Beat Magazine Interview - March 2003

Like many of their Perth Power-Pop ancestors, Superscope are bringing their melodies East, writes Steve Tausche…

They've shared PAs with Ken Stringfellow, The Vines and You Am I. Now Western Australian melody makers, Superscope are set to indulge in a Lost Weekend, three night, three city showcase of Australian Independent guitar-pop sounds. Bassist Darryl Hudston and Guitarist Kevin Borruso take the call.

How does the whole Power-pop genre sit with you in terms of being labeled?
Darryl:- "What we see in power-pop for Superscope is more about power than the pop side of it. From the pop side, we see harmonies and the vocal melodies, but on top of that a slighter harder guitar sound than your general pop band. We've always liked that music, from The Who, to the Beatles to The Knack".
Kevin:- "We've got a lot of rock influences but the pop thing has always been there I guess. The band that eptomised it for me were The Someloves. They were always a benchmark for me, not saying that I want to imitate it but I always though they did it really well but never realized their full potential".

You must me excited about The Stems reunion then?
Kevin:- "Yeah, I think it's going to go really well on the East coast. We've seen them reform a few times in Perth. It's just good that this style of music has come back around again. It never really went away but it's just having it's time in the spotlight again."

I notice that every track on the Popping Crease EP has been released overseas.
Darryl:- Basically we did that through our contacts at Zip Records in San Francisco. They have The Chevelles, Showbag, P76 - which is Danny McDonald's band and also Swedish, English and other Australian bands, but none from the U.S. Internationally, the latest thing that's happened to us is that our new album Torpedo has been licensed in Japan through Tokyo based Painted Sky Discs and a Japanese pressing of the album will be out in May.
The most amazing thing happened to us last night at The Lost Weekend Festival in Sydney. There were these guys from Japan on holiday here and they came to the festival and rocked up with copies of Torpedo and Popping Crease and asked us for our autographs and stuff. They have a small TV Show and a club in Japan so they taped our show and got us to do an intro to it and will feature footage at their club. Apparently they have a band and they do a cover of our song Reflection. So I was stoked to hear all this, it made my night!

Does the band have plans to get along to the SXSW thing in Texas?
Darryl:- "It's definitely something we want to do and IPO (international pop overthrow) is something we want to do as well. Michael Carpenter loosely based his idea for the Lost Weekend on the IPO which they have in different places each year in the States, where they basically get a lot of pop bands in and have a power-pop celebration.
We had this contact in Japan who put us in contact with Ken Stringfellow. So we sent our tracks over to Mushroom Studios in Vancouver (Canada) and he actually produced three tracks on Torpedo. When he came to Perth we supported him at Amplifer last year which was pretty cool. To meet the guy who, I wouldn't say we model our vocal style on him, but he surely is an influence. The show was basically just him playing a keyboard with one light and he held the whole place. It was good to have him over in our little town and show him around the place".

The Lost Weekend Festival is held at the Tote this Friday March 14, Saturday March 15 and Sunday 16 featuring such pop luminaries as The Icecream Hands, Pyramidiacs, Michael Carpenter, Little Murders and many more. Superscope play Friday night with Even, the Treetops, Superstar Joe, Rudiger and Smallgoods. The bands debut album called Torpedo is out on Zip through MGM while the Lost Weekend compilation is available through Laughing Outlaw and Zip.

Order your Torpedo Here!

We can arrange to get you a copy of the album delivered to your door for the rock bottom price of USD $9.95. See our orders link.

Calling Supertroopers to arms!

Show your taste for the band. Join the Superscope Supertroopers mailing list. Includes bi monthly newsletter with exclusive member discounts, invitations to industry nights, free entry to selected shows and other goodies. FREE! Click on the Supertroopers link to get in on the action!