If you are a hard working band, there is nothing like gaining some wider attention. And past few weeks have been amazing for Sticky Fingers. Their second album Land of Pleasure debuted at number three on the ARIA Albums Chart and was a Triple J feature album of the week.
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They also performed for Triple J's Live at the Wireless from their Splendour in the Grass set, where bass player Paddy Cornwall says the band created "some kind of record" for the number of people to show up at an early attendance gig. "It was 20,000 people or something like that," Cornwall says. "It was great."
Growing organically, the band behind recent faves Gold Snafu and Just for You formed after Cornwall noticed singer/guitarist Dylan Frost, then a 15-year-old busker, playing around his home patch of Newtown.
"He caught my attention so I stopped and checked him out. And then I kept bumping into him around the neighbourhood and figured out that we lived fairly close to each other," he says.
"We became best mates pretty fast and he fell into my circle of rowdy mates, and that circle of rowdy mates became the band that is Sticky Fingers."
The first time Sticky Fingers received attention outside their local crew was when they asked to join the bill for the Newtown Festival. Upon getting knocked back, they decided to make a massive stage from milk crates and put on their own guerrilla headliner from a backyard overlooking the festival. "It went down really well and attracted a really big crowd. Organisers liked it and asked us to come back the following year to play a prime slot on the main stage," Cornwall says.
In the crowd the year the boys played was producer Dann Hume (of Evermore fame). He saw big things for the Fingers and would wind up producing both their debut album, Caress Your Soul, and now Land of Pleasure.
"He has brought a lot to the table as far as the sound that he's helped us develop and craft," Cornwall says. "Before we worked with Dann, Sticky Fingers was a band that wore all our mistakes on our sleeve and flaunted our flaws as part of the band's charm.
"So when we first hit the studio we had this idea of what we were doing. But when Dann eventually came along we had a bit more experience and all of a sudden we were working with this pro, who understood us and knew what we were trying to do. And he brought the best out in us."
When Fly caught up with Cornwall, the band was taking in a bit of post-album release downtime. Having been on the road earlier in the year, playing a 32-date Australian and 34-date European tour, they now have plans to go out and do that all again.
"I guess that is where all the fun will start," he says. "Right now we're all just chilling out at home, rehearsing all the new songs."
This is a band whose members pretty much all picked up instruments just to play music together, dreaming of a lifestyle where none of them would have to work real jobs.
"We wouldn't really want to do anything else," Cornwall says.
"I'd almost argue that we're the hardest working band in Australia. But then I'd contradict myself by saying that we started this band to avoid ever having to do any real kind of work. So, I guess in relation to the work, we are living the dream and we're grateful for it."
Sticky Fingers
When: Wednesday 3 and Thursday 4, September
Where: Transit Bar
Tickets: $25 + BF (September 4 date sold out)
