It’s always great to get addicted to a new bands album/EP. For the past couple of months Little Athletics’ ‘Autumn Giants EP’ has been getting a massive workout on my stereo. The Melbourne-based trio is made up by Ali Edmonds (vocals and guitar), Megan Sheehy (backing vocals/guitar/baritone/bass) and Brad Rusbridge (drums). I recently spoke to Meg to find out all there is to know about Little Athletics.
I was a little surprised to discover how they exactly got together, ‘We have been playing together since mid-2005. We found each other on an internet dating site and the name Little Athletics was Brad’s email login name – we just used it so we wouldn’t have to get a new email address. It has stuck.’
Meg describes the band’s sound as ‘sonic waves of mutilation’ and have shared the stage with bands such as Screamfeeder and Children Collide. I just had to know what it was like to perform with bands like this ‘Yeah, it was good. It was at Pony, there was a fair few people, it was a while ago now so we can’t really remember. It is always good to play with interstate bands like Screamfeeder, but some of our favorite gigs have been with local Melbourne bands. We recently played a gig with Bob Log III at Ruby’s in Belgrave – that was good. He taught us how to eat deep fried cheese and bacon fritter sandwich things. We have photographic evidence.’
So what is Little Athletics’ career highlight so far? ‘Our launch of Autumn Giants at the Old Bar was heaps of fun—it is our favorite venue in Melbourne. Lots of good people there, the other bands who played, Sons of the Sun and the Bakelite Age, were unreal; we all got drunk (Brad didn’t). There was a free vege BBQ and Meg made a salad. Good times. We don’t ask for any more than that. Someone was dancing with a chair on their head.’
With talk turned to the Autumn Giants EP, I just had to ask Meg to tell us a little about it. ‘It has six songs. It has an owl on the front cover – it’s not a cat as some people might think. It’s rock n roll done the only way we know how. We have put it out independently and you can buy it through our MySpace page and from selected record stores.’
You worked with Loki Lockwood during the recording, what was that like? ‘Recording with Loki was really good. We recorded seven tracks in one day – well, it was really 20 hours non-stop of recording everything, all of the guitars, drums, vocals etc. in one session. By the end of it we were all about to vomit on each other. It was great. Then we all went in for another 16 hour session of mixing a couple of weeks later. It was recorded live to tape and Loki somehow managed to capture that vicious intensity even after hours and hours of squalling guitars and pounding drums.’
So what can fans expect to hear on the EP? ‘A journey of three musicians over the last three years narrowed to six songs on CD. Everyone seems to like something different about it, from the delayed intro of dinosaur bones, to the dual vocals on one wasp to the pounding outro of noughts and crosses, each to their own we reckon.’
If you need any more info on Little Athletics or wish to purchase their EP check out www.myspace.com/littleathletics.