So It's actually been ridiculously long since the last post on this blog was made, what can I say? I'm not the blogging type.

A lot of things have happened since 2011, We've been blessed to travel to New Zealand Twice to Play shows at the Parachute Music Festival

We've made ALOT of new friends from all around the country, Travelled to Queensland and NSW, Lost a Bass Player named Tom in July 2012

and gained a synth player named Tom in February 2013

Just now recorded and released a new single & Video for our track Go For Broke and things couldn't be better in the HYSTB family.

Available from iTunes click the link Go For Broke

So a lot has happened and you don't even know the half of it ;)

We definitely would not have been able to do these things without the help of some extremely talented individuals who also happen to be very good friends of ours and of course without the love and support provided by our friends and family.

If you are in a band or are an artist we highly recommend the following people!

Cade at Hyperblaster for all your Web and Design needs
Peter John at Epik Films for all your Video Multimedia
Daniel Kelaart at Grafete Studios for all your Studio and Recording projects!

These guys are meticulous at their craft and work damn hard to make something both they and you will be proud of.

Luke's been very busy working on his Festival - The Forest Edge Music Festival

Which has always been apart of our band from day one, we're very fortunate to have been allowed to be apart of this for the last few years and to watch it regrow from the ground up.

We've just played a couple shows with Gold Coast based band Nine Sons of Dan

Currently touring their newest release "Fun", such an awesome track, always leaves you feeling like you've just had a stack of it.

including a day trip to Brisbane to play at The Hive.

We were very generously provided accommodation by some new friends we have just made the week prior to at the FEMF. Thank you so Much Erin, Sam and Andrew.

We have a whole bunch of show dates throughout May/June with While the City Sleeps


And are currently (and finally) getting around to planning our next release and some tours.

Very exciting times ahead!! thank you so much for your support.

Thankyou for your support and thankyou for reading :)

We've Got You Surrounded - Official Video

THIS! Was so much fun!
I can't begin to express how excited we are that we now have a video clip.
Every band will tell you that it's not primarily your major concern to have a video clip, even we will tell you that.

It often will take years to raise the funds/have the organizational skills to piece together a video clip and more often than not your best option is some friend studying video production at uni needing some content for an assessment but even then, it's no guarantee that you'll get anything more than a 4 minute video of shakey hands and awkward acting, unsynced drums and a story line that makes no sense.

Everyonce in a while, life will throw you a bone.
In our case, we happen to have an extremely talented close friend of ours By the name of Pete Seamons from Epik Films.
In Jan of 11, Pete, Luke & I spent a couple days recuporating at Apollo Bay after running a holiday camp for teens at Philip Island.

After some deliberation, R Kelly's In the closet Youtube series, the laziest form of cricket 

possible. (sit down cricket) we discussed the idea of doing a video clip whilst in tents on 

a footy oval. With the knowledge that our songs weren't finished, they hadn't been 

recorded and we had no idea how or when it would all come together.

But we sat on it over the next few months, as the EP was recorded at Grafete Studios 

by Daniel Kelaart.

The Video shoot was continuously delayed by our indecisiveness and inability to organise what we needed to have sorted by shoot days. 

But after a couple meetings at Pancake Parlour Eastland. 

And a Parma at Micawbers Tavern, things were in motion, discussions were had, treatment was sorted. All we had to do was cast, organise catering, lighting and find a venue to shoot.

Another thing any band will tell you is, this is not the type of endeavour you take up during the infancy or your band. HYSTB played its first show in November of 2010. Discussed Video by Jan 2011. Shot July 2011 and Released September 2011.

Not because doing a shakey hand awkward video clip is difficult. 

But to have an intertwined elaborate plot line whilst your main characters are played 

by Children.This is more of the challenge. 

So we began scouting!

Fortunately through a frenzy of e-mails, facebook chats, sms'and phone calls.

We had our main cast locked in and they did such an amazing job.

Shoot happened Friday 8th July and Saturday 9th.
Friday morning we met with our cast and crew,
Max, Caleb, Kai & Corey were all still very sleepy.

It's a pretty big ask to have strangers meet for the first time and pretend to be best friends. At 8 and 6 years old.

I sat with Caleb as he showed me his dinosaur book. it was totally awesome.
And then shooting commenced!

You can watch the behind the scenes video by clicking the link below.

Watch Behind The Scenes

The Story unfolds with our main characters (HYSTB as children) meet up in their
primary/elementry school hallway before class. Sam taps Luke on the shoulder to point out Nicola our Lead Girl. Luke is flawed and waves, she waves back and he is ecstatic! They all hi 5 at the premise of acknowledgement!

The story then follows on with several points of dissapointment from our main character
Luke, during which there are some adorable shinanigan sequences.

