IT'S safe to say Hockey Dad raised eye brows when they were in Newcastle several weeks ago delivering cereal boxes in hazmat suits.
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"The funniest thing was people had no idea who we were," Hockey Dad vocalist and guitarist Zach Stephenson says.
"Someone had ordered a parcel and their parents would be at the door and we'd be dressed in hazmat suits trying to give them a box of cereal, and they'd be like, 'Can you guys just get off my property?'
"We made no sense. We shocked a couple of people, but for the most part it was good and everyone knew who we were."
Inside the cereal box parcels were copies of album No.3 Brain Candy. It was all part of a creative promotional exercise from the Wollongong surf-rockers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like all artists in the music industry their initial plans were thrown into chaos by the global lockdown.
Stephenson and Fleming had planned to tour overseas, but instead they passed the time hitting the waves along the Illawarra coast wondering when life would return to normality.
However, Stephenson says there were some positives to arise. Coronavirus forced a rethink.
Hockey Dad decided to package and deliver their album to fans in cereal boxes, and without touring or festivals, they opted to play apocalypse-themed drive-in shows at Bulli Showground.
But when 180 millimetres of rain turned the showground into a bog in the lead-up to the "Alive At The Drive-In" shows, the gigs were postponed until October.
It was the best thing to happen to this record, COVID, it messed everything up and changed our plans because I don't think we would have gone as extravagant or far off as what we did.
- Zach Stephenson
Instead of being deflated, Hockey Dad pivoted swiftly and performed a "livescream" concert from a theatre. In two weeks the YouTube video of the gig has been viewed 767,000 times.
Considering the band's most popular video clip for the single Seaweed has 1.1 million views after five years, the "livescream" has been a phenomenal success.
"It turned out probably for the best," Stephenson says. "It was the best thing to happen to this record, COVID, it messed everything up and changed our plans because I don't think we would have gone for anything as extravagant or far off as what we did.
"It helped us out to be on the back foot and struggle for ideas."
All the fresh marketing ideas worked too. Brain Candy debuted at No.2 on the ARIA album charts a fortnight ago, and only to be denied their maiden No.1 by US pop superstar Taylor Swift's Folklore.
However, the fragility of the streaming-dominated charts was revealed when Brain Candy plummeted to No.41 the following week.
Most importantly though, Brain Candy is an album of genuine growth for Hockey Dad.
Their scuzzy surf-punk, which channels everyone from The Ramones, Nirvana and You Am I, emerged in 2014 when they released the EP Dreamin'.
It was followed by the albums Boronia (2016) and Blend Inn (2018), which progressively increased their fan base and tightened their songwriting.
Brain Candy is sonically the biggest leap yet. Stephenson credits a new-found love of country music and artists like Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, Merle Haggard and The Flying Burrito Brothers with the expansion of Hockey Dad's sound.
Bassist Steve Bourke has also officially joined the band, making them a three-piece.
"I've been listening to a lot of country music for the last two years now and fallen in love with it," he says.
"We wanted try something a little bit different, and not so much change our sound, but change the vibe of the band and try different vibes in songs and push ourselves and see what comes out."
The most obvious shift is heard on the tracks Keg and Reno, which were composed during a week-long writing retreat at a country Airbnb near Bathurst.
"Half of the record was written just at home into the laptop with computer demos and the other half was written on the fly," Stephenson says. "We were at this little studio or house out in the bush and half the record was written there in a week. So I guess it matches.
"Side A was done throughout six months and side B was experimented with over a week."
Newcastle has always possessed one of Hockey Dad's most passionate fan bases, as seen by their raucous performance at The Drop Festival in 2019. The band are also massive lovers of Novocastrian music.
Last week Stephenson and Fleming named their eight favourite high school triple j Unearthed songs for 2020. Newcastle's Chop (Freedom) and Boycott (Old Mate), from the Hunter School of Performing Arts, and Loons (Want Me), from Macquarie College, made the list.
"It seems like Newy keeps pumping out these really amazing young bands," Stephenson says. "It's been happening for a while, with bands like Milky Thred. We met those guys a little while ago in Wollongong and they're killing it and now there's all these amazing Unearthed bands."
REVIEW: Hockey Dad's Brain Candy
