After 15 Years, The Getaway Plan Are As Unpredictable As Ever
The Melbourne band reflect on their tumultuous 15 years in the game.
With 15 years of releases and touring behind them, ARIA-charting records, a breakup, and a new formation, Melbourne’s The Getaway Plan may just be one of the hardest working bands in the scene.
They’ve also been a difficult band to predict: Hitting peak-fame in 2008 with the release of their debut album Other Voices, Other Rooms (yes, the album that spurned the song even your non-pop punk friends knew — ‘Where The City Meets The Sea’) everything seemed to be going great for the band when they suddenly pulled the plug, calling it quits in 2009.
After an 18-month break, the group abruptly reformed and released their second studio album, Requiem, in 2011. The years that followed saw the departures of two of the original band members, Dave Anderson and Aaron Barnett, and in 2014 they announced plans to crowdfund their third album Dark Horses, releasing it independently with their newly formed line-up.
After a national tour of Other Voices, Other Rooms in 2017, the band once again went quiet — something longterm fans were no longer surprised at. What was more surprising however was when they announced in late-2018 the plans to embark on a national tour with fellow Melbourne outfit Dream On Dreamer. Not because they had new music on the way, just purely because they wanted to go on the road.
The tour is now underway, and so we caught up with frontman Matthew Wright about what the future holds for The Getaway Plan. That is, if he knows yet.
This is your first big national tour since the Other Voices, Other Rooms tour — do you feel a pressure to live up to how big that tour was?
We have a couple of different setlists going, we’ll change it up a bit throughout the tour. We’ve been off the road for a long time, it’s been nearly a year and a half, so I guess people can expect us to have a bit more vigour than before.
It [The Other Voices, Other Rooms tour] was a pretty special thing. We hope people enjoy all our shows as much as we do, whether we’re playing their favourite records or not.
Photo via Facebook
What was it like touring that album with the newer guys in the band/not the original lineup you had from 2008? Did they bring a different energy to the songs?
It was interesting, I guess… they’re such great players, they made it easy for us. I mean, they’ve been in the band for so long now it feels like we’ve been this band forever.
The Dream On Dreamer guys have described you guys as their older, wiser and more handsome brothers. Could we see any collabs on stage this tour?
More handsome? I don’t know about that! But we might collab, we’ll have to wait and see! We haven’t organised anything yet, but I’m up for it.
You guys are playing a lot more regional dates on this tour. Do you notice a difference when it comes to crowds in the smaller areas vs. the city ones? Do the country kids get more into it?
Yeah definitely. They [country crowds] are a lot less reserved than city crowds. A lot less pretentious. I think they don’t get as much (bands touring) so they show their appreciation a lot more.
Photo via Facebook
Your last release was Dark Horses in 2015 — are you guys looking to do another album release this year or waiting to see what happens after this tour?
We’re always writing. We don’t have any plans to do any releases but that’s pretty normal for us, we just tend to spontaneously make records. It’s usually a very fast turnaround process for us, so people could expect something at any moment I guess.
You released Dark Horses independently. How did you find the process of that compared to your other releases? Would you do it again?
I like the idea of releasing something independently again, but there was a lot of pressure last time though, so I also like the idea of not having that pressure and just being able to focus solely on music. But anything is possible at this stage, if the right deal came along for us at a label I think we’d say yes, but whether that deal exists or not is yet to be seen.
Your lyrics have always been quite personal — are there any older songs you don’t enjoy performing as much anymore because of the growth you have had personally and within the band?
Yeah definitely. I think anything pre-Other Voices, it’s a bit difficult singing those songs and trying to channel real emotion into it.
You’ve definitely put in the hard yards touring the Aussie music scene: What are the highlights and lowlights of touring?
The highlight is the hour we get to spend playing on stage every night, it’s absolutely why we do all this. The lowlight is nearly everything else…just waiting around and waiting around, being in foreign places and missing family and partners. But we’re pretty good at managing that stuff these days as well.
Based off how you feel right now because I realise this answer could change lots… what’s your favourite song of yours to perform live?
The title track off Dark Horses. I really feel that one every time.
You can plead the fifth on this question if you wish but: Do you ever actually get sick of performing ‘Where The City Meets The Sea’?
Nah, nah, we got lucky with that one! It’s still enjoyable for us to play. We still enjoy playing nearly everything off Other Voices, thankfully that record has aged pretty well with us.
The Getaway Plan are currently in the middle of a massive Australian tour. For all dates and details, head here.
Tahlia Pritchard is the Editor of Punkee. She is on Twitter.