Web definition: “In popular music, a side project is a project undertaken by one or more persons already known for their involvement in another band. It can also be an artist or a band temporarily switching to a different style.”

We’ve all been there. You’re listening to the radio when a song comes on and you think, ‘Huh, sounds like a new Radiohead track.’ The presenter will later tell you that it’s actually in fact Thom Yorke’s new side project, Atoms For Peace.

The rise of the side project is fast becoming the fashionable thing to do in the music industry today. Perhaps those who have been around for ages – like Radiohead – manage to pull it off, and really, for fans, it can be more of an opportunity to hear new music from their favourite bands and artists.

(Although the cynic would argue it’s the egotistical nature of musicians who think they are the member who makes the band and goes off on their own path, but hey, to each their own, right?)

No country is guiltier of the endless spawning of side-projects than Australia – the healthy music scene here is actually the best example of this increasingly irritating phenomenon.

Perhaps our musical roots are a little too fertile, our scene a little too healthy. The most irksome of examples – and the one that spurred on this debate – comes from a Queensland band by the name of The Medics.

Listening to Triple J one evening and hearing a truly hollow, bland piece of music, it was later named as the new side project by some members of The Medics. All one thought was, “Is that really necessary?”

The Medics have been kicking around for a few years but they’re young, and you’d think they aren’t in any professional position to be more or less starting afresh with a new band name (with a group of mostly the same musicians as well), but creating what is effectively music that sounds just like The Medics? It’s completely redundant.

However, the side project comes in many forms: when one appears and sounds completely pointless, and a waste of radio air time, another can be downright required.

Elsewhere in the Sunshine State we have one of Brisbane’s most well-known bands, Ball Park Music.

While all the members chip in to create their music, 20-something frontman Sam Cromack is the principal songwriter, and simply pumps out too much music for just one band. Case in point, Ball Park Music have just surprised fans and the industry by releasing their second album in just 12 months.A massive 12-piece band seems the perfect breeding ground for multiple spin off bands, whereas a three or four piece, perhaps less so.

My Own Pet Radio is treated as Cromack’s bedroom recording project, and under that moniker he has even performed a very small handful of solo gigs, occasionally with a small band of friends, in Brisbane. Cromack admits that any of the songs from My Own Pet Radio could serve as a song for Ball Park Music but, “quiet, weird or sad songs – which are usually my favourite – will nearly always end up as My Own Pet Radio songs. That way I don’t have to bore any audiences or band members.”

Considerate and prolific, Cromack’s statement contains none of the democracy that can come with playing in a multiple-membered band; we could be hearing more from that particular side project soon.

Velociprator is another Brisbane band with a number of players and these guys have spawned some of Australia’s favourite music makers, particularly in the form of AIR award-winning rock duo DZ Deathrays, while many more fall under the serene spell cast by solo artist, Jeremy Neale.

A massive 12-piece band seems the perfect breeding ground for multiple spin off bands, whereas a three or four piece, perhaps less so.

Some of these origins may come as a surprise, while others deliberately keep their new projects completely unrelated to the original band from whence they came.

Melbourne band Manor is fast gaining recognition for their electrifying live shows but they see no relevance in revealing that they originate from another, Adelaide-based band (and that’s all we’re saying); particularly because musically speaking they are mining different musical motives.

This is to the discretion of the individual musicians, of course – but then there are the ‘bloodsuckers’: Those members who break off from their very successful band to explore the solo world while still using their former band’s name to up ticket sales, yet sticking safely to similar musical territory.

I can say with confidence that the Workers Club was recently filled with more curiosity than actual fans of Tim Hart, “the drummer of Boy and Bear!”, as the tour promotion for his debut solo album trumpeted.

Which begs the question: should a successful band really have the creative license to spawn as many side projects as they want and always reference the original band to gain more recognition?

At least Hart is able to find the balance between the two – Tone Deaf recently reported on Boy and Bear’s bassist leaving the band, “to pursue other interests,” following stints in Laura Marling’s backing band.

