Press:

REVIEWS:

BEAT MAGAZINE (Melbourne)

Starting off your debut disc with a cheating tune, replete with murder climax when the adulterous narrator takes a bullet in the chest from his widow, is smart marketing. It worked for a plethora of outlaws such as former convict country stars David Allan Coe and the late Johnny Paycheck. But one bullet doesn't make an armoury, although Danny Dill-Marijohn Wilkin tune Long Black Veil tests that theory.

So what else do we have here from a Melbourne quartet, augmented by famed Texan lap steel player Tommy Detamore, fiddler Michael McClintock, producer Jonathan Burnside on mandolin-guitar and upright bassist Steve Hadley? Well, plenty actually. Lead singer and songwriter Lachlan Bryan ensures his narratives are not buried in the drums and guitar grunge of so many peers.

It would appear he aspires to the stone country college of writers who massage their message without strangling it in tunes such as Jack The Blacksmith - "you burned an effigy and set my soul alight" and ruptured romance of Nothing.

Bryan also masters the art of personalising love songs in the self-deprecation of Sweet Teresa and the surrender to Sue-Ellen, reminiscent of Charlie Robinson.

"I once thought I'd have lots of lovers lining up to get me outta here/ but looks like you're the only one I got/ and that's not bad because you're the best I've ever had." The object of the narrator's affections is trapped in a wheelchair - Robinson's ex-wife Emily was in the Dixie Chicks when he wrote You're Not The Best (But You're The Best I Can Do).

It's not all fear and vittles - the male in Bare Bones is a carnal carnivore bursting the moat of a bucolic belle's boudoir. But in Streets Of My Hometown two country staples - mama and Jesus - are the crutch for a young man trying to escape his tortured past.

The Wildes don't pillage the positive love song tree or emit faux political apologies in regret free If I've Done You Wrong and Lothario fuelled Loverman. They soar in bluesy Slap Back Mary - one of few country songs in recent times about a serial killer who buries her victims on site and takes secrets to the grave in noose standard time. It's fitting the bleak Broken Blossoms is the finale of a disc that blooms on repeating playing.

Deft use of banjo, mandolin, lap steel and dobro by Bryan, drummer Mat Duniam and guitarist Andrew Wrigglesworth give this country soul. Well worth the trip.

David Dawson

INPRESS MAGAZINE (Melbourne)

Album Review - The Wildes - Ballad of a Young Married Man

This is a surprising one – seemingly coming out of nowhere, local four-piece, The Wildes, having only been together as a ‘proper band’ for a year or so, have hit the ground running, rolling, bouncing and twisting, releasing a debut worthy of some serious praise.  This is country music, but as their presser mentions, this is a notion often passed by and dismissed, but I urge you, don’t make that mistake with Ballad Of A Young Married Man, for this isn’t ‘we’ve got both kinds of music here, country and western’ country music, this is thinking man’s, story telling country music, the kind that seeps into your bones and stays there, making your feet tap hours after you’ve finished listening.

Case in point, second track, Jack The Blacksmith, a fuzzed out scorcher of a track, as jagged and brutal as it is smooth running and made of silk.  Vocalist, Lachlan Bryan’s delivery sets the scene – it sounds as if he’s almost not trying, but is doing it so effortlessly it just cuts to the core, while behind him, Andrew Wrigglesworth is slicing and dicing on the ol’ six-string, and you’d better believe this is the real deal.  Elsewhere on Ballad…, Sweet Teresa runs as sweet as honey, Bare Bones brings a smile and a dance and If I’ve Done You Wrong… soars with the eagles, showing The Wildes are as capable of rocking your socks off as they are at soothing your savage breast.

Produced by ARIA Award winning producer, Jonathan Burnside, Ballad Of A Young Married Man is a winner to be sure, and the fact (as Bryan mentioned to me in an interview late last year) that none of the band are young married men, well, that just lays testament to their story telling techniques, as this is where the record is at it’s best – in the true folk tradition (and country as well), it’s all about the story telling, and backed with music like this, The Wildes are destined to be telling stories for some time to come.

Sam Fell

TWANG NATION (USA)

Respected alt-country 'zine Twang Nation got an early copy of our new record... and they seem to approve...

Album Review - The Wildes - Ballad of a Young Married Man

Ever since seeing the darkly striking Australian western The Proposition I've been fascinated with the similarities between the Land Down Under and the American South and West of the nineteenth century, both good (confronting a wild frontier to achieve independence and establish a society) and bad (attacking and displacing an indigenous people.) Now due to The Wildes, an Americana/alt.country band from Victoria, Australia, I am now just as fascinated with roots music as interpreted in the land of Oz.

