The Alamo

The Alamo fires opening shot with EP - Warrnambool Standard Aug 1st 2013

Warrnambool band The Alamo — Cobey Fletcher (left), Derrick Price, Tristan Piper and Luke Burns — will release theirdebut EP Boozehound this weekend at The Loft. 

IF the cowboys of the wild west had access to electric guitars and punk music, they might create something that sounds like Warrnambool band The Alamo.  The four-piece is set to launch its Boozehound EP tomorrow night at The Loft in Warrnambool with support from ex-locals Kashmere Club, south-west band The Alfa Tides and Castlemaine’s Louise Adams. The EP is The Alamo’s debut release and reflects the group’s solidifying sound, which initially began as a vehicle for frontman Cobey Fletcher’s songwriting but grew into a beast of its own. “There’s been a big difference,” Fletcher said of the band’s changing sound. “I’ve gone from acoustic guitar to electric so it’s a bit rockier and I guess it’s lost a bit of folk. “But we’ve tried to keep a country thing in there. We call our sound ‘alt-country’, although ‘cowboy rock’ is what (guitarist) Luke Burns calls it.” He said the input of drummer Tristan Piper and bassist Derrick Price was also vital to shaping The Alamo’s sound as they brought their “punk influences” to it. It’s not only the band’s sound that has changed as time has gone by — Fletcher said his approach to songwriting had altered too. “It’s pretty much all fictional now,” he explained. “All my songs were about my experiences, but now they’re fictional songs. “A lot of (the new) songs comes from riff-writing a lot more now rather than chord structure. “Before, when I brought in my songs, it was ‘do this, do this, solo here’. Now we have everyone’s input. “We’ve written two songs now as a band and they’re verging on the blues, which is a bit different again.” Those two new songs weren’t written in time for the EP, which was recorded between April and June at Smith Sound in Naringal with producer/engineer Brenton Smith. “(We picked the songs on Boozehound because) we heard from people that they were the better songs and thought we’d record what people wanted to hear,” Fletcher said. But he added that he’s already keen to get back in the studio as soon as possible. “We’ll probably do another EP,” he said. “We want to get recording again pretty quick with some of the band-written songs. We’ve gotten some good feedback from the newer ones we’ve been writing, so we’re keen to get those out.” Boozehound features four songs (plus a secret track) and is available at Capricorn Records in Warrnambool, with a release on iTunes expected in the coming days. It’s already begun picking up airplay in Melbourne and Sydney. Tomorrow night’s launch will be filmed and recorded with the aim of making a film clip. The Alamo will follow the gig with a launch at Collingwood’s Bendigo Hotel on August 30 and a support slot with The Go Set and The Real McKenzies at The Loft in Warrnambool on August 28.