Kia Ora! I’m great, thank you so much for having me.
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WHO IS PSTCRDS? TELL US ABOUT THE BAND.
So PSTCRDS is a pop punk band from Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Me and Henry (guitar) started it back in late 2018 just to really just write some music and only ever intended on it being a studio project to release music whenever, but very quickly realised it was turning into something we wanted to do properly. Our current – and founding – lineup is Stove Reid (me) on vocals, Henry Holzberger and Tom Pockett on guitar, Brad Reid on bass, and Jack Stewart on drums.
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WHAT IS THE MUSIC CREATION PROCESS LIKE FOR YOU? HOW DO YOU GO FROM IDEAS TO THE FINISHED PRODUCT?
A lot of the time for me it starts as a little passing idea, like a melody, or a guitar part, something like that, and we’ll basically just demo and jam some stuff out, flesh out the idea into an idea we’re happy with, then we bring it to our producer Chris Lalic and we work with him to get to the final product that you hear on our records.
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LAST YEAR YOU RELEASED THE ’THIS PLACE OR OUR PLACE’ EP, SO WHY A 2-TRACK RELEASE NOW?
After COVID and lockdowns set in, we kinda found we had all this pent up energy and boredom to just get out of our system, and we wanted to show that side of us that’s a bit more aggressive and energetic and bright. That’s definitely something we want to show more of in the future, and we liked the idea of doing a shorter and smaller release to kind of ease in the new, slightly different style we were going with. It was also just a bit cool to do something bands don’t really do anymore, as most bands tend to focus on EPs and Albums and what have you.
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RANDOM QUESTION: DO YOU HAVE A THING FOR EVEN NUMBERS? BECAUSE YOUR EP WAS 4 TRACKS AND NOW THIS IS A 2-TRACK. OR HAVE I JUST LOOKED AT THIS TOO HARD? HAHA
Hahaha, I hadn’t even noticed that! Maybe we do. I’m not sure if it was a conscious thing we did, but it just felt a little different and better to offer a bit more than just a random single without committing to a fuller length release.
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WHAT HAS THE RECEPTION BEEN LIKE FOR BOTH THE EP AND 2-TRACK RELEASE? I DON’T NECESSARILY MEAN NUMBERS, JUST FROM PEOPLE & PERSONALLY. WAS THERE MUCH FEEDBACK ON DOING THE 2-TRACK OVER SEPARATE SINGLES?
It’s been honestly incredible so far. We’re very lucky to have people that listen and give us their attention every time we put something out or even just do something as a band. So far everyone has loved the new 2-track and what we’ve done with it, which is always an amazing feeling.
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WHO DID THE ARTWORK AND HOW DID YOU DECIDE ON THE ARTWORK? HONESTLY I THINK KEVIN (CHARACTER NAME) IS PERFECT IN RELATION TO THE TITLE ‘SYSTEM OVERLOAD’.
Our artwork was done by Chris Costa, who did an absolutely incredible job. He also did our artwork for This Place or Our Pace, and he’s fantastic to work with, he’s so involved with the whole process and is super transparent with every step of the process which is really cool.
When we were thinking of the artwork and what kind of style we wanted to go for, we basically just wanted to have something that was really out there and in your face, but bright and exciting as well to kind of reflect what we were doing stylistically on the songs. The idea of having the exploding brains and all that was more just a product of me reading MAD Magazine and those kinds of comics as a kid and just falling in love with the style.
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DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE TRACK OUT OF THE 2?
We’re all actually pretty divided on our favourites in the band, haha. Personally I love Inside Your Head. It’s just balls to the wall energy the whole way through. It’s big, it’s fast, it’s anthemic almost, and it just has such a fun, party style vibe to it that I think will translate really well in a live setting. I also really like that it has an out-of-nowhere breakdown at the end.
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IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU LEARNED OR TOOK FROM YOUR EP AND THE RELEASE OF THAT, TO THIS 2-TRACK RELEASE?
In a way I think with every release we grow as songwriters – and as people – and I think with writing System Overload we looked at the EP and just kind of dissected it into what we liked, what we didn’t like, what we would’ve done different, and I think with every release we learn a bit more about what music we want to make and what we wanna say with our music, and I think that’s something we’ll do with every release. But I can also say we were definitely a lot more organised this time around for System Overload than we were for the EP release.
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YOUR IG BIO SAYS “HAPPY MUSIC FOR SAD PEOPLE” AND I WOULD DEFINITELY HAVE TO AGREE WITH THAT. DID YOU HAVE THAT CONTRAST ON PURPOSE OR DOES IT JUST WORK OUT THAT WAY?
I think that’s just the nature of pop punk, really. It’s always had that fast, bouncy, happy sound to it, and the contrast of more serious lyrical subject matter and themes makes it something you can really vibe to, but also hopefully you can relate to some of what’s being said and maybe take something away from the song. It’s both sides of the coin.
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HOW HAS 2020 AND 2021 BEEN FOR YOU GUYS?
Very much extremes of both sides, good and bad. We started off 2020 with releasing our EP to a really good reception and booking our first headline shows, and then spent the second half of 2020 cancelling plans and rescheduling shows to no avail and it just became a mess. 2021 started off the same way, but right in the middle we got a break and finally got to tour our EP and play the rescheduled headline shows, and then the middle-end of 2021 went back to the same as 2020 and it’s been a bit of a waiting game, really. And somewhere in there we managed to get lucky and record System Overload as well, haha.
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HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE A PSTCRDS LIVE SET TO SOMEONE?
We give it our all from start to finish. It’s just energy, fun, and good vibes paired with the occasional real and emotional moment. We want our shows to be as safe, fun, and inclusive a space as they can be, and I truly hope our audiences feel the same when they come to a show.
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WHAT IS COMING UP FOR PSTCRDS (WITH AS MUCH AS YOU CAN PLAN WITH COVID ETC)?
At the moment, we’re just itching to be back onstage, so some shows are definitely on the cards and in the works. If all goes well hopefully we might get to tread out of NSW for the first time in the new year, and there’s probably a pretty good chance for new music in there somewhere too.
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SOME FUN QUESTIONS:
FAVE SNACK?
I don’t know if it counts as a snack or a meal, but I’m obsessed with Mexican food, so probably that.
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OVERUSED PHRASE?
If you mean a phrase I overuse, I feel like I say ‘dude’ in response to almost everything. Either that or something like ‘sick’, or ‘dope’. Something in that area.
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WHEN YOU THINK OF NZ, WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF?
All the media I’ve seen of New Zealand just looks very beautiful, honestly. It has a very ‘countryside cottage’ with green hills in the background kind of image in my head. That being said, I’ve never been there so I could be way off, haha.
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IF YOU COULD START A RUMOUR ABOUT YOURSELF, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
Oh wow, I have no idea! Maybe that my band is just blowing up at the moment haha. Mainly because I feel like curiosity would make people react like “oh who’s that, never heard of them” and then they’d look us up and maybe we’d get lucky and the rumour would come true.