YOUNG Bendigo band Ironstone has qualified for the finals of Band Wars.
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The Melbourne battle of the bands competition started with 40 groups showcasing their skills in early heats before being culled to 20 bands for the semi finals.
Just 10 rock outfits will perform in the final on July 10, which will be filmed for Channel 31 and Foxtel’s Aurora channel.
Formerly known as Detention, Ironstone consist of five boys aged between 11 and 16.
The youngest is Perry Warren, 11, who plays bass. His brother Edward Warren, 14, plays lead guitar with thirteen year olds Kody Austin and Andy Muller on vocals and drums respectively.
At 16, Harrison Jenner is the oldest member and is also the newest having joined the band a few months ago.
Lead guitar Eddy Warren said the band has a combined age of 67.
“We are the youngest band in history of the competition. It’s funny that we are a band that has a combine ages of 67 and other bands have members who are about that age,” he said. “It is good going up against adults because you know they can play really well and we can watch and learn from them. But if we play well it can be a bit of a psych out for them.”
As Detention, the band was known for performing impressive covers of iconic rock bands but their transition into Ironstone and competing in Band Wars has seen them begin to write their own songs.
“We have to play three songs with at least 50 per cent original material when we play Band Wars,” Eddy said.
“For the semis we did all orginals after playing two originals and a cover in the heats.
“Mum and I do all the writing. I have so many riffs and concepts in my head and mum's head is swimming with words. If it clicks fast you know it is going to be a good song.
“We have put our first original song on YouTube. We want to go for a full album and are more than half way there. This competition helps us push to create songs.”
Being such a young band means there are a number of lyrical topics that are off limits to them. Writing songs about drinking, drugs, girls, cars and clubs is off limits for Ironstone.
“AC/DC are a great band and I love them but they always write about rock and roll, getting drunk while hair bands write about girls,” Eddy said.
“We have songs about things like 1950s asylums, one has circus theme. We also want to separate from boy bands so there is no mentioned of the ‘L’ word.”
Can't go to political, because don't fully understand it. No one wants 13 years telling them how to ru the world.