Fronted by the gracious and haunting female presence of Pierina O’Brien, Devil Electric is a riff-heavy 4-piece rock n’ roll band from Melbourne, Australia. Taking musical cues from the hard rock greats of the ’70s and combining them with powerful, female-fronted vocals, Devil Electric have gained fast recognition across local and global stages with their dark, signature sound.

In 2017, the band unleashed their self-titled album through Kozmik, which debuted at #4 on the AIR Charts and received high acclaim from critics and fans alike. The LP’s second single, ‘Lady Velvet,’ enjoyed rotation on Australia’s premier youth broadcaster Triple J, while ‘Hypnotica’ was regularly featured on Rage, a longstanding music video program. Impressively, the first vinyl pressing of Devil Electric sold out within two weeks of its release.

Devil Electric continues to gain heavy traction worldwide. Their ever-growing fan base, amassed through social media and extensive touring throughout Australia and Indonesia, is a testament to the band’s talents as performers and musicians. Please welcome the vocalist, Pierina O’Brien on MyTouche Blog!

Beginnings:

“Melbourne has this very tight music/arts community, you tend have only a few degrees of separation with everyone so we all met through playing gigs together, going out, friends of friends, etc – that cliché thing. It really is this weird small family in a big city – you can’t get away with anything.

Behind the name:

The band name is a take on Frankenstein’s monster. If we were going to use the Wiki definition of Frankenstein’s monster I guess you could say Devil Electric is a hideous sapient creature created in an unorthodox scientific experiment! Maybe that should be our bio.

Inspiration:

“As individuals, we are all quite varied in our influences. We all draw from different experiences and bands which makes for an eclectic mix.

However, during the release of the first album, we were lucky enough to tour Indonesia with a bunch of incredible bands such as The S.I.G.I.T., Mooner and Kelompok Penerbang Roket (KPR).

This was a turning point for us in terms of influence and inspiration. Not only are these bands talented songwriters and hugely successful but the scene and community support in Indonesia are awe-inspiring. To be exposed to this level of talent while also watching how the creative community rallies around each other, was a very humbling experience.”

Teamwork:

“It depends on the song however, generally we write all of our songs together in the rehearsal room. Tom or Christos might come in with a riff or idea and we basically build it up from there. Some songs are easy to write, some are harder and some fail epically however, we try and give everyone a chance for input before we pull the pin on a song. It can lead to some pretty heated conversations but we all know sometimes you have to ‘kill your darlings’.

You always hope that your songs are good and that people will respond positively but the reaction to the first album was amazing.

In the lead-up to releasing an album, there is this moment which is like nothing else – you’re basically freaking out and excited at the same time. You just have to trust that you have created something people will respond to, but really you have no idea what’s going to happen, it’s actually super addictive. I guess you could say we’re at that moment right now with Album II.

We argue and then hug it out all the time. We are all pretty opinionated but the underlining factor is that we truly respect each other despite being four very different people.

In a way, our differences actually complement the band as we all have a different line of sight. We would almost say, Album II is a cohesive collaboration of differences.

Album two is essentially an evolution of our sound. That’s not to say there aren’t songs that stay true to our core style but we have definitely approached this album differently and experimented more stylistically.

We also worked with a new producer, Julian Schweitzer who had an incredible influence on the approach to this album.

The first EPs and album were produced by Tom Glover who did amazing things for us however, as we matured as a band and started to experiment with different styles, it felt like a good time to bring a new producer on board and Julian was the natural and perfect choice.

The release date is a moving beast with the craziness of the pandemic. We’re aiming for mid-year but watch this space.”

COVID-19 has basically derailed most of our 2020 plans, as it has to everyone. We had planned on releasing the album at the end of May, which lined up with a European tour. This has since been postponed but probably the most painful was postponing Muskelrock in Sweden, it’s an understatement to say we were looking forward to that.

However, the circumstance is circumstance and just having to postpone things ain’t so bad when it comes down to it.

We’re still releasing the album and we have singles ready to go, which are coming out over the next few weeks so we are full steam ahead.

We also just wanted to say a huge thankyou to everyone who has supported us by buying merch, music, anything, everything over this time. It’s not only been a huge help but also kept our spirits high! We can’t wait to share Album II with you.”

Behind the scenes:

“Probably the funniest story isn’t about any Devil Electric members but happened when we were on tour with Truckfighters earlier this year. Australia was in the midst of our worst ever bushfire season so there was this collective sadness across the country and a different intensity on the road.

Despite this, the Truckfighters were awesome and on the second last night of the tour, we decided to have drinks back at our accommodation in Canberra.

While we were sitting around we saw Johan, who had walked off to make a call, running full-pelt back to where we were, he was being chased by something. As he got closer we realized it was a kangaroo and she was pissed – he had walked too close to her joey. We don’t know how he outran it, we can’t even explain how crazy it was to watch but I think we all needed the laugh.”

Message to the fans:

“If you haven’t yet – check out “All My Friends Move Like The Night” it’s our first single off the new album!

We’ll also have our next single out June 19th – this song took about two years of epic fails to get right so we can’t wait to get it out there.”

Please support the band by buying their music – just click on the logo below.