Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A Pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.
Dom of Aussie alt-rockers The Comfort joined TGEFM in advance of the quartet’s upcoming sophomore album “Experience Everything. Live and Die” coming 11 November from Greyscale Records to discuss their hiatus not being indefinite, the present state and of course, the future.
Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Congrats, in advance on the release of ‘Experience Everything. Live and Die.’ Could you tell us a bit about this record, how it came about and where it stands compared to 2018’s ‘What It Is To Be’?
Thanks for having us! The new record, ‘Experience Everything. Live and Die.’ came from a love that Liam and I share in contemplating our human experience. At the end of the day, all we really have is our conscious experience and that leaves me endlessly curious as to the nature of our reality, consciousness and existence. Our first record, ‘What It Is To Be’ set out to contemplate our existence in a very similar way and in some ways, the new record is an extension of that. Liam and I both tend to think A LOT, and I think that is evident in the way that we write our music. There are songs on the record that consider the implications of the political landscape and songs that question the nature of my consciousness and death, but there are also songs about love and relationships. It’s a very mixed bag of topics, but all viewed through the same lens.
After a hiatus in 2019, The Comfort is one in a long line of bands who reformed during the pandemic. What is it about being seperated in the midst of a lockdown that brought you back together?
When we decided to go on hiatus, we had actually already made plans to record this record. So we knew that the hiatus did have an end point right from the start and we actually began recording this record in early 2020. Unfortunately, the pandemic did what it did to a lot of artists and pushed that period of non-activity out to much longer than we intended. Ideally, this record would have been released in late 2020 or early 2021, but the world just wouldn’t allow it!
What affect, if any, have the cultural and political landscapes of the last few years had on your music?
All of the lyrics for this record, aside from “A Sad Song For The End of The World” had actually been written pre-pandemic. However, it felt to us like the cultural and political landscapes were already changing and the pandemic just exacerbated that. So we were already in this “everything is broken” kind of mind-set haha. I think that mind-set is quite evident on the record, particularly in Conformist, Grace, Sad Song and The Portal.
The music world has also changed a lot over the last few years. What are some of the biggest changes you’ve come across in your time within the scene?
The biggest change seems to be behind the scenes. There are less people doing the same jobs, meaning individuals have had to take on more and everyone feels burnt out. We’ve all taken on more work than we should be doing on an individual level and everyone is working overtime to try and make things happen in the same seamless manner they did before the world changed drastically. Despite this, I think that this has left only the very passionate people left in the game, so hopefully a better product for the fans is what that is going to achieve. Like a lot of people have said, a global pandemic has made people reevaluate their lives and passions. Some people left the music industry as a result of that and others dove in deeper.
One of our obligatory questions in these interviews also tends to be the one I have found most important on a personal level. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should?
Oh, I love these questions! There are so many young bands who are really passionate about what they’re doing and not all of them are getting the credit they deserve. Personally, my favourite Australian bands are Young Lions and Deadlights. But there are some brilliant young bands around like Talk Heavy, Bad Neighbour and Waxflower who are only getting stronger with every release and everyone should check them out.
Beyond the release of “Experience Everything. Live and Die,” what’s next for The Comfort?
We are always writing and thinking about our next steps. Ideally, we’d love to have a new record every year, but the nature of music behind the scenes is that everything takes a reeeeeeally long time haha. It might reassure our fans to know that we do have 2-3 different projects in the works!
Thanks so much for having me!
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
