Pridelands
Vocals: Mason Bunt
Guitar: Liam Fowler
Bass/Vocals: Joshua Cory
I caught up with Joshua Cory of Mount Gambier band Pridelands to learn a little more about what these guys have been up to.
The debut ep ‘Natives’ was just dropped, how long have you guys been working on it for?
Well it’s kind of hard to say really, it’s been the blur to end all blurs. We started writing for it about a year ago and all the songs sort of came together as we went, which felt rather natural at first until a few hurdles arose with actually getting in the studio, tracking etc. But all in all, it came together exactly how we wanted it to.
How did Pridelands come to be?
I came into the band around the early 2012 mark when (Liam) Sturges and (Liam) Fowler kind of came together with some other guys and they needed a guy on bass and vocals. But to answer the question I’d say Pridelands was born off a few inter-school friendships and a common need to fill time in a small town. After a few recording sessions we weren’t exactly where we wanted to be with it all and Mason came on board somewhere late 2012 to record vocals and everything kind of felt right after that, I guess.
It’s a common question for us to ask, who influenced the Pridelands sound?
I don’t think we have a direct influence for our ‘sound’ as we’re all such diverse people in what we listen to and our hobbies and whatever, so it’d be impossible to answer that as a collective for the band. Realistically most of our inspiration is probably drawn from our friends within the music scene and then also music outside of our respective genre. It’s nice to siphon that energy from co-existing music styles, because they’re all relative to one another. We can commune it well to one another when writing and nothing ever feels forced because of it. Thankfully.
We’ve heard some crazy but interesting stories from other bands. Anything you think is worth sharing?
Oh God, I bet you have… A lot of the shows we’ve played have culminated to become the most memorable nights of our lives. For example, our best, but at the time, new friends in Void of Vision had come down to our old home town of Mount Gambier for a show and that night just got way out of hand, way too fast. Matt got beat up for ruining a dude’s garden, Mitch ran across town to Fasta Pasta, I got kicked out of our local pub for wrestling on the floor and James stole half a palm tree and one of those massive flags from a car sales depot. Miraculously I think all our criminal records are still in tact. For any other stories, any member of Ambleside could probably fill in the gaps.
What got you into the music scene?
For me particularly it was the scene itself. I was 14 and bored living in a town of 5,000 so catching rides with people to local shows rapidly became integral to my happiness. I met Fowler at a show (they were called Hype Nights at this point) and bands like Northlane, For All Eternity and Missouri Breaks were frequenting us. It was incredible at the time, I was meeting all these new and exciting people and I suppose in one way or another we all wanted to be a bigger part of that. Times changed and the scene evolved but our passion for the memories made around the music we play remained. It’s a big part of why we do this.
You’ve supported Northlane & In Hearts Wake on more than one occasion, not to mention acts such as Volumes (USA), Veil Of Maya (USA) & Dream On, Dreamer. How does a small band from Mount Gambier get to play along side those kinds of acts?
You’re asking the guy who asks himself the same question too often. For the Free Your Mind tour in particular, our then drummer had entered us without telling any of us and I finished work to find an email from UNFD saying we got the local Adelaide spot and I was like to the guys, “Uhhh, did we enter this?” and yeah, we played HQ to a crowd we considered unimaginable at the time. It was mind blowing and we owe Northlane a lot for that opportunity since they picked the spots. The rest of the opportunities have either stemmed from luck or actually putting the shows on ourselves – our main man (Liam) Saunders helps us out a lot too, God bless that little mango.
Obviously those acts have been around for sometime, have you picked up any tricks from those guys?
I think the main thing we’ve learnt from guys in the big leagues is to be scrutinous. We are constantly challenging ourselves and each other now that we have a sort of sense of direction. We expect too much of ourselves sometimes but only because we genuinely want to see each other succeed. It’s what comes naturally for us now and being over-analytical has strangely enough brought us so much closer together.
Is it true you once traded your boots for a pack of darts?
They weren’t my going-out boots, it’s fine.
Probably one of my favourite section of these interviews: League Of Legends or World Of Warcraft? Cats or dogs? Rollerskating or Unicycling? Favourite item on the grill’d menu?
Hmmm. World of Warcraft over League any day. I’ve been playing WOW for around 6 years on and off and I regret none of it. I’m pretty sure I still have a 20 minute wait on my League queues for being a little bitch and quitting when I die four times in a row. I’m sensitive.
With cats or dogs… As a whole I’m gonna have to go dogs. I have a cat that I adore called Clementine and she really gets me, y’know? We are the same person/being in that we’re both overly affectionate but we shut ourselves off too. We know each other’s boundaries. Fowler’s got a German Shepherd called Max who is more than likely the coolest puppy you’ll ever meet. He has his name tattooed on his butt I think.
Everybody knows unicycling is badass but if someone was to come up to me offering to teach me to rollerskate I know I’d be all over that shit.
As for Grill’d, I don’t know if anything I say can be interpreted as subliminal advertisement, but I love crispy bacon and cheese burgers. I ask for my onions grilled too because that’s common sense.
Let’s get back on track… I think Devil’s Snare would have to be my go-to song on Natives. Do you have any personal favourites and if so, why?
I don’t really have a favourite just the same as I don’t have a track that I dislike more than another for any real reason, I just look at (and have always looked at) Natives as a singular thing rather than a group of smaller, sporadic things. I didn’t write the lyrics as a conceptual piece, it was more a collection of moments in our lives that I was fortunate enough to be able to spill out coherently onto paper, so I guess I can’t pick and choose a favourite. I like playing The Inkwell live though. I don’t have to sing or scream and that’s always nice.
Pridelands are currently a 3-piece. Is there some perks about jamming with only 2 others, or does it just make things hard?
I was kind of nervous about trying to tackle the work load of a 5-piece sound with 3 people, but realistically we’re just doing the same shit with a fill-in drummer, a laptop and an interface. A major perk of having a few different fill-ins is that our songs come across with a piece of musicianship from each fill in; it doesn’t feel as robotic or repetitious. I think at this stage we’re just trying to play as many shows as possible with our current situation and waiting until a replacement feels 100% right with where the band is headed. We aren’t in a rush and we aren’t worried about a thing at the same time. We’re pretty relaxed with the whole situation.
Do Pridelands happen to have any tours planned in the near future? If not, what can we expect to see in the coming months?
We can’t say much in relation to any of that just yet, but it’s shaping up to be an interesting year. Fowler and I have been working tirelessly on new material to make up for the gap in releases in 2014. Whatever happens, I’m just glad to be doing it with my best friends and being in this wonderful position to meet such fantastic individuals. That’s the reason we do this, we meet so many likeminded humans who we thrive off being around. It’s something none of us would ever want to live without.
Thanks heaps for your time, Josh!
The Pridelands boys are playing at show at Bang (Melbourne) tomorrow night. Drop their name at the door for a discounted entry and have a great night.