Youth Group Re-Release ‘Skeleton Jar’ & Tour It

Youth Group release their classic Skeleton Jar album on vinyl & Tour Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane June/July 2015.

The band will play their much-loved Skeleton Jar album in full, plus a generous selection of tracks from across their recorded canon.

Over a decade after they released their much-loved breakthrough album Skeleton Jar, Youth Group are finally giving it the vinyl treatment that all great long players deserve. The LP will be released on 26th June 2015. The band will reconvene to play three shows in June and July celebrating this long delayed release on the greatest format of them all.

In January this year Youth Group came together to play their first show in over 5 years at the Newtown Social Club in Sydney. It was the first time since 2009 all band members had been in the same city at the same time, and they grabbed the opportunity to spend some quality stage time together again. In some ways it was a dip of their collective toes in the water. After such a long time away, they had no idea how the show would be received. Any doubts they may have had were quickly dispelled when the one-off show sold out 5 weeks in advance. The response on the night was one of swooning reverie from the packed room. They’d been missed.

The band played their much-loved Skeleton Jar album from start to finish, as well as a generous selection of cuts from across their entire catalogue. Encouraged and energised by the joy of playing together again, Youth Group now bring the show to friends in Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as a return performance in their home town of Sydney through June and July.

Youth Group formed in Sydney in 1998. Over the course of their career they have released 4 critically acclaimed albums: Urban & Eastern, Skeleton Jar, Casino Twilight Dogs and The Night Is Ours. They have won an ARIA Award, had a number one platinum-selling single with ‘Forever Young’, performed at Coachella, Reading and Leeds festivals, toured with Coldplay, Kings of Leon, Interpol and Death Cab for Cutie, and known the highs and lows that make or break a band. They have remained thoroughly decent people and friends throughout the entire affair, which is perhaps the greatest achievement of all.

The band’s singer, main songwriter and guitarist Toby Martin is better placed than anyone to talk about what the Skeleton Jar album and Youth Group’s first show back after an extended break means to the band. A great deal as it happens…

In 2004 Skeleton Jar was released in Australia. In 2005 it was released around the world. In July 2004 we kicked off our Australian album tour with a gig at the North Nowra Tavern. The sound guy didn’t show up, so we wired our vocals through the PA used for announcing the bistro meals. A year later we had signed to Epitaph and were playing the same songs at the Reading and Leeds festival. (And a week after that we were playing to five people – the support band and the cleaner – at Poughkeepsie, NY).

What a whimsical caper is rock music. This funny old record, recorded over a couple of years – while band members came and went, while our record label went under, and then came back, while the world loved The Strokes, and then didn’t, while the coalition of the willing invaded Iraq, and then stayed, a record that should never really have been made, and very nearly wasn’t – not only actually came out but turned us into a featured band on MySpace and got us a lukewarm review on Pitchfork.

For me, personally, it was made during the most turbulent period in my life. A few months before recording it I actually doubted I would make a record again. Skeleton Jar got me out of a very bad rut, and I remain forever grateful to it and everyone involved with it. Some of my best memories are of recording it: a Casio overdub with Wayne Connolly at 2am as a Sydney night dropped frangipanis on the pavement; hearing Shadowland mixed, roughly, for the first time; stepping out into morning rush hour after the last mixing session. When I listen to it now, it doesn’t sound as sad as I expect it to. More restless and angry and fervent. Which is a good thing. It sounds younger than I remember.”

The albums that stick with us are the ones that provide the soundtrack to important periods in our lives, and still stand up long after those times pass. It was clear from that January night in Sydney that Skeleton Jar is still special to a lot of people. Toby, Danny, Pat and Cam can’t wait to do it all again.

Youth Group play Skeleton Jar
(All shows 18+)

Tickets on sale now

For full tour information, click here

Fri 26 Jun
Newtown Social Club
Sydney, NSW

Fri 03 Jul
Northcote Social Club
Melbourne, VIC

Sat 04 Jul
Black Bear Lodge
Brisbane, QLD