The Something With Numbers story reads like a fairytale of mishaps and good fortune. The band form in 2001, record a 6 track EP that took 8 months to complete (including the engineer not showing up to the studio most days) and then release it to a small but excited fan base in September 2002, exactly one year after the band had first formed.
After releasing the ‘Barnicles and Stripes’ EP, the band got into a rhythm of momentum that saw them supporting US bands such as Papa Roach, Goldfinger, The Ataris and The Vandals all within a 3 month period. If that wasn’t enough a copy of their EP landed into the hands of Good Charlotte guitarist and songwriter Benji Madden, who then decided that he was a huge fan of the band and that he would get them to open for Good Charlotte on their 2003 Australian tour. This was Something With Numbers first full national tour and they were suddenly playing in front of 2000 people per night to an overwhelming response. Something With Numbers were selling out of CDs at nearly every show and their merchandise sales were… actually moving. What followed was a never ending stream of tours and shows that finally saw SWN hit their peak in October 2003 by opening the Sydney leg of the Livid Festival alongside Linkin Park, The White Stripes, Less Than Jake and more. Exactly one year after a release of their EP, Something With Numbers had sold 4000 copies of ‘Barnicles And Stripes’, had completed numerous tours and hadn’t stopped playing shows AT ALL.
After so long on the road it was time for the obligatory music industry break, where the boys returned to their places in society. But the mundane humdrum existence that is everyday life was only ever going to contain them for a short period of time, and with a bunch of new songs starting to come together it was time to head back into the studio to demo three brand new songs & the results were amazing. A band that always been seen as a typical pop punk band (even though this theory was seriously flawed) from the Central Coast had matured into song writers, song writers that weren’t afraid to delve into new territories that had obviously been influenced by their 12 month non-stop jaunt across the country.
So in July 2004, the band headed into the studio with producer Lachlan Mitchell (Toe to Toe, Nitocris) to record there debut album ‘Etiquette’ (mixed by Phil McKellar). The band were refueled and ready to rock with an album of brand new material which just can’t be pigeonholed, a non genre specific mish mash of big riffs and haunting vocal melodies complemented by a non-conventional rhythm section who take as much from their contemporaries as they do from traditional musicians.
‘Etiquette’ is released nationally on September 20th, 2004 through Below Par Records/Inertia Distribution.
Source: http://www.belowpar.org/
