Q&A: Aaron Damon of Captives

By ADAM COOPER

CAPTIVES are a Melbourne-via-Tasmania punk-tinged rock’n’roll band.

Hot Metal: Hey mate, congrats on Return to Mars. How has the tour been going?

Aaron Damon: “Hello my friend and thank you. Touring has been really fun and crazy. We did our first show in like two years at Halloween Hysteria fest in Brisbane back in May and had our booking agent fill in on bass for the show ’cause Mitch (Damon) was out with the sickness … then we had to reschedule the Sydney/Canberra dates because then the whole band were out with the sickness. But we got through it eventually. It was strange not playing shows for such a long period of time. It’s taken us until now really to start getting back into some kind of live form and not feel so weird performing in front of people again. the mojo is back.”

HM: The new album has plenty of big choruses. Was that a conscious decision? Or just evolved that way?

AD: “I think we’ve been steering ourselves more towards the big catchy choruses over the last couple of years. We dropped a few singles prior in that sort of vain and I guess we really needed to go do that on an album and send it. That was the next thing. After we got back from Japan in 2020 we knew that we wouldn’t be doing anymore shows for a long time so it was a good time to lock down and start working on those tunes. I’ve always been a fan of catchy pop/rock songs too. So it was nice to have the time to do it without being able to be anywhere else.”

HM: Are you guys still collaborating with Jon from Shihad ?

AD: “We did our first two EPs and the first album working with Tom Larkin which was a great fun time when the band first started out. Tom was producing for us at the time and we tracked in his studio in Brunswick. After that we wanted to try to do something a little different and work with some other people. I think it’s a healthy thing to do to try and move around a bit and work with different people. It keeps things interesting and you can learn different things from different experiences.”

HM: How was the recording process for Return to Mars different than past offerings?

AD: “It was very much the same as previous sessions except for the lockdowns in Melbourne, which just held us up for long periods of time. But it did give us time to listen to things that we had tracked in the studio and come up with more or better ideas. And it didn’t really matter too much to us because it would have been a shit time to release an album anyway when you couldn’t tour it. We tracked the whole band live in a room then eventually we just retracked the bass and guitars and started to build around that. I think for the next album we would like to track it all live – or at least a few tracks or an EP or something. Who knows?”

HM: Lockdowns were hard on everyone. How did you guys stay motivated?

AD: “I put it down to the fact that we were probably one of the last Aussie bands left touring overseas when it all hit the fan and because those shows were some of the best shows we had ever played, everyone in the band was still pumped and wanted to get moving on the next thing. So once it all opened up again we were ready to roll. But of course the years rolled on and so did the lockdowns in Melbourne and it definitely took its toll on us in the end. It became very hard to be motivated. But we saw it through and I’m glad we are still here and able to continue doing it.”

HM: Ok, seriously now… Tasmania… Stand alone AFL team or no?

AD: “I have been in Melbourne now for almost 10 years … and they were talking about this about 10 years before that, lol.”

HM: Did you know they have a football oval in Queenstown that has a gravel/rock surface? That’s some hardcore shit.

AD: “Tassie has produced some great footy players over the years, they have good turn outs to the games, a lot of my friends play or played country footy. I say give ’em a bloody football team.”