Tour: THE RUBENS & THE PANICS
Dates: 14 December 2014
THE RUBENS ARE BROTHERS SAM, ELLIOTT AND ZAAC MARGIN AND GOOD FRIEND SCOTT BALDWIN. ALTHOUGH THEY’VE ONLY BEEN PLAYING TOGETHER SINCE EARLY 2011, THEY HAVE ALREADY WON OVER A LEGION OF FANS WITH THEIR RICH, SOULFUL TAKE ON BLUES ROCK.
Their debut single ‘Lay It Down’ struck a huge chord and saw them score the triple j Unearthed spot at Homebake before going on to hit #57 in triple j’s 2011 Hottest 100 poll.
Since then these Menangle wunderkinds holed up in New York City and recorded their debut album with producer David Kahne (Regina Spektor, Paul McCartney, The Strokes).
Last year they completed a sold-out national tour (including memorable shows at The Forum Theatre in Melbourne and two Enmore Theatre shows in Sydney). THE RUBENS seem to be on a dream run, with the band’s Platinum selling debut, self-titled album coming in at #1 on the iTunes chart and an impressive #3 on the ARIA Album chart. The band’s video for ‘My Gun’ is also nominated for Best Video at the 2012 ARIA Awards.
The Rubens are currently in New York working on their second album.
THE PANICS
Music critics and fans often say the same thing about The Panics: listening to their songs is like immersing yourself in the soundtrack to your own life. In their albums and Eps, people discover the cinematic score to their own lost Australian summers: the bittersweet Antipodean road-trips where they found first love and made new friends, only to lose it all on the way back. Underneath the elegant pop-rock tracks are modern hymns for a generation, anthems of rash joy and quiet heartbreak: all the songs you would have written yourself, if only you had the right words on hand.
“Sometimes one inspired musical snapshot can set the mood for an entire album. On ‘Cruel Guards’ it arrives with the sweeping strings of get us home an Ennio Morricone tinged epic that somehow captures all the drama of a marauding gang riding into the sunset” MOJO Magazine UK
The Panics formed in the hills of Perth and were signed to littleBIGMAN records in 2000 – they were the first band Pete Carroll and Gaz Whelan signed to their new record label – Whelan was touring Australia on The Big day Out with his UK band The Happy Mondays when he and Carroll first spotted the band playing at a local pub.
The band signalled their arrival on the Australian music scene with the release of 2 Eps in quick succession –‘Give me some good luck’ and ‘My brilliant career’ from the 1st EP and ‘This day last year’ and ‘How’s it feel’ from the 2nd EP were picked up by Triple J and the word quickly began to spread around the country.
In 2002 The Panics headed to Manchester England to perform at the ‘In the City’ Music convention and play their first run of UK gigs. While in Manchester they began working on their debut album ‘A house on a street in a town I’m from’. The album was launched to critical acclaim in 2003 with a sell-out National tour and several tracks ringing out across Australia on Triple J.
The band were on a creative roll and headed straight back into the studio to record ‘Crack in the Wall’, a 7 track album which included another bunch of radio and live favourites including ‘In your head’ ‘Cash’ and ‘Lost in green eyes’.
In 2004 the Panics signed to Festival publishing and once again based themselves back to the UK where they toured and played with Happy Mondays, recorded sessions for the BBC and started writing and demoing their next album ‘Sleeps like a curse’.
‘Sleeps like a curse’ was the album that took the band to the next level – it was a creative high point; the album secured Triple J ‘album of the week’ and was also nominated for a J Award.
In 2005 they signed to Dew Process and began recording their biggest selling album to date. ‘Cruel Guards’ was played all over Australian and UK radio, selling a slew of albums (reaching gold status in Australia within a few months) and winning many industry awards; ‘Cruel Guards’ won an ARIA Award and was declared Triple J’s ‘Album of the Year’. In the UK, they played to sell-out crowds where “Don’t fight it’ was on high rotation and they were lovingly received by the British music press.
“Don’t Fight It, epitomises their strengths: deceptively laid-back, it sidles up with a calming blanket of Hammond organ, brass, strings and sonorous piano & a chorus “Don’t fight it if you don’t know what it is”, you are forced to agree and adopt it as a mantra… Pop bliss. ” The Sunday Times UK
In 2010 The Panics performed with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra to a sell-out crowd of 5,000 in the outdoor setting of Kings Park WA. The band and 80 piece orchestra performed songs from across the band’s entire catalogue of albums – The West Australian named it the concert of the year.
The band wrote their next highly acclaimed album in Manchester UK and recorded it in New York - “Rain on the humming wire” features ‘Majesty’ a sweeping, anthemic Republican battle cry; questioning the nature of royalty and inherited power.
In 2013 The Panics lead singer Jae Laffer, who is considered one of Australia’s finest song writers, took a short break from the band to produce a critically acclaimed solo album ‘When the iron glows red’ – The band then regrouped to write and record the soundtrack for ‘Girt by sea’, a film screened on ABC TV.
