Catch Dividers this Saturday night at the John Curtin Hotel in Carlton supporting The Statics EP Launch.
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THE BASICS
Name : Paul Anderson
Band : Dividers
Job In Band : Bass
Website Address : www.facebook.com/thisisdividers
HOME
Hometown : Strathfield/Sydney
Hometown is best known for : They do a pretty mean wonton noodle soup…
Best venue in your hometown : The Russian Club puts on a pretty mean polka night, but I dare say the karaoke joint goes off the most.
THE BAND
How long has the band been going? Dividers is the fourth band that Koby, Mitch and myself have had a stab at since the Bagster days, I think we’ve got the formula spot on this time, we are having fun playing our tunes, hopefully that translates across at shows and on record.
Many lineup changes along the way? We lost a horn section, added and subtracted a second guitar. I guess we’re still playing with the idea of another layer of sound possibly.
How would you describe your sound to the average person on the street? Punkrock with tech bits and a bit of cheekiness
What's your most recent release? Tell us a little about it... Its called “Rabid”, we recorded this out at Freefall studios with the very pretty Antonio, the guy has a wicked hairstyle going on… oh and pulls a great sound at a really affordable price, just make sure he stays off Ebay while he records you!
Got a favourite track that you have released so far? My favourite track we’ve recorded is “Take the Next Train”, the song is a bit of a journey, no part repeats itself and has some cool accents which we’re big fans of.
OFF THE STAGE
What was your first introduction to music that made you think seriously about playing it? My old man used to play a lot of Hendrix, Led Zep and blues like old BB King, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy etc… after hearing these guys tear up their guitars I had to try and replicate… cos these dudes sounded cool as. Plus my older brother just started playing, so I had access to guitars, which was handy.
What was your first band name, and what style did you play? I played in a school band called KSAFF (killing small animals for food) and we played some very ordinary songs that I wrote… I actually played guitar in this band, and Koby played bass for us one gig at our drummers uncle’s wedding reception, was a pretty funny night in hindsight, this big greek wedding reception with plate breaking and all, then four 14 yr old kids playing RATM and nirvana covers in the corner, needless to say we felt like absolute rockstars.
Most prized music related item you own? It would have to be my signed picture of Dimebag Darrel (RIP). I met him at a guitar expo about 13 yrs ago, I was really young and my old man took me and my brother along… I didn’t know who he was at the time, but I just saw all these people lining up for a picture with this guy who had a bright red beard, they were handing out free Pantera picks too, and at that age anything free is awesome…
The thing you most look forward to just before a tour is... seeing our interstate mates and watching their bands, as well as the post-show smash-on where ever we all end up. Plus the Hungry Jacks… it’s a tour standard for us. My personal favourite thing would be when Koby falls asleep in the tour van, I like to see if I have any belly button fluff (which is always blue for some reason?) and put it as close to his snoring mouth as I can without it blowing off his face, then possibly posing for several photos with said fluff.
The thing you least look forward to before a tour is... The post-Hungry Jacks trip anywhere, its fart central and even though we’re mid 20’s, we still giggle like little school girls everytime someone lets one go. Until the phones come out and we start recording them… yeah we’re pretty immature its awesome.
When your not doing band related stuff, what are you usually found doing? Oxy Contin
ON THE STAGE / ROAD
Best rider item you've ever received without requesting it? We don’t get a lot of decent riders anymore… gone are the days that a band could EXPECT a rider… now you’re lucky if you get a few drink tickets each. We used to steal a lot of riders… a few years ago we played Come Together festival and our mates from Ffty Sixx and Rex Banner joined us in drinking a lot of the Something With Numbers rider… Another time we were supporting CKY at the Gaelic club and they decided to leave their drum kit set up on the drum riser throughout all the support bands, this did NOT sit well with the Grand Fatal guys, so us and them ran to the CKY dressing rooms and smashed as much of their rider as we could, we felt better about there being no room on stage after that.
Favourite place (city/town/country) you’ve toured… and why? My favourite would have to be Melbourne, its kind've our home away from home and the shows down there always seem to have an awesome vibe that you cant find anywhere else in Australia. It’s a damn shame that places like the Arthouse are starting to shutdown/drop off the scene.
Most memorable show you've played? and why? With Dividers my most memorable show would have to be just a few weeks ago, we played the Heroes For Hire CD Launch at the new venue inside Star City Casino, it’s a tequila bar with over 120 kinds of tequila, turns out we knew the bar manager from back in the day so he got the bar girls to bring us shots of awesome and probably expensive tequila on stage, was a loose night!
Worst 'guilty pleasure' artist / song you've come across on a bandmates iPod? Its gotta be Koby’s love for Elvis, he gets this real glimmer in his eyes when Elvis is belting out a tune… the other boys would say my love for pop punk (NFG etc) but I say screw em, everyone loves NFG right? haha
Who in your group has the worst “bad habit” on tour, and what is it? Other than flatulence issues I think we’ve been playing together for long enough now we try not to piss anyone off on the road, interstate drives are long enough without someone being annoying… having said that im probably the annoying one and the dudes are too polite to tell me.
RIGHT NOW
Where are you? At work, I don’t have the internet at home, haven’t for the last year… its actually awesome, I feel like im back in 1997! Next step is to lose the mobile phone, then ill be living the 80’s dream!
What's the last song you listened to? I was doing an ipod shuffle this morning and Crash Test Dummies’ “mmm mmm mmm mmm” was the last track… you cant beat a hummed chorus, a little lazy on the writers behalf, but hey nothing a one hit wonder to start the day!
Which band or album is currently rockin' your world? They’re called The Reign of Kindo, they’re kindve like a cross between As Tall As Lions, The Dear Hunter and Forgive Durden, its cool orchestral rock with epic parts, something different.
Tell us a band we should all go and listen to right now? Ive been listening to a lot of new music, but one band ive been loving lately is a band called Tides Of Man, just awesome melodic punkrocky sorta stuff.
IF ONLY...
If you could pick any one album to cover from start to finish, what would it be and why? Sikth – Death of a Dead Day, this album has soo many crazy accents and massive riffs!
If you could pick any one band / artist to cover one of your albums from start to finish, what would it be, and why? Aphex Twin, just for the spinout factor, anything that dude touches turns to gold, so id love to see what he’d come up with for us!
If you could pick one band to re-unite so you could play a one-off show with, who would it be, and why? MU330, this band totally formed us as the musicians that we are today, they were easily my biggest influence when I started playing in bands and it would be amazing to see them in action.
One big tour, you can take two currently active bands to support you, who would you choose, and why? Protest the Hero and Muse… Protest the hero because they are an amazing band, craziest muso’s and massive riffage, and Muse so that we ensure each show would be a stadium size, plus I have a small hetro man crush on their bass player. |
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