It seems some can’t find the healthy balance and, though there’s probably more to Jake Tarasenko leaving Boy and Bear than their statement gives light to, irreparable differences within the band is just one of many valid reasons for new outfits developing.


Take Little Red for a more extreme example: destined for success after a great EP and a popular debut album, rumours of discontent from within the band started bubbling long before they struck national ubiquity with Midnight Remember’s ‘Rock It’.

They’ve finally called it quits and in no time at all, each and every member are now out and about performing and recording under new names.

Tom Hartney of the now defunct Melbourne 5-piece, (now operating with Major Tom and the Atoms) had this to say in his final statement: “with Little Red I have mostly found myself behind the keyboards, [but] my true passion has always been singing! Over the years many drunken punters have praised my baritone crooning abilities and now we will find out just how drunk they were…”

If everybody took the drunken advice doled out to them on a Friday night, we’d all be out there doing our dream job, too.

New Gods contains two former members of Little Red and are doing big things like supporting The Rubens (let’s hope they haven’t planted any ideas in The Rubens’ collective heads of fragmenting into several smaller side-projects).

Former drummer, Taka Honda, is now frontman for The Hondas and will be releasing a debut album all about his emigration from Japan to Australia, called From Tokyo to Melbourne Town.

While Quang Dinh has formed a new band called Naked Bodies and has released their debut single, citing song poets like Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, and Gareth Liddiard as influences.

What was that about the cynic, again? It seems like all the members of Little Red felt like they were front men in their own right, and now there are an exhausting four new bands for fans to contend with. The sense of overkill is hard to shake.

Thankfully, some musicians keep a healthy frame of mind and manage to balance as many acts as they possibly wish. The circle of friends from Perth who make up Tame Impala, POND and Gum is the most obvious example that comes to mind.

While Kevin Parker – frontman of Tame Impala – wrote and recorded his second album (the impossibly flawless Lonerism) in France and Perth, his bandmates took some time to produce another psychedelic album as POND and even manage a few sold out tours of their own.

From friends playing together, to keeping it all in the family; Australia’s favourite brother-sister folk duo, Angus and Julia Stone, are now touring as Angus Stone and Julia Stone… separately. Does that make sense?Some side projects are born from fear of alienating the original fan base with different music, but the majority of side projects end up producing very, very similar music anyway.

They’ve both released their second albums as solo artists this year and have embarked on massive national and international tours respectively. The one time they’ll cross paths will be at Sydney’s upcoming Homebake festival – they’re even billed on the poster as “together but not together.”

Some side projects are born from fear of alienating the original fan base with different music (although the Stone siblings needn’t worry about that as they’ve simply produced two more albums’ worth of the same folky tunes, whilst doubling their income), but the majority of side projects end up producing very, very similar music anyway.

Something Paul Hartnoll, one half of legendary UK dance duo Orbital, said in an interview with Tone Deaf earlier this year comes to mind: “If Orbital ever had a policy it’s that if we do something that sounds like it’s from a different genre, we’re still going to call it Orbital.”

Sounds like something Mat. McHugh, the man behind The Beautiful Girls, would agree with. After releasing his first few bits of music 10 years ago, the Jack Johnson alignments started pouring in – so he shook it up.

After releasing a rock album, more labels were piled on, and so he cocooned for a year before releasing a dub-heavy album. Returning to his acoustic roots with his second (and free to download) album under his own name, McHugh is one musician not afraid to test his fans and keep everyone guessing about what’s next – he’s now dropped The Beautiful Girls moniker to perform under his own name (no, he’s not going solo – Mat. McHugh is The Beautiful Girls).

In Australian music, the whole side project thing is more prevalent in smaller acts, for some obvious reasons. They’re young and finding their musical feet or simply realise they don’t get on that well with their bandmates or maybe it’s because they’re  of the iPod generation, with attention spans as wide as the neck of their guitar.

There’s no reason to tar every musical dalliance with the same negative brush, but what are musicians really hoping to achieve by the endless regurgitation of the same music under different names?

So enough with the redundant side-projects already! Besides, who knows? Any one of today’s young bands could be the next legendary act down the line – if they ever stick to it.

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