Pretty City are a three piece fuzz rock band from Melbourne who have a wide range influences which they skilfully use to create upbeat tunes with memorable hooks.

 

For those who haven’t heard Pretty City, how would you describe your band?

 

Shoegaze, meets grunge, meets 70s rock

         

How did the band come into existence, and is there a story behind the name?

 

Our singer and main songwriter, Hugh, put the band together in late 2012.We had all played in other bands around the Melbourne scene, and started jamming some tunes that Hugh had written.We all really dug it and started gigging. The name was a bit of a long story.We originally wanted to call the band finance, so when people asked what we do we could say, ‘oh, we’re in finance.’Through a long series of iterations, finance became city finance, and eventually we got to Pretty City, which is apt considering we live in Melbourne.

 

Your line up consists of two guitarists and a drummer. Did you consider adding a bass player or was there a reason for wanting to keep it as two guitars?

 

We never really discussed getting a bass player.It’s nothing personal against bass.Hugh has spent a lot of time tweaking his set up to fill in the low end, and once we got it right, it worked so well.Hugh and I feed off one another big time and we just love driving the groove with the sounds we’ve been able to pull.I get to play with a lot of freedom too, so as a drummer it’s actually pretty awesome to play without bass.

 

Who are some of the bands who have influenced you to learn to play an instrument?

 

Pink Floyd have been my biggest influence as a musician.The emotion and depth of all their albums has always inspired me to push myself.Apart from that Queen and Radiohead have been massive influences too.I also love my bogan rock – Van Halen, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath etc, but I also love funk and classical music as well.Johnny, our lead guitarist loves really driving rock and Northern soul, as well as being right into psyche and garage rock.Hugh loves shoegaze – particularly My Bloody Valentine, but is also hugely influenced by 70s classic rock like Cream and Hendrix.He’s got really diverse tastes, as we all do, and we all bring our different influences to the table.

 

What does music mean to you?

 

It actually means everything to us.We absolutely love playing music, and devote a huge amount of time to it, whether it’s jamming, performing, or recording, we’re happy lads with instruments in hand.

 

Do you guys write songs individually, or do they develop out of jamming?

 

Hugh usually comes up with songs that we then workshop as a band.We have written some songs just by jamming too.Hugh’s got a great ear for interesting sonic palates, and Johnny’s fantastic at melody and trimming the fat from ideas.I play drums.

 

What are some of the difficulties you guys have faced getting your band off the ground?

 

We’ve had a pretty great run so far, so none of us are really complaining.I guess we just face the same challenges as any band.We just want people to hear our music so we’re happy to work hard to make that happen.

 

What is the process of going from initially coming together to play some music to seeking out venues to play gigs?

 

We have benefitted enormously from our previous experience playing in bands around Melbourne.We didn’t find it too difficult to book shows and just hit up bands that we dug and just booked shows.We absolutely love playing live, so we do it as often as we can.We also signed up with Premier Artists at the start of the year, and they look after our bookings now, which is really great to have in the arsenal.

 

You have an album in the works and it’s no secret that studio time costs money. How does Pretty City go about financing recording music?

 

Yeah, the old financial black hole that is recording.We all work outside of music, so we’re mostly able to pay our way in the studio.We also make sure we’re really well rehearsed and tight as hell before we get in there.We also demo tracks and have a pretty good idea of what the songs need so we can set a bit of a recording plan and stick to it. Always stronger in theory than in practice though.

 

Does social media play an important role for the band?

 

It definitely does, we use it to connect to people, to promote shows, and also to let people know what we’re up to even if they can’t get to every show.We are on facebook, twitter and Instagram.The three of us have quite different personalities, so we’re naturally inclined to use different social media.Hugh’s so visually oriented, so Instagram is his natural habitat.Johnny’s the hilarious one, so he’s all over the best fb posts.And I’m terse and blunt, so the 140 characters of twitter suits me.

 

Which well-known bands do you think Pretty City would be suited to open for?

 

We have actually opened for British India a couple of times, which worked really well.We also supported Jesus Jones (British Manchester sounding band from the 90s) at the Corner recently, and that was a great fit.I think our sound has enough Psyche that we could open for a band like Tame Impala, but we’re also rock enough that we could even open for a band like DZ Deathrays, or Kingswood, or even Royal Blood.

 

Are you actively looking to get picked up by a record company?

 

I don’t think any of us would say no to that.

 

Have you guys sat down as a band and discussed where you’d like to be in five years, and set out a plan to achieve this?

 

Not really.We always have meetings and try and work out what we need to do.We’re all extremely motivated, but I think music is such a hard industry to predict, it’s potentially unrealistic to set specifically timed goals.

 

These days, musicians need to know various aspects of the industry, not just be able to play, write songs and perform. Do any of you guys have any special skills like audio engineering, financing, promotions, etc?

 

We don’t really have any music specific special skills.We all have interests outside music that help us though.We’ve all got jobs and qualifications in different spheres and it’s surprising how much the disparate skills feed into the running of the band.Johnny’s a science mind and is all over the numbers, and Hugh and I are the humanities people that just talk about shit while people are trying to run a business.In all seriousness though, we all work together really well to keep everything ticking along.

 

What would you like to achieve with Pretty City and as musicians?

 

We want to write the songs that are on the tips of everyone’s tongue before they’ve even heard them.Hugh once said to me that our music occupies the negative space between all our favourite songs.I think that’s a great way to think about music: it’s drawing from the best of your influences and projecting your emotions through your instruments as a cohesive whole.We want to have fun and play our music our way, and get it out to the world.If we can do that as long as possible, we’ll be very happy people.

 

Pretty City - Piece of the Puzzle