So the boys concoct an elaborate ploy to stage a school dance as an opportunity for Luke to be friends with Nicola.

Hope You Njoy!

GOT QUESTIONS? Just ask by leaving a comment below.

Whats Been Happening: - Recording - We Have You Surrounded.

In May 2011, we endeavoured to begin making our record with Dan at Grafete Studio's.
In Endeavour Hills, Victoria, Australia.

What ensued shall be available shortly as the culmination of hours and hours of hard work,
bad smells, Breakfast, great coffees & Chat Roulette sessions.

We are stoked and very excited to be able to make our EP "We Have You Surrounded" available to you.

Artwork by Cade Embery at Hyperblaster.

Initially the idea for the artwork was inspired from imagining visually what the We Have You Surrounded concept was, after struggling to title the CD.

After some further thought, deliberation, conversation and then watching X-Men First class, the idea was sealed!

Mastered by Forrester Savell at Sing Sing South Studio

Instruments used:
Pearl Reference mixed with a Yamaha Kit
Bosphorus Traditional, Gold and Ferret Series Cymbals

Ampeg SVT 4Pro Head & Classic Cab
Orange Dual Terror - Orange 4 x 12 Straight Cab
Sherlock Fat head - Sherlock 4 x 12 Slanted Cab

Programming By James with Reason By Propellerhead

PRS SC
Gibson DC Les Paul
Fender Jazz Mexican Bass
Fender FMT HH Gold Top Korean
Fender Telecaster Mexican

The Forest Edge Music Festival 2011

Hi Guys!

For those of you who don't know what it is exactly.
The Forest Edge Music Festival, is you guessed it! A Music Festival!

It ran for years up until 4-5 years ago when it was called off due to a seeming lack of interest.
It is held at The Forest Edge Camp site in Neerim East.

This year it was brought back after 3 years of vision, a solid 12 months of hands on preparation
and 2 years of co-ordination, meetings and discussion, and there you have it.

This time with the support of Easterfest in Toowoomba & Parachute (NZ)

A dream became reality this Labor day weekend 2011.
When 40 Odd artists got together on one of the most beautiful weekends we shall see this year.
A stack of festival punters and over 100 voluntary crew.

It was definitely awesome to be able to have been apart of this.

We had a fantastic heap of fun this weekend, generally hanging out with crew and everyone else and obviously being able to play on main stage was awesome.

We're all just resting up now after a hectic weekend and lost sleep.

Thankyou so much to all of you who support us and have picked up T-Shirts.
We shall endeavour to put out a record shortly and continue to write songs that we hope will be received well.

Photos to come.

Other exciting news to be announced very soon.


PEACE!
-HYSTB
xooxoxoxxoxoxooxoxoxxoxoxooxoxxoxxoxxoox

Have You Seen This Boy's Beginning

Hi guys,

So I just thought I'd post some stuff as to how this band formed.
After trawling the outskirts of the internet to find other like minded musicians/people. I eventually found a Post made by Tom on an online Australian music forum.
(If you're cluey enough you'll have done the math and figured out exactly which site that is as there isn't really all that many around. and you can probably still find the original post if you know where to look)
On Thu Jul 24, 2008 at 12:24 pm 

It was a long shot since the post was so old, but I sent him an e-mail introducing myself and just outlining where I was at with music, what I wanted to do and how I thought we could go about it, if he was interested. From there we did some e-mail tennis and decided to liaise.

So we T'd up a mandate just to suss each other out.
And then we whipped out lots of dating analogies during our initial courting stages.
Whether we were:

Dating - Sussing

Engaged - Discussing permanency 

Married - Firmed up as a band and comfortable in our skin

Having a baby - Putting a record together

We hit it off and Before the end of the night we shared some demo's we had done ourselves and discussed where to go from there. It then turned out that James' Dad knew Tom's Dad. This was about the time Tom showed us an acoustic demo of a song which evolved after many rewrites and arrangements into what we know as the song "The Human Genome".

So we went our ways and met up again a couple weeks later where Tom was organising bands and music for a Youth Event called State Youth Games held at Lardner Park in Warragul, over a weekend in July.

Tom introduced us to a handsome man named Luke Martin who at the time had no idea we were going to be playing music together, Jam's were organised and ideas were swapped. Demo's were discussed and deadlines placed. With no shows booked we had all the time in the world, only thing was it took abit longer than we had intended.

During this time we tried out several singers but due to general differences in style and taste they didn't work out. All fantastic dudes whom we hope we can support and that they have great success in their own music and industry.

Now down the track I look back and I'm completely lost on how it's all come together.
With 2 members living over an hour away, we all feel extremely blessed for the way things have worked out. From strangers to the greatest of friends.

So we look forward to seeing how the rest of this journey pans out.
And hope that you'll stay with us on the way there!

Sam
- HYSTB