A Talk With The Terrys

By Sam Gillespie

Emerging out of a global lockdown, Gerringong surf rockers The Terrys have been kicking goals over the last few years, including releasing their debut album ‘True Colour’ and appearing on triple j’s Like a Version. The boys are preparing for their next career milestone: performing in north Queensland for the first time at Sugardrop Festival, and guitarist Lukas Anderson had a chat with Sam about it all.

Tell me about how the pandemic birthed The Terrys?

Myself and our lead vocalist, Jacob, we both lost our jobs because of Covid. We lived together at the time, and we had to stay home a lot of the time and we just started covering some songs. I’d always played guitar and he was a rapper, so we started doing covers of songs that we liked and then got GarageBand up and tried to write our own music.

Was music something you all always wanted to do?

We’ve always loved music. I played guitar when I was a kid but I never thought it would be my occupation. It wasn’t on the cards, like starting our own band, but we were always really interested in it and just didn’t realise it was what we wanted to do but now it’s probably all I want to do.

How has your lifestyle changed?

It’s not like a Monday to Friday 9-5 situation anymore. We’ve done so much travelling around Australia already and we’re about to go overseas and do a couple of tours, we’re doing New Zealand and then we’re going to go to Europe hopefully. I always travelled when I was a bit younger, just funding my own trips to go surfing in different countries, but now it’s pretty sick that we’re going take our instruments and play shows to people who like our songs

It seems like you’ve achieved heaps in those three years and releasing an album is a massive milestone, what are your reflections on ‘True Colour’ nine months on?

Since recording and releasing that album, we’ve all matured a little bit musically and as people, so we’ve just been recording new music and it’s still The Terrys obviously but it’s very different. ‘True Colour’ was a good reflection of us learning how to make an album.

What do you think you have learnt? How do you think you’ve matured?

With the new stuff we’ve been recording, we’re in a different studio with a different producer and we know a little bit more about what to do, what not to do, stop overthinking that and put more effort into this. I think simplicity is the key.

What was it about the opportunity to play Sugardrop Festival that appealed to you?

Tia Gostelow’s a legend so we were pretty flattered and honoured to be offered to play it. I love going to Queensland, and I think the furthest I’ve been is the Sunny Coast. Keen as to come to Mackay and rip it up.

And what can we expect from your show at Sugardrop?

It’s going to be loud, it’s going to be fun. There might be a couple new tracks in there, there’s definitely going to be some old classics in there, and just heaps of smiles and maybe a couple of beers.

WHAT: Sugardrop Festival

WHEN: Saturday, September 16 from 2pm

WHERE: Harrup Park

TICKETS: Oztix

‍