I can tell you their whole fantastic career in a whole bunch of paragraphs (see I've read Lights, Guitars, Action) but I prefer for them to tell the tale. Let's talk about The Early Hours.

"4 easy steps to form a garage band"

1. Find some friends who play instruments

2. Narrow it down to those with similar taste in music

3. Search out a room where you can make lots of noise

4. Make lots of noise.

"Unquote"

1. When, where, why?

Well we stared making a noise of some description in 1995 sometime. It was Kirk, me and Matt first of all. Then we got Sean and he's still with us. We're all from Perth so it's where we formed the band.

Why form a band. I guess I like the sound of 3 guitars all screaming at once more than just one. Plus I'd always wanted to release an album on vinyl, so we figured we better do it soon before it disappears for good.

2. Europe before Melbourne and Sydney! How'd that come about?

It was just a case of the Twang! Label releasing our album in Germany and wanting us to come over and tour. When we got back we'd played more shows in Europe than Australia.

3. Did you get to play with any cool bands overseas? Do tell!

Yeah. Los Flecazos, The Blue Tones, The Mystreated, 99^th Floor, The Sick Rose, Something Weird, The Cheeks, The Diaboliks.

4. My first encounter with The Early Hours was on a record list for the 7" single "I'm Drained" on Screaming Apple. The description was WA Power Pop in Stems, DM3 vein. How do you feel about the comparisons?

Yeah I can see where the comparisons come from but I think its more to do with bowl haircuts, winkle pickers and Perth, than actually sounding like them.

5. Let's chat about the releases. We have:

Tell everyone about availability and so on.

Well Evolution is available pretty much everywhere in Australia, CD or vinyl. Greatest Hits Vol 1 is on vinyl import. I'm Drained vinyl import or Triple J version on Unearthed Vol?. She's Where it's At CD single.

6. How is Evolution doing or done?

Yeah Evolution had done really well. It's fast approaching double platinum. Only a couple of hundred thousand records left to sell and we're there.

7. Is there a new record on the way or being worked on as we speak?

We've written the songs for a new EP, we'll record it when we get back from Europe so it should be out early in 99.

8. Love the mag "Lights, Guitar, Action" so mod. How did that come about? Is there an Issue 2 out soon? (including photos stories of your overseas and interstate adventure adventures hey!!!)

We originally put it together to send to Europe, but it ended up going everywhere. We're working on Issue 2 at the moment. Sean got tangled up in some seedy explicit photo shoot not long ago, so we wanna do an X-rated edition, but he's put the photos under lock and key, so it might take some persuasion.

9. I hear Sydney's been good to you. Are you going back and perhaps coming down to Melbourne too in the near future?

We've been to Sydney twice now and its been really cool, had some cool shows, had some fucked shows. Hung out with The Crusaders, The Apes and The Thurston Howlers. We're coming to Melbourne within the month and playing with The Thurston Howlers, and then on to Sydney, then Europe.

10. I heard that you guys did guest spots on the upcoming Thurston Howlers CD. Performance or just party?

That was on our last day in Sydney. We were handed bottles of beer on the way into the studio, told to stand in the corner, kick this old crate of empty bottles, drink and yell "Beer Run". It was a cutting edge technical performance.

Yeah we created some real magic in the studio that day.

A chat with Chet in '98 prior to them storming Melb and blowing us all away.

Write to THE EARLY HOURS

13 Narran Place Greenmount Perth Australia 6056