Violent Soho, London

Violent Soho biography

Violent Soho are an Australian rock band from Mansfield, Queensland. Band members Luke Boerdam, James Tidswell, Luke Henry and Michael Richards attended school together and formed Violent Soho in 2004. Their debut EP, Pigs and T.V., was released in early 2006 and received wide acclaim; 'Blunt Magazine' hailing Violent Soho's Vines-esque sound as "boisterous pop rock reviving the spirit of the grunge era." Following the release of their debut EP, the band continued to play shows in and around Brisbane, and several shows in Sydney and Melbourne and elsewhere on the east coast. Notably, they toured with The Grates in 2007. They were also part of the lineup for the 2008 St Jerome's Laneway Festival, playing in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. The album title was inspired by the book "Culture Jam" by Kalle Lasn. As Luke Boerdom explained in a September 2013 online article, "From memory the term went something like this: “We sit around on couches, buying what we think makes us who we are, like a hungry ghost”. I looked up hungry ghost and it actually comes from traditional Chinese Buddhism. It means to have a non-shakable addiction/desire, and you lose yourself to that desire, you lose your identity." Regarding the general themes of the album's lyrics, Boerdom said: "Throughout the record I play with the idea of escaping a masked reality. I like to explore this concept that we live in a form of hyper-consumer reality and we lack an authentic human experience. In a few songs I try and focus on outsider suburban characters that are usually hidden and outcast by society, reenacting tapping into their reality and what they view as normal."

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