After the success of last year’s competition, your favourite lords of the tinnie – Victoria Bitter – are back once again with the VB Hard Yards, uncovering some of the country’s musical gems in the rough and taking ’em out on a whopper of an east coast tour. Starting last year, we were gifted with bands like RACKETT, Shearin’ and Mini Skirt, and now it’s back and keen to kick up with bands from New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland
The nine (9) finalists were announced today, and now it’s up to the public to put their money where their beer-sippin’ mouth is and vote for their favourite acts over HERE.
There’s three finalists from each state, and one group from each state will end up with $5k in their hot little hands, a bunch of all-paid-for rehearsal time, and a four-date tour down the eastern side of Aus.
Wanna meet the Hard Yards finalists who are vying for your undivided attention and space on your daily playlist? Ok here ya go.
VICTORIA
Shiny Coin
After supporting bands like Camp Cope, Jess Locke, and Tigers Jaw, Shiny Coin from Melbourne are all about DIY till ya die – Sharni hustles hard outside of her work and life to write, record, and do the band’s promotion. Punchy rock n’ roll from the sticky floors of Old Bar and The Reverence Hotel, these pals are pretty fucken great.
Going Swimming
Big, bolstering surfy garage rock from the depths of the inner north of Melb, Going Swimming (pronounced “Gahn Swimmen”) are keen to get back on the road to promote their new album and just generally tear the carpet up on a bunch of venues. With an album name like Sultans Of Swim I’m finding it very hard to say no.
Claws And Organs
Deeply grungey and ferocious, Claws And Organs have a new LP just around the corner and would very much like to get up off the floor at Yah Yah’s and get out on a tour. And ya know what? We wanna see ’em too.
NEW SOUTH WALES
HURST
Very tight post-punk coming from the west of Sydney, HURST take cues from Paramore and Aussie women-fronted acts before them (think Killing Heidi and Spiderbait) to create driving, catchy tracks that we’re 100% going to have stuck in our heads for a while.
Paper Thin
Featuring the mayor of Newcastle himself, Paper Thin lay down the Aussie emo/pop-punk thick with bop after bop, taking cues from mid-00’s heroes like Kisschasy, and Gyroscope, these Novocastrians have squished a lot in over the last two years and two EPs and a bunch of sweaty gigs.
Gaspar Sanz
After trying out psych, prog, and acoustic folk before settling in with boogie-inducing indie rock, Sydney’s Gaspar Sanz are making music that hints at flavours of Empire Of The Sun and shimmery indie rock. It’ll get you up and out of your seat without spilling a drop of beer.
QUEENSLAND
High Tropics
Sounding something like if The Strokes moved to Australia and laid down in the middle of Fortitude Valley for a bit, High Tropics serve up simple yet gorgeous rock n’ roll, and are not foreign to the ol’ east coast tour – they sold out their last one so they’re keen to do it again.
The Iron Eye
Sounding a bunch like their influencers – Queens Of The Stone Age and Arctic Monkeys – The Iron Eye blend gritty rock with wailing licks and gang vocals to produce snarling rock n’ roll that sounds like it should be blared out of TV ads promoting somethinga motorbike beer covered in leather and studs surrounded by fire and leopard print.
Being Jane Lane
They’re in the middle of recording their debut LP (and let’s be real an extra $5k for that wouldn’t hurt), Being Jane Lane is a five-piece creating biting punk rock straight outta Brissy. I mean if a band is gunna make a blatant Daria reference in their name they’re bloody alright in my books.
