Western Australian three-piece Crooked Colours are emerging fast in the indie-electro scene, winning fans and impressing listeners.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Winners of the WA slot for triple j’s 2014 St Jerome’s Laneway Festival competition, these lads play music that ignites interest.
Keyboardist Leon De Baughn says the band started after he and singer/instrumentalist Philip Slabber struck up a connection. ”I was always buying heaps of old synths and stuff,” De Baughn says. “I started collecting, and he was a mutual friend, and we started hanging out and that’s when we started coming together and started collaborating.”
When they were booked for their first show the boys wanted to bring in a live drummer.
“I did the first show and ended up sticking around” says drummer Liam Merrett-Park.
Slabber and Merrett-Park were university students and De Baughn a carpenter when they linked up two and a half years ago. A lot has happened since. The band has been a feature artist of the week on triple j’s Unearthed and won the station’s St Jerome’s Laneway competition. At the time of their interview they were supporting Australia electro darlings and ARIA Album Chart toppers Rufus, as part of their triple j presented national tour.
The band says that having the support of the national youth broadcaster has been “massively important” to their rise. “I think the Unearthed is awesome,” De Baughn says. “I love the fact that they get behind all of us small bands. Because if they weren’t there it would be a lot harder, that’s for sure.”
Having recently released their second EP, In Your Bones, and seeing tracks like Come Down reach No. 3 on Hype Machine’s Most Popular charts, Crooked Colours are fast developing a deserved reputation as an impressive live act.
Though the band says their transition from being an Unearthed act to playing the Laneway gig or stepping out and playing shows with Rufus has been a scary one, “you kind of just have to do it,” Merrett-Park says. “You get booked for it, you practise for it…You’ve got to step up.”
“Rufus are really good,” says Slabber. “We’ve toured with them before we started getting the bigger gigs, during their first WA tours, and they were just really helpful with giving us tips and stuff. So they were a big help. Are still a big help.”
With a highlight of the current Rufus tour playing a massive show at the Fremantle Arts Centre, Crooked Colours are looking forward to getting over to play the Enmore in Sydney before heading back out on the road for their first national headlining tour to promote In Your Bones.
“It seems to be selling pretty fast,” says De Baughn. “We’ve almost sold out our Melbourne gig.”
“There’s a lot more pressure on us,” says Slabber. “But it’s good, we’re excited for that.”
CROOKED COLOURS
With: Deja
When: Thursday 17 July
Where: Transit Bar
Tickets: $10 + $3.30 BF available from moshtix.com.au
