Children Collide - On the best kind of collision course

Belle Tope spends some telephone time with Johnny, one half of Children Collide – talking from each of our States respective tourist points of interest... for me its a cool, relaxed afternoon at Salamanca Place, and for Johnny its a bustling afternoon at Spencer Street Station.

Children Collide are Johnny (Guitar and Vocals) and Heath (Bass) and were formed “in the primordial ooze of Melbourne, Australia's pub scene's carpets after a hitchhiking odyssey from "up North"”.

So how do the boys operate as a duo – do their personalities gel well musically? “Really depends... we fight like brothers... we're both focused... but everything is cool in the morning. We are creative, we write and then jam... we get along,” he says.

Johnny and I spend a moment talking about the bands 6 track EP, released in 2005, entitled We three, brave & true. “It was totally done by ourselves... we had less idea about music then.”

Drum Media called Children Collide “refreshing and completely hypnotizing”. So how did Johnny feel about the kind sentiments of Drum? “We love every review...,” he says.

Children Collide received an invitation to play at the illustrious 'Great Escape Festival & Convention' which takes place in Brighton UK, 17th through to the 19th of May this year and was one of only a small number of artists given a chance to play twice at the event. “Quite an honor... we love to travel,” he says. Johnny gives us his honest take on sleeping in a plane seat, with the long hauls the boys spend traveling from Australia to Children Collide's overseas' stages. “I am shit at sleeping on planes... I take sleeping pills... hallucinations,” he says.

Johnny elaborates on how Children Collide scored their first gig, two years prior, played during the “witching hour of Halloween”, their Bio declares. “I was lucky to have a contact there... it was a Bar opening in Fitzroy... work your ass off!,” he says. Children Collide's Bio says “Alternately melodic, acerbic, clanging and ominous, people have said that Children Collide sound like Nirvana and Sonic Youth. People also say that eating carrots will make you see in the dark and masturbating gives you hairy palms.” So what old wives tale does Johnny believe to be inaccurate? “Bread crusts make your hair curly,” he says.

So for a band born from pub scene carpets... If Children Collide had to write a song incorporating the feeling of those very carpets, what would the title and chorus be? Poor Johnny. I put him on the spot. I can't imagine the looks he received from fellow travelers in Spencer St Station as I tried to force a musical creation from him! “Sticky Black Stuff... Stale yeast in the air...,' he says. And perhaps some other stuff was said. At that point the laughing interrupted the serious tone of our interview.

Children Collide newest creation, Glass Mountain Liars EP is out now!

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