In The Garage With The Rions
Written by Will Rickwood. Photos by Maclay Heriot.
You know how most guys meet their friends for life by walking up to some kid in the playground one day and going ‘wanna be mates,’ well The Rions aren’t any different.
Since 2016 these four have been inseparable, allowing for their collective interest in music to form a band. It is truly amazing to see what The Rions have built over the past few years, from hearing these boys play at school assemblies to now selling out shows and playing festivals it’s staggering to see how much Harley, Asher, Noah and Tom have achieved as a band, even though prior to their EP ‘Minivan’ their entire discography consisted of only six songs! Their success is not only a testament to their talent and dedication but a further reflection of their ability to create their own unique identity in an ever competitive industry. Congratulations on the EP fellas.
How long have you guys been working on the EP?
Noah: One of the songs we started when we were in year ten (2019), and then one of the songs we wrote a couple weeks before we started planning the EP…
Asher: So going on five years.
N: Yeah, going on five years pretty much for five songs.
Harley: We also didn’t know, that the first song we wrote five years ago was going to end up on an EP.
Tom: It was actually Asher’s school assignment!
N: One of them was yours as well right Harley?
H: Yeah my one was before that.
Do you guys have a massive folder of songs you’ve recorded ready?
N: Yeah (laughs) we do. We wanted to make sure we picked a lot of different songs tonely so that people would know every time a new song started, and the last finished.
What would you say inspired the EP, and influenced its direction?
H: Because all five songs are so different it’s hard to nail one inspiration to the whole thing. I think if there was an overall one it would probably be The Beatles because all The Beatles eras are so definitive. All their music is so different, and we heard that and were like, that’s what we want to do. But, if we were to put an inspiration to the process of the EP, we were constantly referencing people like Sam Fender.
T: We also kept it pretty raw for most of the songs and the production process.
H: There’s probably an artist who you could link to each song.
N: I think for Got My Hopes Up we even took inspiration from Harry Styles, with his use of strings.
T: Honestly it was kind of a mess.
N: So our inspiration was a mess! But it all came together.
Are there any lyrics from the new EP that stand out from the rest?
‘A world where you don’t have to love someone just by the books,
But I’ll break free from all that you see I’ll be a changed man,
But when you look deep you’ll see that I’m still the same thing,
The same thing’
- Got My Hopes Up
T: I think all the lyrics in Got My Hopes Up are really meaningful.
H: Yeah I was going to say Got My Hopes Up as well, I think people will connect with the lyrics.
A: I love the chorus to take what you want, like cheap beautiful hearts.
N: I love some of the lyrics in Minivan as well, especially when you think about the premise and basis of the song. The pre-chorus is really straight to the point and I think it gets the message across really well.
Next question, do you believe in aliens?
In unison: YES!
H: Until the government said so, (laughs).
N: I think the fact they said Aliens exist made me think less that they exist.
A: I think that if you’re defining aliens as just organisms other than human life then of course you know, but that doesn't mean they’re humanoid Aliens. They could be!?
H: I swear they’ve found extraterrestrial organisms which literally means that Aliens do exist, like it’s not even a discussion anymore, it’s more about they’re intelligence.
T: My mum was saying that was in the sixties!
A: Probably.
N: I feel like in our ever-expansive universe there’s no way at one point something didn’t line up, like if you think about it they say Earth is so perfectly aligned with the sun…
H: The Goldilocks zone.
N: … Yeah! That it made the perfect conditions for humans to live. Hypothetically you can make stuff on Mars survive which isn’t in the Goldilocks zone. So I’m assuming at some point there had to have been another Goldilocks zone or near-perfect atmosphere for not humanoid but some freakin reptile thinggg..
(Laughs) Some lizard thing
A: Yeah, Mark Zuccerberg's home.
T,N,H: (Laughs).
If you could play a show on any planet, fictional or not, which planet would you play on?
T: Coruscant.
N: Yeaaah Coruscant’s a shout.
H: So, apparently Saturn’s Northern Lights are red, imagine playing under Saturn’s red Northern Lights.
T: Yeah that would be sick, imagine being on Saturn's surface (laughs), it’s just all storms, rocks and shit.
H: Jupiter’s are blue… That would be cool to play under as well, but it’s like always storming acid on Jupiter.
T: Aren’t there diamonds on Jupiter?
N: No, that's Neptune.
H: Maybe we’ll go Neptune and come back rich.
T: That’s true.
H: Get paid in rain!
N: If we are going to say a hypothetical, I’m going to say Naboo.
Ooo naboo, yeah that’s a heavy pick.
A: Dagobah!
T: I think I’d rather take a holiday retreat to Naboo.
Alright if you all had to lock in one planet where are you going?
H: I feel like a whole festival scene on Coruscant would go crazy.
T: Yeah me too I’d go to Coruscant.
A: I think I’m going to back Naboo, actually no I’d go Coruscant.
N: Ohhh you know what, you know the Latern Core from Green Lantern, imagine them with their rings making a whole stage, that would be fucking sick. I’d go there!
If given the opportunity would you rather become a member of the Sex Pistols or The Beatles?
Without hesitation and all at once: The Beatles.
In short, what has been the most bizarre experience of your life?
N: I think the fact that we’re here.
H: Do you mean existing or in this garage?
N: Nah just our position in our career, or, we were at a show once and some guy took his fake eye out, that was cool.
A: For me probably my river sleep-talking incident. One time when I was camping with family friends I was sleep talking in the boy's tent you know, and one of my friends who was in the tent with me, Jacob, was lying next to me, and in my sleep apparently I was going ‘Jacob, Jacob, Jacob, don’t go in the river, don’t go in the river!’ And I kept saying it. Then we woke up in the morning and had breakfast by the fire and we were all laughing about it or whatever and then later on, on our way down to the river that morning we saw it had been police taped off, and there were divers and everything because someone had died in the river.
Nah that’s too spooky.
A: Yeah nah it’s actually crazy.
T: I’d probably say the fucking tree that fell on my house, that was insane.
H: Oh the one that nearly killed you.
T: Yeah.
Was that during those storms way back in 2014-2015?
T: Yeah yeah, I was in the top bunk of me and my brother's bedroom, and it’d fallen directly on my bedroom and the roof was caved in over my face being held up by the neighbour's roof, if it weren’t for their house it probably would have killed me. Like I had glass, woodchips and just all this debris all over me, it was fucked up, it was like the middle of the night too, so hectic.
N: I had a tree fall outside of my house on the powerline so hard that it hit whipped my window and sent my whole fucking house like bright blue.
H: Like electro.
N: Yeah fully.
If each of you were a part of the same bicycle, what part would each of you be?
T: Woah.
A: I’d be the frame right?
T: Yeah I was gonna say Asher would be the frame, I’d probably be the wheels.
N: I’d probably be the handlebars you know, I steer us in the right direction.
H: (Laughs).
T: I’m starting to feel like we’ve got this all wrong.
All: (Laughs).
N: Actually yeah, I think Harley would be the handlebars, or Steve our manager he actually would be the handlebars.
H: I reckon Noah’s the pedals, I’m the chain, Tom’s the wheels, Asher’s the frame, and then Steve the manager is our handlebars.
N: Yeah I back that.
Get tickets to The Rions Minivan tour here.
