Not your typical funk rock band, Midnight Shifter is full of frenetic energy, which they can’t wait to take to the stage at The Espy this Saturday March 29th for round one of Emergenza Festival Australia. Don’t miss out on your chance to see their explosive live show then. In the meantime, read what the band had to say about what’s behind the funkalicious hard rock of Midnight Shifter.

WHAT’S THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NAME MIDNIGHT SHIFTER?
Basically when we were thinking of band names we went out and got a white bored and wrote all kinds of weird and wonderful names and phrases on it (as well as drawings too) and after a while 'Midnight Shifter' just appeared on the bored and that was the one that jumped out, and it kind of choose us I guess. But there was no limit to what went up on that bored, haha.

WHO PLAYS WHAT IN THE BAND?
Well on the drums we have Mr. Nic Symons, who plays his drums so hard I often hear trees falling in near by forests. On the guitar we have Daniel Bochenek lighting fires and melting faces with his epic guitar riffige. Fronting our musical congregation with his delightful vocal stylings and charming dance moves is Adrian Macleod, and busting moves and droppin’ them grooves on the bass is myself Jacob Best.

HOW DID YOU FIRST GET INTO PLAYING FUNK, AND WHAT SETS YOU APART FROM OTHER BANDS IN THE GENRE?
We've always been interested in other styles of music and trying to blend different genres into our sound and funk rock really doesn’t have a strong scene but that gives us lots of freedom to do what we want. I think lots of bands make a conscious effort to stay within their genres and that's cool because that works for them, but we don't shy away from blending different elements into our songs, because of this it just means that when we write songs and jam there's no limit to what we can do, and personally I love the fact I can walk into a jam room with these guys and anything can happen. It's really special to be in a band with people who are really open-minded and always give it there absolute all.

WHAT'S THE STRANGEST OBJECT IN YOUR REHEARSAL SPACE?
We have a hammock made of dreams... But I guess that’s more cool than strange.

WHERE HAVE YOU PLAYED BEFORE AND WHAT WOULD YOUR DREAM GIG BE?
We've played to anyone who will have use and, well, a trip to Germany to play at the Emergenza Festival would be pretty sweet! haha. Any situation where we could travel and play would be just awesome! That's always been a big goal of ours.

HOW ARE YOU PREPARING FOR THE SHOW AT THE ESPY?
Just rehearsing and jamming like we always do, we like to always keep a routine going.

WITH OTHER BATTLE OF THE BANDS COMPETITIONS AROUND, WHAT MADE YOU CHOOSE EMERGENZA?
We always wanted to play at The Espy and well again... Germany!! Haha.

For more details on the show at The Espy on March 29th, click here.