Having spent the day working hard at rehearsals, the man with the flavour-saver, DAN SANDERS, speaks to BROOKE MCMASTER about their upcoming 36 date national tour with Aussie rockers Shihad and fellow Perth band Sugar Army.

It’s apparent that Gyroscope have been held back for far too long from mainstream success. The band were constantly overlooked by commercial radio stations, but thanks to their third record, Breed Obsession, the boys have hit a whole new level of notoriety.

As we begin our discussion I’m itching to ask Dan about the first single from the album, Snakeskin, which has seen the band enjoy mainstream success thanks to snippets of the song being used in TV advertisements. The film-clip saw the band playing in the very same crop circle that was featured on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s Remastered album (music trivia nerds squeal in delight). 

“A lot of people have said ‘You must be massive Led Zeppelin fans’, and well sure I can play Stairway To Heaven on guitar, does that count?”, he laughs.

“It was funny because we did the whole shoot and it was about eight o’clock at night when we wrapped up and it got dark and the farmer who owned the property came home and said ‘Hey, how you guys going?’, and we’re like, ‘Yeah pretty good, bro.’ He then whips out, ‘Oh you know this is where Led Zeppelin did their Remastered shoot?’, and then he tells us this story that he saw the photo in the paper or the album cover in a shop and gave them a call and is like, ‘what the fuck, this is a photo taken from my property’. And being back in the day, they gave him a few free signed copies of the album and left it at that.”

More importantly, the Perth four-piece have just released their third single, Australia, which pays homage to the homeland. Although Sanders was born in the UK and moved to Australia when he was a young tyke, he still calls Australia home.

“I penned it down after having a stint up north of WA in the Kimberly. It was the interaction between the aboriginal community and the land – it was how I picture Australia. I came home and a couple of days later it really sunk in that it was the tip of the cap to what I thought Australia meant to me and how I was brought up. I never thought of it in an anthemic way.

“What was amazing to us was that it is so different from other tracks on the record, but I really felt that this was us, and why had we hindered this type of sound in the past?”, he says with a laugh.

The Gyro boys have already conducted two extremely successful national tours in support of their third record Breed Obsession, however they say ‘they’re not done yet’, and promise that this will be their biggest tour so far. But what amazes me is how the boys seem to keep their show fresh for every tour.

“You don’t want to rip off your fans or rip off yourself even by doing the same tour over and over, so you definitely keep it fresh and innovative.

“It will be fun to bring in the old school songs and fundamentals, but also to do the new songs like Australia, for which we’re actually bringing out the strings sample pad so we can replicate the sound of the album … show people we can go beyond in a live atmosphere.”

GYROSCOPE play the Arena on Tuesday Aug 12 (Ekka holiday eve) with Shihad and Sugar Army in support. BREED OBSESSION is out now through Warner Music.

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