Sticky Fingers
When: 16th February 2023
Location: O2 Academy
Sticky Fingers are Australia’s world-beating indie rockers. Coming to Glasgow’s O2 Academy on 16th February 2023.
Music illuminates even the darkest moments. Just when you need it the most, a song lets in a sliver of light. It doesn’t matter how dark it gets out there, we’ve got Sticky Fingers. Theirs is an underdog story already worthy of a tell-all memoir or old school Behind The Music. The quintet – Dylan Frost [lead vocals, guitar], Paddy Cornwall [bass, vocals], Seamus Coyle [lead guitar], Beaker “Beaks” Best [drums, percussion], and Freddy Crabs [keys, synth] – accomplished the seemingly impossible as a wholly independent act since just 2008.
Affirmed as one of Australia’s biggest bands, they’ve delivered three straight Top 5 albums, earned ARIAA platinum and gold plaques, eclipsed 1 billion streams, and sold out the continent’s most hallowed venues usually reserved for the likes of Elton John and Post Malone. However, their earthquaking hybrid of rock, alternative, reggae, and psychedelic burns brighter than ever on their 2021 fifth full-length offering, We Can Make The World Glow.
“We wanted to make an uplifting record,” exclaims Seamus. “So, we tried to create something more positive and push through the darkness.”
“It’s personal for all of us,” Dylan elaborates. “We’ve all gone through it with the lockdowns, COVID, and our own demos. It came out naturally like a f*cking revolution. Let’s get through everything. Let’s flourish. It’s a mission statement, ‘Yeah, we can make the world glow’.”
The light was already pretty damn bright for Sticky Fingers. On the heels of their fourth offering Yours To Keep in 2019, they launched a massive tour that left packed arenas and stadiums screaming for more across Australia before they took over New Zealand, Chile, and Brazil. As the Global Pandemic shut down touring, the band turned their attention to writing and recording. Initially, they’d plotted an acoustic record. Even those plans would be scrapped, the sentiment coursed through the DNA of the sessions to follow.
“On prior albums, we’d spent a lot of time facing a computer and f*cking around,” says Paddy. “Since we went into the record thinking it was going to be an acoustic album, we were writing songs that were more natural and organic. They were stripped back to just acoustic guitar, piano, and lyrics. It was a really good way to mix it up from the last couple of albums. We wanted it to be live-sounding.”
In the summer of 2020, Paddy, Seamus, Beaks, and Freddy decamped to “a local sh*tty motel” for three months as they visited Dylan’s house every week to write. Between writing and recording, personal demons crept up. Dylan pulled through multiple overdoses, and Paddy also checked into rehab. These brothers supported one another throughout the storm as they headed to Grove Studios up the Central Coast with original guitarist Taras Hyrubi-Piper behind the board as producer and longtime producer Dann Hume as mixer.
“Dann couldn’t make it down with all of the lockdowns, so we called Taras,” Seamus says. “He’s been an important character in the songwriting process, and he’s remained a fifth Beatle, so to speak. It created an opportunity for him to step up. Dann’s still a part of the mix. It’s the first Sticky record we’ve had a different producer on.”
“Taras brought some of the early energy back,” adds Crabs. “It’s a reset. You can hear some of those old sounds. We got those psychedelic feels from our debut Caress Your Soul with better musicianship.” On the lead single and title track ‘We Can Make The World Glow’, Dylan leans into a simmering beat with a soulful croon before a reggae bounce takes over with a weightless hook, “We can make the world glow, living life in ecstasy, bouncing off your gravity.”
“We were trying to reach out for positivity,” states Paddy. “The lyrics are fun.” Meanwhile, “My Rush” unfolds as a somber hymnal underpinned by an ominous electronic beat, eerie guitar transmissions, and hypnotic dirge. He intones, “This world is insane. Believe me ‘cause I’m, I’m back from the dead.”
“I predicted my death because I was in ICU for eight hours,” admits Dylan. “Looking back on it, I lost my sh*t.” Getting gleefully sentimental, acoustic guitar and soft vocals entwine on ‘Love Song Bayonet’. On the other end of the spectrum altogether, ‘Lupo The Wolf’ details the story of the titular Sicilian gangster famous for “becoming a kingpin and chopping people into taters.”
Tapping into a nostalgic spirit, the wistful melodies of ‘Where I’m From’ recounts “four seasons in a day, memories of being on the road, and living together—remembering where we’re from,” according to Paddy. “Sticky has never been a band to stick to one particular genre,” Paddy observes. “From song to song or record to record, we jump around and do whatever the f*ck we want. We’re going to satisfy our old school fans, while pushing sounds we’ve never explored before.”
Even through all of the madness and darkness, Sticky Fingers glow more than ever before. “It’s worth celebrating after a fifth album,” Crabs leaves off. “We can look bad and realise we’re not half bad at what we do. I don’t think any of us can imagine doing anything else. I don’t know how we’d live, because we’re so used to this. It’s the most positive addiction we’ve all got.”
“If we had a message, it’s, ‘F*cking go for it’,” Dylan concludes. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something – because you can. Just don’t be lazy. Whatever you do, don’t take two-and-a-half years to finish an album,” he chuckles.
