Chris and The Sebs will take you on a journey through a spectrum of different musical influences with their set of original songs. Their next chance will be at The Factory Theatre on the 2nd for the semi-finals. Don’t miss your chance to see them then. Before the show, they talk to us about their influences, their perspective on the festival so far, and a few songs we can look forward to grooving along with at the show.

CAN YOU GIVE US A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO YOUR BAND CHRIS AND THE SEBS?
Chris is on bass, Seb is on drums, Corey and Luke are both on guitar and vocals. We're basically a mix of alternative hard rock and pop.

WHAT BANDS HAVE INFLUENCED YOUR SOUND, AND IN WHAT WAY?
Corey: in terms of actually writing music and song structure, Radiohead would probably be my biggest influence. I also like to think that we take some aggression from the Smashing Pumpkins.

WHO WRITES THE SONGS AND WHAT ARE THEY ABOUT? WHAT'S YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS LIKE?
Corey and Luke write most of the songs (although Chris is writing some pretty cool stuff at the moment) in terms of lyrics and basic structure. The rest is a team effort most of the time. The songs differ a lot in their meaning. Luke's songs have a very exotic and cinematic feel to them, whereas my songs are more to deal with real issues in my life, there's songs about isolation, self-criticism, women's rights, and there's even a few love songs.

WHICH ONE OF YOUR SONGS DO YOU THINK SPEAKS TO YOUR FANS THE MOST AND BEST REPRESENTS YOU AS ARTISTS?
The song that people respond best to would be a song Luke wrote called "Burnout" but that's because it's a really dancey kind of track. The song that best represents us as artists is probably a song that Corey wrote called "Withered". The contrast in the song between its sensitivity and its aggression and the epic nature of the song sums us up pretty well.

UP TO THIS POINT, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY HAS BEEN THE BAND'S BIGGEST ACCOMPLISHMENT? OBSTACLE?
Our biggest accomplishment is also probably out biggest obstacle. We worked out material (more or less from scratch) in about three to four weeks to play an hour long set for our first gig at BEAMS Arts Festival.

WHAT WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE FIRST ROUND FOR YOU?
The response from the crowd was fantastic. We had a lot of good friends there to support us which was great but we were all surprised and overwhelmed with how well complete strangers responded to us. They were all grooving along and eventually ended up voting for us. That was really exciting.

HOW DOES IT FEEL BEING ONE STEP CLOSER TO THE EMERGENZA FINALS?
It's pretty cool. More nerve-racking than anything else because now we have to worry about whether we can make it to the next round.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR UPCOMING GIG AT THE FACTORY THEATRE?
Well, including our gig in the first round of Emergenza, this will be our third gig, so gaining experience is a definite goal. We're also looking forward to more exposure and hope this gig will give us that.

WHAT'S A LIVE CHRIS AND THE SEBS SHOW LIKE?
It's just four good mates jamming together on a stage. We basically have a new sound for every song so it's a bit of a journey.

WITH OTHER BATTLE OF THE BANDS COMPETITIONS AROUND, WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE ON EMERGENZA?
Emergenza is the only competition for unsigned bands to potentially do an international tour as far as we know, that's pretty neat.