Dave the band show off their tender side on debut album Slob Stories

One day Noah Church was pegging his Hamilton Hawks rugby union socks on the clothes line when an idea popped into his head.

"I realised I never lose one footy sock, whereas my black socks, I've always got an odd amount," Church said.

"So the line, 'footy socks don't get lost' came into my head and then I just used it as a metaphor for, 'If I'm a footy sock I hope you'll be one too', a lovey dovey sort of thing that's said it in a weird way."

The song Footy Socks is the most tender moment on dave the band's long-awaited debut album, Slob Stories.

Some lyrics are also sure to stoke Newcastle's parochial rugby rivalries. Something Church, 25, is evidently aware of having "copped shit" for years for growing up in the Greens heartland of Merewether, but playing for the Hawks.

"Some footy socks are green, depending on your team," Church sings on Footy Socks. "Mine are blue and yellow/ They're the only ones for me."

In fact, Footy Socks isn't the only tender moment on Slob Stories. The self-deprecating Sadsack also shows off a different side to dave's typical garage rock sound.

"I've been leaning more that way with my songwriting in general," Church said. "The last few EPs we've done I've written those songs just to play at the Lass and have people go off.

"With these ones I had a more broad idea. I wanted the songs to be great and I wasn't worried about that."

It's feels like an eternity since Church and his bandmates Gabriel Argiris (drums) and Max Tuckerman (bass) headed off to Chicago in November 2018 armed with Footy Socks, Sadsack and a host of other songs.

The purpose of the trip was to record Slob Stories in famed producer Steve Albini's Electrical Audio studio. Albini is famous for recording Nirvana's In Utero and capturing a raw live sound. That's exactly what dave craved.

"How it sounds on the album is how it sounds in his [Albini's] room," Church said. "He's all about capturing the performance.

"If you're singing out of pitch or sing it wrong, he's not gonna do anything to fix it.

"That's just how we've done it. We just went in there and smashed it out basically. So it's really raw and that's what we wanted. The feeling and the energy, that's what we wanted it to be about."

Since returning from the US the three-piece have released the tracks Ultrahard, Get Smart, Fine! and Where You Are and even extended their name to "dave the band" to avoid confusion with UK rapper David Orobosa Omoregie, who goes by the moniker Dave.

Dave the band have also been slowly putting the pieces outside of music in place, such as distribution and promotion, to give Slob Stories the best possible chance of reaching a large audience.

"I had it in my head that once we got back from America we'd drop a single and put the whole thing out straight away," Church said.

"Once we had the finished product, we realised it was probably gonna be worth building a team first to try and reach a larger audience than we would have if we released it ourselves when we got back.

"That took a while sending it around to people we knew and getting things in place."

The story of dave the band begins in 2007 when Church and Argiris started jamming together at Merewether High School. After graduating in 2013 dave started playing live shows with different bassists, until the Central Coast-based Tuckerman joined in 2014.

The first EP Sunny Days In Winter led by the infectious single Sex Me was released in 2016, followed by the EPs Poor Kelpie (2016), Yoch! Bangers, Vol.1 (2017) and Never Yoch Alone (2018).

There's a chilled Novocastrian vibe about dave. Church, Argiris and Tuckerman are the type of guys who appear as comfortable skating around Merewether or kicking a footy at Townson Oval as they would playing music on stage.

They've named their records after in-jokes like "yoch" and Argiris accidentally saying "slob stories" instead of "sob stories."

On the flipside, Church has a Bachelor of Music and is doing honours in jazz guitar.

While you won't hear Church slide into any jazz riffs on Slob Stories, his love of '90s alternative rock is clearly evident.

Endstart captures the spirit of Hi Fi Way-era You Am I, Fine! has the frenetic energy of The Living End and Brave pays homage to Church's love of US band Built To Spill's album There's Nothing Wrong With Love.

Most of all, Church is relieved to finally have Slob Stories ready for release.

"When I listen to music I listen to full albums," he said. "So for me it's about the cohesive album.

"By just picking out the singles, it doesn't do them justice. We want it to be heard in full in an album. I hope it all fits together and it's how I would like people to listen to it."

Slob Stories is released on Friday and dave the band will perform two shows at the Cambridge Hotel, also on Friday.