According to Connor Mitchell, when it comes to heavy psychedelic rock the artist’s environment matters. The vocalist and guitarist for Sunshine Coast stoner groove trio Hobo Magic believes the landscape and light can’t help but shape the most righteous of riffs.
“When Black Sabbath started in Birmingham the atmosphere was super-heavy and dark and they needed a way to escape it. They took all that and put it into their music,” Mitchell says. “For us the beauty of Australia has been a massive influence. The landscape is picturesque and epic and that translates into our music.”
Hobo Magic set off for an east coast tour this month.
With their monster jams and fluid transitions, Hobo Magic are at the forefront of an underground scene that apart from the occasional curated crossover act – see Wolfmother – produces cult favourites. Mitchell, bassist Jake Bennett and drummer Luke Hanson favour epic compositions that unwind with howling vocals and headbanging guitar runs; their 2017 EP The World Today had six tracks and a running time of 42 minutes.
The band’s upcoming national tour is their third this year, with their first gigs in Japan wedged in between, and like Melbourne soul-rock outfit the Teskey Brothers, Hobo Magic walk the line between celebrating the foundation acts of their genre and adding to the legacy. They want to suggest what made Led Zeppelin, Free and Black Sabbath so important to them, without falling into the trap of merely duplicating them.
“There are too many bands who sound epic but in a completely familiar way,” Mitchell says. “One of the things I’ve always tried to do is be off the cuff and push myself in my writing and playing. We know we have influences, but we don't want to base everything we do around them.”
Mitchell, Bennett and the band’s original drummer got their homage phase out of the way early, forming the first incarnation of Hobo Magic as 14-year-old students attending St Teresa’s Catholic College in Noosa. The school encouraged students to pursue their passions, so the adolescent hopefuls holed up in the music room jamming and also played Christian rock in the chapel band as a way of getting more rehearsal time.
“It was cheesy, but it was more time playing the guitar,” Mitchell says. Throughout their teenage years and first steps as Hobo Magic the group had to carve out a niche among the Sunshine Coast’s preponderance of pop-punk bands and hardcore screamers. “We stuck out like a sore thumb.”
The new Hobo magic single, Sonic Sword, is all doomy downturns and destiny’s riled multi-track vocals that reaches for mountainous highs. When their debut album follows next year the band plan to relocate to Europe, following in the footsteps of Mitchell’s father, who toured widely as part of the British thrash metal scene before relocating to Queensland when his son was aged 10.
“Europe is the place for rock music and none of us have any responsibilities,” Mitchell says. “We’ve slept on enough floors here to know what it’s going to take.”
Hobo Magic play the Vineyard, St Kilda on Thursday, October 11; the Bendigo Hotel, Collingwood, on Friday, October 12; The Station, Katoomba, on Friday, October 26; Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst, on Saturday, October 27; and Frankies, Sydney, on Sunday, October 28. For all Hobo Magic's tour dates, go to beatscartel.com/tickets.html
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