After scoring the coveted support slot for The Living End’s Perth leg, it seems Sons of Rico are impressing all the right people. I caught up with the band’s frontman Alex MacRae to talk about the honour, their new single “You Don’t Know What You’re Missing,” and what we can expect from album number two.
You just scored the support slot for The Living End’s Perth shows. How does that feel?
Kind of bizarre! Here’s a band that we’ve all been fans of since our high school years and seen play on all sorts of stages ever since, and now we’re sharing a stage with them. Really cool, but kind of surreal too.
The support slot can be a tough gig when you’re playing with such an esteemed band. How do you intend to win the crowds over?
When supporting any band we adjust our setlist to include songs that we think will resonate best with a particular crowd. In the case of The Living End this weekend we’ll probably be cranking more of our guitar-heavy tunes. The hardest part for me will be trying not to upstage Chris Cheney with my super badass guitar solos.
After those shows you’ll be headlining your own gigs to launch your single “You Don’t Know What You’re Missing.” What can you tell me about the song?
The song has a bit of a cheeky origin. After a show in Sydney, Adam and I went out in search for a post-gig kebab and were accosted by a transgender lady of the night. Since she wasn’t offering kebabs we kept moving, but not before she said to us “you don’t know what you’re missing”! So I thought to myself “good point”, and the rest is history!
Do you approach a support slot differently to a headlining show?
A little bit yeah. You’re pretty aware that the audience is not your own, but we’ll still try and perform at our best as if it were our own show. There’s a little bit of readjusting that subconsciously happens when you’re onstage as a support, but we’re hardly going to get into leather if we were to support Aerosmith, although Rob has been looking for an excuse to bust out his leather.