When news broke last week that Australian rock royalty Tim Rogers would be fronting Australian punk royalty Hard-Ons, responses ran the gamut of human emotion – from sheer joy to (weirdly) aggressively angry.
Like, seriously, some of you need to reassess some things.
But whatever doubt there may have been surrounding the addition of the famed You Am I frontman to the fold is sure to dissipate today with the release of the first single from the modern-day incarnation of the Hard-Ons, ‘Hold Tight’.
No matter where you stood on that spectrum of reactions, none of us were too sure what to expect from the addition of Rogers, a self-confessed day-one fan of Hard-Ons. Yet ‘Hold Tight’ makes perfect sense. It’s a cheeky, yet profound, lean cut of incredibly accessible punk with plenty of gristle to chew on. It’s rough and tumble, yet refined – the sonic equivalent of moshing in a custom-made suit.
The tune clearly comes from the collective mind of a small group of musicians who, after a couple of laps of the block, have developed the uncanny ability to pen hooks that sink beyond the skin, past the neurons and deep into the subconscious. And what’s more, they managed to do so in one take, as members Blackie and Ray confessed to Double J’s Zane Rowe in a recent interview.
‘Hold Tight’ is the first offering from the forthcoming album of Rogers-fronted Hard-Ons originals titled I’m Sorry Sir, That Riff’s Been Taken, which has a street date of Friday October 8th via Cheersquad Records & Tapes.
The band will also present itself in a live capacity, with a batch of tour dates ready to rumble for when border restrictions ease. So if you need any more reason to get your vaccination, make it the chance to witness the most unholy of unions between Aussie rock and Aussie punk happen right before your eyes.
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