The Rions chat debut album success on their first UK headline tour

Matthew Wellham

Photographer & Filmmaker based in East London. A lover of the post-punk and alternative movement, he can usually be found at the back of the Shacklewell Arms or Moth Club, camera in one hand and a beer in the other.

We managed to snag a few minutes of The Rions’ time ahead of their London headline show to discuss life as a band, Aussie crowds and much more!

Last month, The Rions dropped their debut record ‘Everything Every Single Day’ and soon followed with their first UK headline tour. Just before their London show, I had the opportunity to sit down and chat about the experiences that have led them to where they are today.

Matt: Welcome guys, tell us about The Rions. You formed in school, right? What brought you all together?

Noah: Me and Harley have known each other since we were eight years old and I met Tom in year six. We met Asher in year seven when he moved to Barrenjoey High School. Essentially, the way the band started was through a music assignment in school. They made us do a group project and Tom, Harley and I had already covered ‘Photograph’ by Ed Sheeran. So when Asher joined the school and told us he could play guitar, we were like, Dude, come play with us. We were more than happy to do the assignment with you.

Asher: But we were friends before the band became a thing, really, so the music was almost like a byproduct of our common interests in comics, superheroes and all that stuff.

Matt: Did you guys have any common interests in music as well? Were there specific artists or sounds you shared?

Harley: We were around twelve or thirteen with no cool influences. Obviously our parents would listen to good music, but I think we would just listen to whatever was on at the time. I’m pretty sure I remember writing in my year six school book that I love dubstep and don’t like anything old. It wasn’t until later in high school that we actually listened to music properly and took inspiration from it.

Matt: There are so many school bands that never go anywhere, but you guys have made it. What was the first moment you realised, oh shit, this could be a real thing?

Noah: There are so many points where that happened.

Harley: Yeah, it’s difficult to pin it on one point. Starting in high school, you spend years only ever playing in the music room during lunchtime. Then the teachers would try to get us twenty minutes on the local pub stage and that would be a massive deal for us. We had our first paid gig playing a backyard event through a mutual friend of Noah’s parents and we got paid twenty dollars each. That felt massive for us. It was also the first time that people actually stopped to listen and watch us. We probably weren’t even very good at the time, but we just thought, wow, people are smiling and listening to us, let’s do this forever.

Matt: That’s amazing. How did it feel to suddenly realise people were paying attention?

Noah: It was awesome. I remember we had a launch party in our local area for our third release ‘Night Light’ and it was our first ever headline event. I remember being like, holy crap, people showed up and bought tickets for an event where we were headlining. Is this what real wins feel like?

Asher: The fact that there was security and we were literally going to school the next day.

Noah: And people were filming, we had a green room, and people were singing the lyrics and stuff. We thought, Yo, we’re famous as.

Matt: You touch on some of your early releases there. You’ve been putting out music for five years now. When did you know it was the right time to put out your debut record?

Noah: I don’t think we’ve put the album off for too long, but we definitely could have done it earlier. I’m happy that we waited, though, because it just felt right.

Harley: It wasn’t even a matter of facing the question of a full album at any point. We were doing all the steps, the first step being singles and then the next obvious one being an EP. Then when we were doing the second EP we were thinking we could do an album, but I think we all knew we didn’t have enough songs. It’s such a big project to tackle and on reflection, we weren’t ready. Then when we made the album, that was the first time where it was like, ok, we’re ready, so it was all part of the natural journey.

Tom: A lot of it was about maturity as well. I think why it felt right to do it when we did was because we felt we were at a different level of maturity compared to when we released our previous work.

Asher: And life experience too, just having new things to write about. We’d been touring, we’d made relationships, met new friends. Writing about that felt very different to a lot of the stuff we’ve written before in terms of maturity.

Matt: How has the response been to the record?

Harley: The response has been really good so far. Everyone has a different favourite song, which is exactly what we wanted. There are songs that resonate more with different people. The other day we had an Instagram story asking, “What’s your favourite lyric off the album?” and every single response had a different answer, so it really shows that different parts of the album have touched people in different ways. Also, we’ve had a bunch of people saying they feel like our sound is evolving to be less Aussie indie, which was another goal we really wanted to achieve.

