HOCKEY DAD’s
much anticipated 3rd studio album
‘BRAIN CANDY’
Out Now
BUY / STREAM / DOWNLOAD ‘BRAIN CANDY’
HERE
+ Skin crawling video
released for new song
‘GERMAPHOBE’
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Praise for ‘BRAIN CANDY’
“With ‘Brain Candy’, all bets are off: Broader, more colourful and with a lot more to say, it shows Hockey Dad are ready to take on the world” – NME ****
“For [Hockey Dad’s] follow-up they’ve refined their sound a touch, without losing any impact” – Herald Sun
“Hockey Dad may have set out to offer the world some escapist brain candy, but they have subsequently created a genuinely rich album. Brain Candy is a pleasing addition to their discography and sure to excite fans.” – HI FI Way
“Entrenched in a rich lineage of savage Australian rock thrashers and hopeful burnouts, Hockey Dad’s immediate ascent has been marked with track after track of riffage-backed ennui and Brain Candy only exhibits it at its absolute best.” – Stack Mag
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With a career spanning two studio albums and an EP, Windang’s favourite sons Billy Fleming and Zach Stephenson aka Hockey Dad have today released their much-anticipated 3rd studio album ‘Brain Candy’, a none-too-explicit reference to chemical intake to sooth one’s mind. Having been recorded in the same studio with the same producer as their previous record ‘Blend Inn’, that being Robert Lang Studios and the veteran John Goodmanson – ‘Brain Candy’ is far from any sort of retread. It’s a textured, contemplative and thoughtful record –a reflection on life written by a band that has ostensibly grown up in public.
Starting with the release of lead single ‘I Missed Out’ the tone was set for one of the bands most ambitious albums to date and showed that the Illawarra locals weren’t here to mess around scoring themselves a #60 placement in the 2019 triple j hottest 100 and deeming the album to be one of the most anticipated releases of 2020 by the station. ‘Itch’ kept the party going after the band’s powerful sets at the Laneway Festivals around Australia early 2020. With its zombie apocalypse video Zach said of the song: “It’s definitely the most non-Hockey Dad song we have ever recorded”. Cue the classic Hockey Dad sound that is ‘In This State’. “It’s the first song we completed when we were working on this album. To me, it always felt like an album opener.” Stephenson declared. And so, it was to be. With current single ‘Good Eye’ smokin’ the airwaves, ‘Brain Candy’ has delivered some tasty entrees, but now it’s time to feast on the main course.
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Of the writing process Hockey Dad’s Billy Fleming writes “When we were making the demos, it was kind of exciting. I feel like there will definitely be an element of surprise when people hear it.”
Zach Stephenson, Fleming’s friend of over 20 years and bandmate of nearly 10 agrees. “It’s important to keep the fear instilled in you as an artist,” he says. “That sheer terror the night before something comes out is something you can’t replicate –and when people like it, it makes you even prouder of it.”
Hockey Dad have today also released an official clip for another anthemic track off ‘Brain Candy’. Writing the album in 2019 who would have thought a song titled ‘Germaphobe’ would have such resonance in 2020! The clip features Totty’s powerful frontwoman Kelly Jansch and explores where the brain can go for a house bound germaphobe (cue floating Hockey Dad virus heads).
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“We had the idea of setting the video in a post-Itch-music-video world. After sitting down to watch the TV breaking news segment revealing “two local idiots cause worldwide zombie outbreak”, this unfortunate Germaphobe realises that her whole life’s work of being germ-free is coming to an end.” Flemming writes
“We were all having heaps of fun filming the video which made it all such a breeze. Our good friend Kel (Totty) did such an amazing job as the Germaphobe! At one point we were having so much fun that we almost forgot about storyline I had planned and just started to figure out different scenes as we went along. The peak of fun was the final scene where we started throwing homemade slime at each other, which quickly turned into a ‘how are we going to clean all this’ moment.”
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Whether you’ve followed Hockey Dad’s trajectory from grommets to garage-rock royalty, or you’re making your Hockey Dad debut out of pure curiosity, ‘Brain Candy’ will prove to be one of 2020’s must-hear albums.
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‘ALIVE AT THE DRIVE-IN’
RE-SCHEDULED SHOWS
Tickets Available HERE
FRIDAY 9 OCTOBER – BULLI SHOWGROUND, WOLLONGONG
SATURDAY 10 OCTOBER – BULLI SHOWGROUND, WOLLONGONG
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BRAIN CANDY TOUR
(NEW DATES)
Presented by triple j
For full tickets see HERE
FRIDAY 9 APRIL 2021 – BIG TOP LUNA PARK, SYDNEY SOLD OUT
SATURDAY 10 APRIL 2021 – FORTITUDE MUSIC HALL, BRISBANE
FRIDAY 16 APRIL 2021 – METROPOLIS, FREMANTLE
THURSDAY 22 APRIL 2021 – THEBARTON THEATRE, ADELAIDE
SATURDAY 24 APRIL 2021 – THE FORUM, MELBOURNE SOLD OUT
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AMNPLIFY – DB
My nickname is “The Amnplifier”. Why? Because around here my focus is on being a conduit for providing greater outcomes that people come here for. My day to day “work” is living in the moment, and I love helping others concentrate on finding their connection to themselves through their experiences.
Why start a music environment? The truth is I love music, I love writing, and I love life. I work with musicians every day, and I feel certain that I will be until they put me in the ground. I have been managing people in businesses of some sort for over thirty five years so along the way I have developed some “wisdom” from my regular and constant “observations”.
Amnplify your experience. That is what we want you to do here, and if you want to let me know why you do, or don’t, shoot me a message on Facebook.
Hope you enjoy yourself here and find something that hits you somewhere.
