Thy Art Is Murder
Thy Arts Is Murder are in for a massive year after taking the world by storm in 2013. Touring the world, an album featuring in the ARIA chart and playing Soundwave 2014 are just a few of the accolades so far. Flying the Australian flag proudly at Soundwave 2014 CJ McMahon talks about what all this means for Thy Art Is Murder.
How massive is 2014 shaping up to be after a very successful 2013?
Yeah man we were stoked with 2013 which has been the biggest year so far for the band’s development, growth and touring. 2014 is already shaping up to be bigger and better than last year. We’ve got a lot of flights overseas to catch, a lot of big tours and festivals to play so we’re stoked.
Breaking in to the ARIA charts is a huge achievement in itself isn’t it?
It’s mind blowing but it wasn’t really a big deal for us. It blew our minds at first I guess but for our family and friends to see that kind of recognition was the biggest for them to see more so now they can see that we are a world class band in our own country and overseas. It was cool to see that but at the same time we don’t care too much about it as its more about bullshit music trying to beat bullshit music the majority of the time. At the end of the day you could take the winners from the ARIA charts over the last twenty years and listen to the same tracks that have the same tempo, same melody, same shit and it’s just a formula to write pop bullshit music.
Receiving all the accolades and attention must make the sacrifice well worthwhile?
Definitely, I’m a sucker for memorabilia. I’ve got a wardrobe full of magazines, posters, flyers, nominations, photos and fan presents and all this sort of shit. We don’t make any money individually at the moment but the band snowballs its own money to keep us touring and playing shows for the fans and writing material. Each month that rolled past in 2013 exceeded any expectation I ever had of the band. It has been an honour to do what I do for myself, my band and my fans and we’re doing super well. All we can do is try our best and push it super far and already we’ve pushed it further than we ever thought we would achieved. It’s a dream come true!
Hopefully you can get rid of part time jobs and scrapping by.
That’s it, I wish I had a job to work in between tours but we tour that much these days that there’s no time to work. There’s no time to earn money and if I didn’t have my partner and father in law helping get by with everyday living and stuff, my parents help me with my car rego… that’s how bad it is, I’m a thirty year old man who doesn’t earn any money but is living the dream. It is very difficult now and if I was a twenty three year old running around the world it would be a little easier to deal with because I would younger. It is hard coming back to earth with no money and you can’t do anything like take your girlfriend out to dinner being broke. I’m living a dream and I’m loving every aspect of doing what I’m doing.
You never know the limos and helicopters could be just around the corner.
Ha! I promised my father in law that when we make it big I’ll buy him a mansion in Argentina and one in Australia. All I want is more tattoos, children and a fishing boat. I’m pretty easy fixed!
It must be a real feather in the cap to be flying the Australia flag high at Soundwave 2014?
I’m stoked that we’re playing Soundwave finally and there’s only four or five that I can pick out that are Aussie bands. Flying the flag for Aussies in our own country and mixing it with some of the world’s best on home turf is awesome. We’re very competitive and we’ll be going out to make sure each show is even better and try and out do any band that we play with. We want to be the world’s best band and we want to make everyone know that as we put ourselves up there. Each Soundwave show we’ll be trying to make unforgettable.
Is it hard to keep a lid on the excitement as Soundwave gets closer?
Not really, we’re pretty relaxed about everything. We played one hundred and forty nine shows around the world last year and that’s all we do now. The band is a world class touring band and we’ve got four and a half weeks worth of shows in Europe then the UK and Russia. We do have stuff on before Soundwave and the most important thing for me and my is that we concentrate on destroying Europe, Russia and the UK before we worry about Soundwave.
Thy Art Is Murder are currently wrapping their European tour in the UK, then you can catch them at Soundwave right around the country.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thyartismurder
Whether it is rummaging through vinyl at record stores such as Clarity and Title finding hidden gems to scouring the internet to find that album by the next big thing or chasing bands to get that elusive autograph and photo his passion is music all the way.
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