Some of the cuts on Ballad of a Young Married Man take an old-testament page from fellow countryman Nick Cave (and script writer for the aforementioned movie The Proposition). The title song, "Jack the Blacksmith," "Nothing" and the tribal drum-beat brooder "Slap-Back Mary" could have all come from Cave if was inclined to pen country-hued songs.

The chugging "Streets of My Hometown" carries the DNA of Steve Earle's Hometown Blues and the sweetly melancholic "Sue-Ellen”" sounds like a lost Waterboys cut. "If I've Done You Wrong" is a organ backed barroom weeper that basks in its unrepentant spirit and the wonderfully reflective "Loverman" is a rustic beauty. The bonus track Broken Blossoms is a piano and banjo bawler that I imagine could have been penned by that trash can troubadour Tom Waits. The Wildes cover a wide expanse of Americana dirt roads and wear their influences proudly on their sleeves, but their interpretation on these styles are uniquely their own.

4 Stars.

MEDIA SEARCH (Online)

The Wildes may have won over a lot of fans at Tamworth this year but they will pale into insignificance with the avalanche of fans that their debut album, ‘Ballad Of A Young Married Man’ will attract. Not is this a good album…this is a great album…in fact one of the best albums of the year. There is so much to love about this album that goes far and above what you would normally expect from a country album. There is something Nick Cave-esque about this gem with tracks like ‘Ballad Of A Young Married Man’, ‘Nothing’ and ‘Slap-Back Mary’ sounding like something that deserves to be on The Bad Seeds’ playing list. In fact ‘Nothing’ and ‘Slap-Back Mary’ are so good, they have to be among some of the best to be released this year. Traditional country lovers will enjoy ‘Sweet Teresa’ and ‘Bare Bones’ while fans of great songwriting will simply want to listen to ‘Streets Of My Home Town’ and ‘Sue-Ellen’ over and over. Whether The Wildes are calling upon the classic country sound of ‘If I’ve Done Wrong’ or creating their own smooth sound (like on ‘Loverman’) they are constantly showing what terrific skills they posses and why they deserve to be mentioned amongst Australia’s musical elite. One of the albums of the year, ‘Ballad Of A Young Married Man’ is one of those albums you can simply listen to over and over.

Dave Griffiths

RAVE MAGAZINE (Brisbane)

An Aussie take on Americana from the wilds of Melbourne

The adultery and murder theme of the title track, which opens this debut from The Wildes, establishes straight away the genre that this Victorian outfit relishes – storytelling, rootsy country and folk music with links to the good, and not-so-good, old times. Along the way, you get whiffs of dust-bowl tunes, Johnny Cash-style hard yarns, some Hank Williams-ish yearning and, shifting gear a little, stuff that has an alt-country leaning to it, even as it continues to look over its shoulder. You get all that in a variety of rustic shades here, from the twangy slide guitar of Nothing, the back porch stroll of Sweet Teresa (but which is still big enough to fit in a piano), and the fiddle fest of Bare Bones to the Band-like organ in If I’ve Done You Wrong, a pinch of rural Dylan in Loverman and even a touch of earlier Celtic roots in Sue-Ellen (a bit like an outback Waterboys). For all that, there’s still a distinctly earthy Australian feel to this that separates from its slicker cousins in both Tamworth and Nashville – and that’s no bad thing at all.

Bill Holdsworth

CAPITAL NEWS - COUNTRY MUSIC (National)

THE WILDES come out of Melbourne and I firmly believe that the brand of country coming out of that city is sometimes closer to the real thing than most of what we get to hear otherwise, so this release is a refreshing addition to that creature we call “Australian country music.” Lead singer and songwriter Lachlan Bryan has the talent and the creative nous to make something of this band and the music is not only exciting, it is melodically catching and the lyrics are never overly saccharine. Highlights include the title track, Bare Bones, Sue-Ellen, Slap-back Mary and If I’ve Done You Wrong. Musically the band is tight and production is restrained enough to allow Lachlan full flight vocally and it works a treat. There is an honesty here that demands attention and hopefully The Wildes will break through and we will hear much more from them in the future. This is brash, exciting and country at its best.

Jon Wolfe

CAPITAL NEWS - COUNTRY MUSIC (National)

The Brashest Real Deal

THE WILDES are a four piece outfit from Melbourne who have only been together for a year, but there is an earthiness and an inherent brashness that spells "real deal".

The first thing you have to understand about these guys is that there isn’t anyone called Wilde in the band, and even though main vocalist and guitarist, Lachlan Bryan, is a big Oscar Wilde fan, that’s not where the name comes from.

