Having toured the country extensively in the past year and with many more tour dates ahead, Calling All Cars is forging a significant path through the Australian rock scene. Their debut album Hold, Hold, Fire has become a popular staple among those on the alternative music scene and marks the group’s first effort to put together an extended play record. Calling All Cars also has a swag of noted artists under their belts who they’ve played supports for along the way including the likes of Gyroscope, Shihad, Trial Kennedy, The Hot Lies, Birds Of Tokyo and most recently The Getaway Plan. Coming up soon the boys will be heading around the east coast with The Butterfly Effect for a mammoth tour. On The Barrier caught up with vocalist Haydn Ing to discuss the making of their debut album and the heat out on the open touring road.
So a debut album, is it nervewracking waiting for the response?
A little bit. It’s more exciting really. We’re pretty proud of what we’ve done and we’re really happy with the end result.

Do you find touring to give you a pretty good gauge for what tracks to include on the album?
Yeah, like we wrote a whole bunch of songs. Then we were pretty much touring throughout the whole year so we got to see what works best. Even songs we weren’t totally happy with, we had time while touring to work the songs into what works best.

So did you actively seek out Tom Larkin to produce the record or was that just a lucky coincidence?
We kind of had an ongoing relationship with him for a few years back. We worked out this deal with him, so he’s now managing us. He did our first couple of EPs and we were really happy with how they came out. I don’t think we’d be where we are without him.

Whats your favourite song on the album?
Uhh hard question! I guess maybe Hold, Hold, Fire - the title track obviously - it’s the last song we wrote for album. It’s kind of where I feel band is heading, well we seem to be going in that direction and we’re happy with that direction. We’ve got like thirty songs already. The song is kind of about… hold, hold, fire *laughs* - sometimes we only have one shot at things and we’ve got to choose the right moment to pull the trigger.

Who does it target do you think?
I wrote it about the music industry. Like I guess for other bands, cuz you’ve got to choose when to use your only bullet really when you get into music.

Does the album itself tell a story?
With it being a debut album and because we’ve had basically our entire life to write it, it’s somewhat of a collaboration of all of our different life experiences that have hopefully become a cohesive album. I find it a lot easier writing about stuff I know  really.

Is there anything on there that we might no pick up on? Mistakes or funny things that happened during recording?
I hope not! Hopefully there are no mistakes because we were pretty detailed with our recording. There are a few hidden messages and lyrics though.

Is there anything you wish you had’ve done on the album but didn’t?
Because we’ve had so much time to spend on this one, it turned out exactly how I pictured it would to begin with. Next up we’ll be writing a lot more.

Were there any songs that didn’t make the cut?
Yeah maybe a couple of songs were finished but didn’t make onto album.


What’ve you got planned for your three perth shows?
We just want to make it as exciting as possible. Last time we were doing a headline tour with After The Fall so it’ll be good to be on our own this time.

Ok some quick questions:

If the band could have a mascot what would it be?
Something with energy.


Ever thought about taking to the stage in costume?
We have thought about it. We thought we’d kind of wait a bit. It is a possibility but we’ll have to choose the right moment.


Ok now, most awkward moment on stage?
Nothing huge just I jump all over place when I’m on stage and there have been a couple of times when I’ve miscalculated landings or landed in the drum kit.

Worst encounter with a fan?
Umm we’ve got a few like crazy fans that won’t leave us alone. Normally people just buy our record at the end of the day so we’ve got no crazy stories just yet. Once James got into a fight with someone. This guy came up and punched James because he was kissing some girl that ended up being the guy’s girlfriend.

If you could have a theme song for your life, what would it be?
Back in Black by ACDC.


If you could do a collaboration with any band, which one would it be?
I think we’re all mass fans of Queens of the Stoneage.


So what’s happening next? A new album?
Yeah I’ve already been writing for it. But yeah as far as everything else goes we’ve got nonstop touring and writing. We’re doing and thing with Grinspooon and after that we’ve got ACDC .

Now that’s all I needed to ask you, is there anything you’d like to add or say to your fans?
Not really that’s all I’ve got to say really.

Calling All Cars’ debut album Hold, Hold, Fire is available in stores now.

By Nikkita Dixon