THE SURE-FIRE MIDNIGHTS

Midnight At The Oasis

Launching their second album Strike At Midnight this Saturday, October 22, at the Rosemount Hotel (with support from Project Mayhem, Black Buzzard and The Shakeys), The Sure-Fire Midnights remain among Perth’s premier rock’n’roll bands. Frontwoman Clair Sargeant talks to MATTHEW HOGAN.

Five-piece rock’n’rollers The Sure-Fire Midnights have done things the other way ‘round with album #2, as they’ve taken it over east before launching here.
As singer/guitarist Clair Sargeant tells us, last weekend’s shows at Melbourne’s iconic Tote and Cherry Bar on AC/DC Lane went down a hoot. “The shows were awesome with great reception,” she boasts. “The more we tour there the bigger following we have. We played with some great bands that we are keen to bring to Perth – Rock City Riff Raff and Uptown Ace – hopefully early next year.”
It’s little surprise that the shows were a success as last year’s Melbourne shows were monumental for the band. “[Mini-festival] Cherry Rock 2010 was so much fun, getting to meet Rose Tattoo and get some pointers on longevity in the world of rock’n’roll – we played to a packed room too,” Sargeant recalls. “Playing with a newly reformed Warped at The Tote last year was heaps of fun too and it was a massive night! We always have fun when we go to Melbourne, they love their rock so it’s a great place for us to play!”
A little bit of Melbourne found its way onto Strike At Midnight as well with Warped guitar/vocalist Todd Trevor producing the record. “Todd has played with heaps of rock’n’roll bands in Melbourne over the last 10 or so years,” Sargeant says. “He recorded with Warped in some amazing studios with some amazing engineers and producers who have worked for people such as Kiss and Rose Tattoo – he gets rock’n’roll and big guitars so he definitely helped to make a bigger sounding record for us. We also co-wrote some stuff together, which is something I haven’t done before and was fun!”
The hard work has paid off too, as Sargeant says they’ve created an album that you “Can’t get out of your head”. “We wrote Sacred Gun to be the ‘opening song’ which is something we haven’t done before,” she elaborates. “I love it when an album opens with a definite opening track. The title track is a slower, Joan Jett-esque song with a catchy-as chorus. We have re-recorded Over The Edge and have followed it with a cover of The Wipers’ song Over The Edge which is something I have always wanted to do as something cool and different – they are like a part one and part two kind of thing! All the songs are definitely Sure-Fire songs but are proof of a band evolving.”