Tin Sparrow

BY CHRISTIAN FIELD
MONDAY, 20TH MAY 2013

Tin Sparrow are a band we have covered on The Boatshed before. We looked at two of their brilliant EP’s a couple of months ago – which you can see here. As a follow up to this we have asked the band a few questions about life as a musician in Australia, and life as a Tin Sparrow. Here is what they had to say.

Hey guys, thanks for talking to us. So, for those at home who don’t know, who are you and what do you do?

Tin Sparrow! Matt sings and plays guitar, dean plays many guitars, Sonja plays keys, I (Mark) play the drums, and we all sing. We are happy folk for happy folk.

How did you guys meet? And, how long have you been together?

Matt and myself have been friends since age 6.. We grew up two streets away from one another and went to the same school as kids. Sonja, Dean all met at Maquarie Univesity in Sydney around 2010..

What’s your favourite part of being a band?

Playing live.. There are alot of positives to being in a band but when you know your playing well in front of a good audience.. Can’t beat that feeling.

Who writes the songs? And, what inspires you as you write these songs?

Matt is the songwriter, and lyricist. Often Matt will bring a song to me, and I often help with arrangement and parts here and there.. A producer-ish role perhaps. We usually have about half a song by that stage, and then workshop it with the band in rehearsal. Everyone contributes though.. And we have written a few new ones will equal contribution. I suppose it’s a model that will constantly change to keep things fresh.

What is your music for, what’s its purpose? Would you say you have a message?

It perhaps isn’t so deep really.. Like most bands I think we are just kids who love to play. I think each song had its own message, usually a very simple one. Whatever concept we work off, we try to keep the messages positive.

If I were to turn on your ipod now, what would be playing?

Cloud nothing – Attack on memory -a record that came out last year, heavy and hard hitting.. Amazing song writing.

Which artists or bands would you consider to be your musical inspiration?

The beauty of our band is how different all our tastes are.. Matt has a love for Australian songwriters, Sonja listens to literally everything, dean has a huge soft spot for psychedelia, and I’m often stuck somewhere in the 60s listening to Motown. We find alot of common ground in between I think..

What are your plans regarding further releases? What have we got to look forward to?

Finally get the next EP done. It’s been a bit of a wait.. We have written alot of new material, it’s just a matter of choosing the right songs now and tweaking.

We should hopefully be looking at a release around August..

Where do you plan to be in 5 years time?

I don’t know where we plan to be tomorrow!

You’ve worked with the likes of Boy & Bear and Jungle Giant but, if you could work with any currently active artists, who would that be? And are you working on any collaborations at the moment?

I would love to work with a pop or electronic artist one day.. Grimes doing a guest vocal on a Sparrow track would be something else! We all collaborate with other artists and play with other bands and such, but no collab in the works for TS… Yet

What do you get up to on a night out? Every group of friends has that one shameful, shameful story. Enlighten us…

We are such geeks man. We get excited about going back to the motel after gig with a 6 pack and a deck of cards.. We aren’t exactly party animals… There is one or two stories though, which we will take to our graves…

What would you be doing if you weren’t making music?

Recording it, booking it, listening to it, encouraging it… If I couldn’t create music I would do everything in between.

How would you describe Australia’s current music scene?

Plenty of brilliant acts around.. But not enough places to play.. Plenty of music fans but not enough people go to shows.. I think it’s been this way for a long time, really.

http://tinsparrow.bandcamp.com

Have a listen below.