Since I heard the 2010 album “Days Gone By” from Marching Orders for the first time this Australian band became instantly one of my favorites. With the album “Living Proof”, which was released earlier this year, they might have even put out one of the best Oi! / streetpunk records of this year. Reason enough for me to ask frontman Al a few questions!

 

First of all thanks a lot for taking the time to do this interview, how are you?

Things are good for us thanks mate.

 

Although the band has been around since the early 00’s, can you give the readers, who might not know you guys, a brief history of Marching Orders?

The original line up was me (Al), Gav (RIP), Gabe and Darren. We recorded a three track demo which has recently been re-released on vinyl. This line up eventually disbanded and I had to look for all new members. The new line up was Ben,Chris,Ander and me, later Phil joined also. Then we recorded our first proper release 'last drinks',since then there have been 3 EP's, 2 albums and 3 singles/ seven inches.The line-up has changed a few times since then but not too much. We toured the USA in 2008 and Europe in 2011.

 

I’d like to talk a bit about the new album “Living Proof” first, it’s been out on LP since for almost half a year now. Can you tell us a bit about the writing and recording process of this album?

This album has probably been our best release so far. We have been playing together for enough years that we are working well together as a band and I think we are producing our best songs so far. Ben, Brod and myself are the song writers so you get a cross section of styles as we all write differently. I usually write songs at home with my guitar, I usually try to come up with a good riff and then add some words to it. You never know when a good song will come up, sometimes you just can't come up with anything and other times they come when you least expect it. I wrote 'place called home' the day I arrived home from our European tour, it was about 3 am and I couldn't sleep so decided to write a song. 

 

We also used the acoustic song  'hand of fate', this was a song I came up with whilst we were working on the new album but didn't think it would suit Marching Orders. We ended up just leaving it exactly as it was and I think it fits quite well on the album and provides a bit of variety too. We recorded the album with the same studio as our previous releases, although this release has more production and less of a live raw sound than our earlier stuff.

 

Was there any pressure on you guys after the very well received “Days Gone By”?

After the success of days gone by there was some pressure to produce another album that would work as well as the previous album had but this was only from ourselves. We had loads of time to put living proof together and we were only going to put it out when we were satisfied with the songs. We ended up cutting one song and using all the rest. I think the end result was that we produced our best release to date.

 

Last june “Living Proof” also came out on CD, it must have been a real torture for fans who don’t have a record player! Why did the labels wait, rather long, to also release it on compact disc?

The new album came with a download code and was also on i tunes so it was available in quite a few formats right away but I guess we did the vinyl first because we love that vinyl sound. Also you get a lot more when you buy vinyl.Just look at all the extras in the first gatefold issue of days gone by! Everything  we have done since we started has come out on vinyl part from the first EP. If anyone out there hasn't tried records I recommend that you do!!

 

In between the vinyl and CD release of “Living Proof” the German label Lionheart Records also did a re-release of your first demo from 2002. How did you two got to work together?

The guys from lionheart contacted me on Facebook and asked if they could release the demo. Nobody had asked about a re issue of the demo before so I was interested straight away. When I looked at their website they had original demo casettes of 80's oi bands from the UK on there and I thought straight away that this was an authentic label run by true music fans. So we decided to go ahead with it. Also it was a good chance to do a tribute to our first bass player Gav who unfortunately died in 2008.

 

Are you satisfied with the result? I have both versions and I love what Lionheart did with ‘em! Did you had any input in the design etc…?

There were only 40 or so copies made of the original demo so if you have one you are doing well!! I like what they have done with the re issue as it shows what our sound was like back then, we have not changed the sound apart from mastering it for vinyl. We had some input into the layout and cover but mostly I wanted to show the old pictures that I have from the time. This was before mobile phones had cameras so most of them were taken on an old camera and many did not come out properly!

 

Now every single Marching Orders recording has been released on vinyl, except the mini-CD “Last Drinks”. Is there a plan to get this out on wax as well?

Last Drinks was re-released on the nothing new cd along with most of our early releases. We have talked about putting it on vinyl but nothing has been decided yet.

 

I usually never ask about covers in an interview, but I loved the Professionals cover “Mods Skins Punks” on the “Songs Of Yesterday” EP! Any special reason why you choose this song to be covered?

That song was Phils idea as he is a big fan of Steve Jones and Paul Cook. I think it works well when you do a cover of a song that nobody has covered before, something unexpected I guess. Also the professionals were a great band and we are all fans of their stuff.

 

Do you play this song, or any other covers, live as well?

We have played this song many times live. We played it at most of our European shows. We have covered more obvious bands like The Business, Rose Tattoo, Cock Sparrer, Menace, Blitz and the 4 Skins as well. It's just good  fun to throw in a cover at the end of your set sometimes, we usually do.

 

I personally have never been to Australia, but when I see live bills a lot of these shows seem to be in hotels, are they actual hotels? Seems kind of odd Oi!, punk and hardcore shows in hotels…

They are just regular pubs, we call them hotels here for some reason! But they don't offer accommodation usually, just beer!

 

How is the Australian scene nowadays? I remember bands such as The Blurters, Forward Defense, Stanley Knife, Rocks, Toe To Toe, Death Before Dishonour, Bulldog Spirit and of course Rose Tattoo!

There are probably more Oi! bands in Australia now than there have ever been and the scene is slowly growing but still very small compared to Europe. A lot of the Melbourne bands share several members. Stanley Knife recently reformed and have started to gig again and Toe To Toe still play the occasional show. Rose Tattoo are still going but have lost quite a few members unfortunately. Most of the other bands you have mentioned are no longer around though. There have been rumours of The Blurters making a comeback but not sure if they will.

 

Okay, I’m almost done. But coming back to playing live for a bit… are you guys planning on touring the USA / Europe again / any time soon?

We have been asked about playing shows again overseas but not sure when that will happen as it is a lot to organise 5 people to get time off work etc and the cost is very high also. 2015 is a possibility.

 

Alright that’s it! If you have anything to add to this interview, feel free to do so! Cheers!

Thanks for the interview and look out for our new split single with evil conduct coming soon.

 

Also my new band Razorcut is about to record it's first 10 inch to be released on Longshot and Rebellion Records. Darren the first Marching Orders drummer is playing drums and I am on vocals with two girls on bass and guitar. The sound is different from Marching Orders but I think people will like it.

All the best, Al.