A guide to recording your debut album with The Belligerents

Brisbane five-piece The Belligerents are about to wrap up their current single tour with the final show hitting The Foundry in Brisbane, and after that it's lock down time for the group to finally release their debut LP, some six years in the making. To mark the occassion, and seen as the guys clearly give a crap about putting out something that's quality, we asked for some tips on how to go about unleashing that all-important debut album.

1. Wait until you’ve got enough good songs:

Just because you’ve written a heap of songs doesn’t mean that they’re going to make a good record. You only get one shot at your debut album, so make sure that all of the songs you're about to record are absolute crackers. Half-baked debut records are the pits, so take your time with it (it took us six years before we even considered making an album). Ya feel?

2. Make sure everybody is on the same page:

Nothing worse than being in the studio and not knowing or disagreeing about the direction you want to take with the record. If everybody is on the same page it will make the record much better and will de-stress everybody a heap. If everybody is constantly veto-ing everything there won't be any room for you to try out new things or get creative.

3. Take someone with you that knows how to make cocktails:

Drinking loads of beer gets kind of old after a week, take someone along that can spice things up with a tasty Mojito or a cheeky Bloody Mary.

4. Record on an island:

Honestly though it’s heaps of fun, 10/10 would do it again. Preferably a tropical island with beach access.

5. Take sunscreen:

The island that you’re going to be recording the album on is going to be really hot in summer so you’ll want to make sure that you take heaps of sunscreen otherwise you might end up getting a gnarly sunburn.

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