richardson says the ARIA nomination is “just massive’’. The band is up against fellow Tasmanian singer/songwriter Courtney Barnett (who has been nominated for eight ARIAs) with her album Tell Me How You Really Feel, as well as Camp Cope’s How To Socialise & Make Friends, Middle Kids’ Lost Friends and DMA’S album For Now (I OH YOU). Tasmanian band The Wolfe Brothers is nominated for Best Country Album.