Noah: Yeah, we had people responding saying it sounds really different and I found that really cool. They were like, I love it, but I didn’t expect it.

Tom: It’s gone beyond people saying, “I love this because it’s catchy”, and instead we’re hearing personal stories about people feeling like the song was written about them, which is amazing.

Matt: Can I go around the room and ask what your personal favourite track is from the album?

Noah: Mine changes all the time, but right now it’s ‘Married to the Job’.

Tom: I’d say mine is ‘Welcome to the Conversation’.

Asher: Mine is ‘Oh How Hard It Is To Be 20’.

Harley: Mine is either ‘Maybe It’s Everything’ or ‘Adelaide’.

Matt: Well, you’ve just proved your own point that everyone resonates with a different track. Mine’s ‘Scumbag’, that pre-chorus is just so catchy. Moving on to tour life, you’re in the middle of your first headline UK tour. How have you found travelling over here? Any favourite cities or venues?

Harley: My favourite so far has either been the week we spent in London before the tour started, or Manchester. Tom and I were also talking before about how we really liked Bristol. It was our first time ever being there and we had a couple of hours before the show to look around. That was beautiful.

Noah: Yeah, one of my favourite shows was Bristol. One of my favourite places to visit was Cornwall. Going to Perranporth and seeing that area was beautiful. We also had a day off where we went to the Lake District. We stayed in a little old Airbnb in this really old looking town and it was insane. That was one of my favourite days of the whole tour, that day off.

Asher: We didn’t have a day off in many of the other cities so it’s a bit unfair, but as Harley said, I think Manchester was great and would have been a really fun day off if we’d had one.

Matt: Do you ever find differences between Aussie and UK crowds and how they interact with music?

Noah: I think UK crowds are very attentive. They really listen and they really love music. I’m not saying Australians don’t, because Australians love music and you can tell they love music, but I think sometimes Aussies get a little distracted at shows.

Harley: It’s funny, all the loudest people at our shows on this tour have probably been Australian, like the people yelling out and stuff. Then we tend to find all the British people are quiet and really listening between songs. It’s been pretty funny.

“It’s funny, all the loudest people at our shows on this tour have probably been Australian, like the people yelling out and stuff”

Tom: Yeah, I was gonna say, there have been a lot of moments on this tour where we’ve just been yapping on stage and it’s dead silent and everyone’s just looking and listening. People over here actually laugh at our jokes. Whereas I feel in Australia, between songs, everyone’s chatting and they’ll go to the bar or whatever.

Harley: Maybe it’s not a British thing, but it’s something we’ve noticed.

Matt: So Aussie summer is fast approaching. One of the big differences between Australia and the UK is New Year’s Eve and January being peak festival season for you guys. How are you spending that time? Will you be hitting the festival circuit, or taking some time off?

Harley: We’re doing the Spilt Milk tour, which we’re very excited about. I do think we have New Year’s off at this stage, until further notice. The mercy of an email could change that.

Noah: Spilt Milk is going to be a lot of fun. We’ve been wanting to do that tour for a couple of years now. Doechii, Kendrick Lamar, Sombr, to name a few.

Harley: After that, I’m having time off to go to Japan and then coming back and spending Christmas at home with everybody. Then January will just be a nice time to bask in the Australian sun.

Matt: Finally, you’ve only just put out Everything Every Single Day, your debut record, but are you already starting to think what’s next?

Harley: Every release since we started putting out music, there was a specific amount of time we spent living, which would then be turned into songs. I think that’s what we’re doing now. You can never tell how long that period will last, and it’s not until it’s over that you realise it happened. So I’m guessing we might be living future songs right now, but who knows.

Noah: There are also times when we’ll force ourselves into a situation to write. For example, when we stayed in London for a week at the start of this tour, we had a bunch of writing sessions. So you never know. We’re making music all the time, but music that’s good, that could be another year, two, forever. Who knows.