"Everyone thinks that it comes from Oscar," Lachlan said, "but there was a family called the Wildes Of Wyoming that were massacred by Indians and I read the story and I kinda liked the connotation with wilderness and it works with the rugged performance style that we play."

The other members of the band are Mat Duniam (drums, percussion, mandolin and backing vocals), Shaun Ryan (bass and backing vocals) and Andrew Wrigglesworth (electric guitars, lap steel, Dobro and backing vocals).

ABC Radio’s Saturday Night Country host JOHN NUTTING has said that he thought the The Wildes were one of the most refreshing bands to come onto the Australian country music scene in a long time.

"That’s great for a band that plays what you’d call alternative country, which I sometimes think is closer to old school country," Lachlan said.

"We make no claim to be bluegrass players but I think alt country is aligned to bluegrass and old time country. I guess we’re not as keen on the kind of ultra polished, kinda Nashville style of country."
Lachlan is the songwriter for the band and he readily acknowledges his influences and the same influences underscore the sound of the band.

"Yeah, people like HANK WILLIAMS, the outlaw country artists like WILLIE NELSON, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, WAYLON JENNINGS, and JOHNNY CASH seems to have an influence on anyone who comes into Town and country music," he said. "And modern blokes like WILCO, RYAN ADAMS, and GRAM PARSONS.

"In fact to sound like some of that Gram Parsons stuff would be the ultimate for me!"

The Wildes have already garnered a loyal following in Melbourne and Sydney and with their first appearances in Tamworth during last month’s Country Music Festival - and the release of their debut album, Ballad Of A Young Married Man - they are gathering more fans to their kind of country.

They are also picking up rave reviews from around the world.
Twang Nation in the US has written that "The Wildes cover a wide expanse of American dirt roads and wear their influences proudly on their sleeves, but their interpretation on these styles are uniquely their own" and "[They] carry the DNA of STEVE EARLE, THE WATERBOYS …TOM WAITS." Drum Media in Sydney said "…music to stroke your spine and shake your shoulders."

The band used their first trip to check out the Tamworth Festival with plans to return next year and also used the occasion to launch the new album.

Lachlan says that a lot of friends have been to Tamworth before but nobody really described it right.

"It feels almost like everything is thrown in together," he said. "There’s only just emerging for us now an order of where to go to expect good music. The main street is just crazy – I mean I was walking down the main street thinking ‘this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!"

When you talk to Lachlan you hear someone with a lilting, gentle and expressive voice but listen to the album and there emerges a deeper, sometimes gruff, sometimes almost angry voice that somehow takes hold of your ears and holds your head in the perfect place to enjoy some of the best music that has made it’s way to both Tamworth and onto disk.

The Wildes are indeed "refreshing" as John Nutting put it, and their mixture of traditional basics, emotive and catchy songs and brash but committed musicianship will see this band from Melbourne break through some barriers and hopefully smash them to smithereens and we will all come to know them and their music in a way that only real country music fans can understand.

You see, these guys are the real deal – and I ain’t just whistlin' 'Dixie'!

Jon Wolfe, Capital News

INPRESS MAGAZINE (Melbourne)

The Wildes are a musical diamond in the rough

It’s a jungle out there folks, a steaming hotbox of madness where only the fittest, and sometimes the fattest, survive. It’s a wilderness, and sometimes a wasteland, a place where bands can go to die, or where they can wander for years without finding what they’re looking for and where only a few are able to make it to the top of the heap and leave that harsh environment behind them. This has it’s disadvantages, which I don’t need to list, but also it’s advantages, which I’ll happily list. Actually, I’ll only list one – the bonus of there being so much competition on our music scene is that amongst the shit and the rubbish and the broken dreams and the posers and wankers, there’s gold in them thar musical hills, and I found some. The Wildes. A relatively new band in the grand scheme of things, but a band who are channelling a vibe from long ago and making it relevant for the now. The churn and grind of their country singed rock’n’roll is the ointment that those aforementioned wandering bands need to apply to their weeping sores so’s they can get some respite from the nothingness.

