Hockey Dad (In, Like, Four Minutes)
Five years ago, two small-town childhood friends came together to form the Australian surf-rock band known as Hockey Dad.
Derived from the prevalent surf and skate scene of New South Wales, their musical disposition leans towards a 60’s revival surf sound, apparent in their debut EP, Dreamin’. Recently, they’ve taken a new turn with grunge influences manifested in their latest album, BLEND INN.
After contacting Hockey Dad in the hopes of an interview, I spent a restless day waiting for a response, before deciding to take matters into my own hands. I headed to their show with a couple of friends, and it was amazing, but the possibility of an interview was all I could really think about. Growing discouraged, and ready to head home, I decided to drive around the back of the venue with two friends on the off chance they might be loading their equipment. I noticed a mop of blonde hair belonging to the drummer, and before I could lose my newfound courage, I jumped out of the car.
Seems like it all paid off in the end! Big thank you to the guys from Hockey Dad for agreeing to this last-minute interview!
…
Would you guys mind stating your names and your contribution to the band?
Billy: I’m Billy, and I play drums.
Zach: I’m Zach, and I play guitar and sing.
This isn’t the first time you’ve played at Soma San Diego, right? You guys toured with The Frights pretty recently. How did that happen?
Billy: By chance, I guess. Our booker suggested that we do it, and then we listened to The Frights and we were like f**k yeah! So we did it. It was a great idea.
What musicians did you grow up listening to that inspired you?
Billy: Well, I kind of grew up on punk, mostly from my siblings, so that was kind of a massive thing for me. And Zach, he grew up on whatever. Ash Grunwald.
So, after seeing the video for “I Need a Woman,” I started to see the song in a new light, enjoyed it even more than I had before. What’s the story behind that?
Zach: So, we had no budget for the film clip, we just got our friend Brent to film us running around doing nothing.
Billy: And it turned out to be a video! (laughs)
Where was it filmed?
Billy: I Need a Woman was filmed at home. We just did a lap of our hometown, pretty much. You can do a lap of our hometown in three minutes.
Zach: Three minutes?! I’m calling twenty.
Billy: I swear the song’s, like, four minutes.
How did you guys meet?
Zach: We lived, like, two houses away from each other.
Billy: We met in the womb, we were separated by birth [laughs]. Nah, we just grew up together, and pretty much as long as I’ve had a working brain I’ve known Zach.
Were you guys just bored and one day decided to pick up instruments?
Billy: Nah…
Zach: Pretty much!
Billy: Well, actually, yeah! We were young, we’d just started surfing, Zach’s dad had some instruments out the back… we were just f**king around. And it turned out to sort of be a thing.
Is it safe to assume that most of your music is influenced by the surf and skate culture in Australia?
Billy: Yeah, it’s pretty good at the moment. Like, when we started doing music there wasn’t much of a scene or anything going on, but at the moment it’s amazing. It’s cool to see it grow into what it is.
How did the name ‘Hockey Dad’ come about?
Billy: It was off The Simpsons. We were just watching reruns one night, and I don’t know how it came about actually, but it’s pretty funny. We like a good laugh.
