Get to know Adelaide trio Colour Machine and their driving new single, Laughing Last

Colour Machine are an Adelaide-based three-piece with a penchant for hard-rocking tunes that refuse to be pigeonholed into any particular genre. Currently marching towards the release of their third EP Strengthen My Hands (due October 19), they've just unleashed energetic new single Laughing Last, which starts out deceptively mellow before a hard-and-fast few minutes of soaring rock'n'roll.

Ahead of some big end of year plans, we hit 'em up to find out a little more:

Tell us about yourselves?

We’re an alternative rock trio from Adelaide consisting of myself (Anthony Donato) on drums/lead vocals, Luke Anderson on bass/samples/vocals and Tom Burton on guitar/vocals.

What kinda tunes we talkin’?

Think if The Strokes fell in love with Tame Impala but was secretly having an affair with Wolfmother. Also The White Stripes are there for some reason. In all seriousness, there’s a pretty wide variety of tunes that we play, with the EP (coming soon!) showcasing that pretty handily - the singles that are out at the moment explore hip hop and funk, and the rest of the EP is just as wacky. We love a bit of everything!

Production/writing process:

Usually one of us will come up with a demo, or a riff or some chords and we’ll sit down and flesh out the song - this is pretty much exactly how Maverick came along. I wrote the bassline and basic beat and then we smashed out the rest of the song in one day. The process is definitely not set in stone though. Sometimes I’ll write whole songs and then as a band we’ll pick it to pieces in practice and it becomes something else entirely - an example of that is Doormat off of our EP 2, which came out last year. It’s a really fluid and fun way to write. Production in the studio and the like is handled by the band and our good friend Jarred Nettle, who is the voice of reason when our ideas get a bit too ridiculous and unpalatable.

Can you tell us about your new single, Laughing Last?

Laughing Last is a track that was very much created from a place of introspection and self-evaluation - at the time of writing I was trying to make sense of a lot of things that were happening in my relationships, in faith and in basically every aspect of my life. The lyrics talk about what it is to have solid integrity, rather than just trying to outwardly express kindness when in reality, “my head is up my ass”.

It was a difficult one to write lyrically, and I went through quite a few versions before I settled on a final set of words. Musically, the song was a collaborative effort between myself, Tom and our previous bass player Lewis Trainor who was a big part of the writing process. It pumps all the way through with some brief respites - we tried to take the listener on a bit of a journey. Hopefully that comes across!

What’s the rest of the year have in store?

Lots of things happening in the Colour Machine world before 2018 reaches its end...the Laughing Last video will be out shortly, then our EP soon after. Beyond that, we’ve got some exciting news regarding shows...big guests, big dates, big sounds, big videos. Watch this space!

Where can we hear more of your music?

All of our music is on Spotify, YouTube, Website, iTunes, Unearthed, Google Play, Bandcamp...all the places you usually find your music. Links below!

Follow Colour Machine: FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / TWITTER