Meet The Hot Springs outta Melbourne, who just dropped a fantastic self-titled debut EP

The Hot Springs are a Melbourne-based five-piece with an incredibly alluring blend of sounds that we found pretty damn irresistible to be honest. Featuring a gothic blend of romantic poetry, country, garage and alt-folk sounds on their debut self-titled EP, it's captivating from start to finish. Recorded with Andy White at The Growlery, the devil is in the details, and the little sax flourishes, swaggering drums, gentle vocal work and gentle but powerful guitar work all combine for a pretty special, and unique, Australian release.

You can take a listen below while you get to know 'em a little better, and catch 'em live this Thursday 28 June when they launch it at The Gasometer in Melbourne.

Tell us about yourselves?

We’re a five-piece alt-rock/country band with Renn Picard on sax, Georgia Knight on guitar and vox, Louis Majiwa on bass, Cassie Kumaschow on drums, Adam Heath on guitar. Adam and I (Georgia) started writing for a folky idea we had in 2016. I came from playing at trad folk sessions, Adam used to play bass with Louis and Renn came into the band through meeting at gigs. Then in 2016 we put a personals ad out as a joke looking for a drummer. It said something like - athletic band seeks drummer for good times and gigs etc - and we met Cass in a garage in Brunswick one afternoon. It was good straight off the bat.

What kinda tunes we talkin’?

We’ve been saying gothic country or alt-country, but there’s a pop/rock flavour in the songs too. Alt-rock sits easiest.

Production/writing process:

It’s been different with each tune. Adam does a lot of work in the hit factory aka the garage. I’m the opposite, with stuff on bits of paper everywhere and then onto acoustic [guitar]. This first EP is a collage of the first sounds of the band. Cassie brings a real smokey flavour with her playing style and musical tastes, and Louis and Renn are both songwriters which gives form to the the songs when we jam them.

Can you tell us about your new self-titled EP?

I think most first EPs are an entry point. We were lucky to have Andy White produce the EP, he knows the band really well so was able to direct things and understood what we wanted to try. We recorded up at Andy’s studio in Ferntree Gully and one day noticed this gorgeous double bass from I think the 18th century he’s got in the corner which features on Winterbell. There’s also a dusty old Fender Vibrolux from the 70s which Adam used on all the songs. Much to my dismay there’s no jam blocks on the EP.

Any shows coming up?

We’re launching the EP at The Gaso on Thursday the 28th with support from Eaglemont (& band) and Jackson Phelan (RAThammock!).

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

We’ve got some regional dates planned in July as part of the release; Bendigo, Geelong and at The Bridge Hotel in Castlemaine so far. Then hopefully playing some festivals in Spring/Summer and on to plotting the next round of recording.

Where can we hear more of your music?

The EP is available on the usual platforms; Spotify, Bandcamp, Soundcloud... We’re also releasing it through the label we run out of the garage called Hangout, so it’ll be available on the WEBSITE too. There’ll be CDs and a very limited run of cassettes; Adam’s dad has an old Nakamishi tape deck from the 70s and the plan is to run a few off. I love that stuff - handmade merch, CDs and tapes, they're like music artifacts. We’ll be putting a few extra tracks from the garage on there which aren’t available anywhere else.

Follow The Hot Springs: FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM