Hellions Prove That the Best Tour Stories Are The Ones About Being Detained on the Baltic Sea

Though the days when heavy music meant scary looking guys screaming about Satan and biting the heads off small animals have long gone, Hellions still know how to get up to no good. The fresh-faced Sydney punks may look like school prefects, but they can cause a ruckus, both on stage and cruise ships. One crazy night resulted in some of them getting locked up in a brig on the Baltic Sea

Having recently returned from a European tour, the five-piece are set to release, Opera Oblivia, an album that has earned platitudes from peers to whoever choses the Triple J album of the week.

We spoke with resident Hellions shred lord, Matt Gravolin about tour antics, playing shows with childhood heroes and the new album.

Noisey: What was the best show you played in Europe?
Matt Gravolin: Probably the Impericon festival. We had a massive audience, the biggest audience we’ve played in Europe. It was 5000 strong and fucking incredible. Especially to be supporting Hatebreed as well, they’re one of the first bands that I’d seen live so it was a particularly engrossing experience.

So Hatebreed were one of the most impressive bands you played with?
For sure. Most of us grew up listening to them so that was sick. Also Northlane. I’ll never tire of seeing them. I must’ve seen them play maybe like fucking 70 times man but they’re that good at what they do. Hundereth were an incredible live band as well. There’s such energy about them, particularly Chad the singer, Chad.

Did anything wild happen over there?
There was plenty of excess over there. They give you so much beer, more beer than you can drink. And no water and usually you can’t drink out of the tap either, so it’s a pretty ideal problem to have, but later you’re so parched, you just need some hydration. It’s a funny problem to have.

Once we were on a boat on the Baltic Sea heading to a show in Helsinki. Marcus from Northlane and I were up at 3am and tore a chair out its grounding. We were kicking it about before noticing that there was a fucking surveillance camera above our heads and so then that was an “Oh oh” moment .The security guard came in. Luckily Marcus didn’t get charged with anything but the singer of Volumes, Gus and I got detained in this little brig beneath the boat. So it was like a night in boat prison.

Opera Oblivia has got a bit of a new sound, I reckon it’s going to appeal to a wider audience.
We really wanted it to sound “not of this time”. I’ve been listening to a lot of Queen and a bit of Electric Light Orchestra, bands from that era. Bands that first influenced me like System Of A Down and My Chemical Romance. They’re hardwired influences that are going to always show up. I made a point of not listening to anything too contemporary because I didn’t want to be influenced by anything that was going around, we wanted this to be a unique experience.

“Nuestra Culpa” could’ve gone for 15-minutes and I would’ve loved every bit of it, was it a self indulgent thing to piece together some music and let it go on its own way?
It started as a four-chord song on acoustic guitar. Every time the chords came around I added a higher note, it just built really organically into what it is now. It’s funny that you should say that because it had been originally intended to go for longer but we were worried that we’d lose some interest. It’s really experimental track, kind of a poetry piece or something, its not really a song per se, it doesn’t have a traditional structure or anything like that.

‘Opera Oblivia’ will be released July 29 via UNFD.

Hellions ‘Quality of Life’ tour:
July 29 July - Melbourne at the The Evelyn Hotel
Aug 5 - Adelaide at the Enigma Bar
Aug 12 - Sydney at the Bald Faced Stag
Aug 13 - Brisbane at the The Brightside

Matt Pollock is a Melbourne writer. Follow him@MattPollock44