Getting to know The Sugarcanes

The Sugarcanes

Melbourne five-piece The Sugarcanes are dropping their debut album this week. We asked them to tell us more about themselves:

We are your new favourite rock ’n’ soul band. The Sugarcanes, Melbourne’s self -proclaimed love band. We are made up of Lucy, Jack, Queen Lizzie, Soul Brother Dave and Sweet Baby Al.

Home is where the heart is (after all, we are the love band). I’m also a firm believer that home is where the wifi connects automatically.

Our debut album is a labour of love and 12 songs about love, heartbreak & shit boys. 
This self-titled album is a product of the five members really finding their feet and getting to know each other. It’s been an interesting and beautiful ride. The 
Sugarcanes’ first couple of shows were more of a country-folk outfit and after feeling like it wasn’t quite right, we jumped ship to a more soul-ish sound. 
Once we found our amazing drummer (Queen) Lizzie the rest seemed to fall into place. What you hear now is all our different styles working together. It’s one tasty morsel.

Our album launch show at The Tote on Friday will be a non-stop rockin’ sock’em adventure through time and space and we’ve got a few little delights up our sleeves for y’all. 
We will be joined by the wonderful Jim Lawrie (with his band) and the always rockin’ Yard Apes. We will have some friends accompanying us on stage to make it one of the biggest shows we have had to date. I am so friggen excited!!

We spend too much time arguing. Jack and I (Lucy) are siblings. I am older and therefore much, much better at everything… and well, Jack isn’t here to write anything in retort. 
Let me give you a little word of advice. Don’t ever start a band with your sibling(s), your parents may become really proud and start coming to every show. Seriously they use it as an excuse for family night, shows have never ever been the same. It’s even worse on birthdays, extended family are very much thrown in the mix.

It might surprise people to learn that the Apollo mission never actually landed on the moon. The whole thing was filmed in a studio (the same set that helped make Space Odyssey) and shot by Stanley Kubrick… also chemtrails are a real thing. 
As you can see I spend a lot of my time watching UFO and conspiracy documentaries and our drummer can’t stop watching The X-Files. I want to believe.

This year, we’re going to spread the love of soul as far as we possibly can. We’ve got dates booked for an album tour in June for NSW and regional Victoria and if we’re lucky we will be able to head back to Tassie and the other states at some point as well. 
There may even be some plans for recording later in the year and a split with some VERY cools bands, if you’re very, very lucky.


THE SUGARCANES by The Sugarcanes is released April 15th via Cobra Snake Necktie Records. Limited split colour 180gsm vinyl edition of The Sugarcanes is available to pre-order now from thesugarcanes.com

If you’re in Melbourne, you can catch them at The Tote on Friday. Details on Facebook.

 bobby t

Interview by Bobby Townsend