Frontman of The Wildes Lachlan Bryan provides an example of the dangers of the scene, albeit a danger not really associated with music, as when he puts in the call to this scribe he’s cheating death – running across the top end of King Street in North Melbourne, cars barely missing him, death only a heartbeat away. “Hang on, I’ll just get across this road so there’s not so much traffic noise” he tells me. Over the next five seconds I fully expect to hear squealing tyres and the sound of metal on flesh, but Bryan comes back on the line and casually apologise for ringing a bit late as he was in a meeting with the band’s new label, Black Market Music. “Yeah, we’ve been with them for about three weeks now” Bryan pants, a sign that things are already happening for The Wildes. And in fact, The Wildes are an interesting proposition in the sense that their debut record, the soon to be released Ballad of a Young Married Man, began production before the band actually formed. The more Rove-like among you will probably be saying something along the lines of ‘What the?’ while the more intelligent will be sitting, hands folded in your laps waiting for Bryan to explain.

“We only came together as a ‘real band’, I suppose, early this year, about April or May, and yeah, we actually did start recording before that – we were faceless and nameless, we just had the songs” Bryan explains about the quartet (sometimes a quintet) who had played in other bands before they were brought together by their love of country rock’n’roll earlier this year. “And so once we’d started to record these songs and felt enthusiastic about them, we thought we’d go up and play them live and have some fun”. I remark that it can’t be often that an album is conceived before the band that records it. “Yeah, I guess it’s a rare situation where we knew each other, we all knew we had similar tastes, we were all committed to the idea of recording, and it happened kinda naturally, it feels good anyway,” Bryan concurs.

From what I’ve heard of the record (the name of which isn’t indicative of any of the band members: “No, none of us are young married men,” laughs Bryan), The Wildes are a band set to make a bit of a mark. They’ve already got ten shows lined up at january’s Tamworth Country Music Festival, where they’ll be launching the record, and you can bet this fledgling group with a record up its sleeve is gonna be around for a while, no matter how wild it gets out there.

Sam Fell, Inpress

WWW.THEDWARF.COM.AU

The Wildes want to tell you a story

You may know the name The Wildes, but it's probably best to get aquainted now, before they get all popular and you have to say indie-wank like "I liked them before they were famous". The Wildes, much like their namesake, are rambling storytellers, keen to evoke a sense of spirit and mateship.

But what is it about a story that makes it worth telling?
"What is it about a question that makes it worth asking?" replies Lachlan. "Curiosity. It's worth telling a story to find out what happens at the end"

The exact songwriting process of their sea shanties and murder ballads, of their tall stories and fairy tales, is a simple one:
"Hear new song in head. Record song so as not to forget it" Lach laughs.

"[The Melbourne music scene] lacks a strong identity, which is a good and a bad thing. So I suppose I love and hate this fact. Actually, like and dislike would be more appropriate words" Lach replies, when asked of the highs-and-lows of being a Melbourne muso (haven't we all heard stories?)

You guys are launching your new single, Jack The Blacksmith, soon. What do you want people to get out of your shows?
"We give people a good time and they get out their wallets" Lach states dryly.

What's on the horizon for The Wildes?

"We tour in January, and then we release the album - Ballad of a Young Married Man - in February. After that we head inland, north and west. We'll have another record ready to go by the end of the year at the latest!"

Today, Melbourne. Tomorrow - THE WORLD.

Audrey Millman, www.thedwarf.com.au

DRUM MEDIA (Sydney)

Here's what Sydney Mag Drum Media had to say about the 'gloom and doom' tracks we sent them...

The Wildes
Jack The Blacksmith

Heavy songs about death, despair and general human depravity are the best of the country music genre. It was simplified to sell to the modern music audience, but bands like The Wildes are keeping it alive. Jack The Blacksmith is a song about an adulterous young man shot down by his wife: the mood and and subject matter evoke Nick Cave's Murder Ballads. With sand in its boots and blood on its hands, this music strokes your spine and shakes your shoulders. B-side Slap Back Mary shudders with anger. This is thrilling, terrifying stuff.

Liam Casey, Drum Media

BEAT MAGAZINE (Melbourne)

30 seconds with Lachlan Bryan from The Wildes.

What’s the first album you ever bought and where you bought it from?

I can’t remember the album but it was probably from Sanity in Frankston, or Leading Edge in Echuca. But the first album that ever really meant something to me was Christmas at Home with John Denver and the Muppets - which actually belongs to my Mum. I was probably five when I first heard it – and she would’ve had it for quite few years already. Of course since then I’ve been through Neil Young and Tom Waits and Gram Parsons and Leonard Cohen and all the rest of it – and I adore those guys – but honestly, as far as song-writing goes and arrangements too, the Muppets record really stands up. If I owned an iPod I would queue up that album alongside Bone Machine and Trout Mask Replica and have no hesitation in shuffling between the three.

For any press enquiries contact:
SHOW OFF SERVICES (SOS)
Ashley Sambrooks (Publicist)
Ph: 0404 596 299
E: ash@showoffrecordings.com