Mad Shapes

Genre: Pop/rock

on a journey through time and space

MAD SHAPES jump over logs on hot pink bikes to escape the authorities, they never get flat tyres, they have blonde perms, when they go to parties they ride, when they're chilling out they ride, they are pretty much Adelaide's greatest BMX riding band...

Well, that's what they'd like you to think, but the boys (and girl) from MAD SHAPES do happen to be rather good at throwing parties and singing wedding songs.

"For our first gig we borrowed a friend's house and filled their lounge room with a 1,000 pastel coloured balloons," says guitarist and the band's frontman Shane Shepherd.

"It was like The Wedding Singer gone-bad, there were so many balloons you could hardly see the band, it was another planet," adds bassist/singer Ben Green.

"I don't think people knew what to do with us at first," Shane says. "I mean, when we started it was mostly emo and hardcore bands in Adelaide and we just wanted to go nuts and have some fun. To our surprise a lot of peeps from those scenes, not just the indie kids, liked us which is so crazy, but then again who doesn't like a party?!?"

Ben agrees: "Yeah Jenie (keyboardist) was there at the house party and she's a hardcore kid through and through, I think we may have brought her over to the Dark-Side."

Back in 2004, Shane had just met Ben at local hangout the Enigma Bar in Adelaide. Ben happened to be wearing an oversized yellow woollen knitted top in a sea of black t-shirts, which caught Shane's attention, "It was funny to watch, he looked like a flashlight in a bat-cave", coincidentally Ben thinks bats are cute and cuddly. So naturally they started playing shows together, firstly as an acoustic duo.

After a couple of years 'getting bored' while playing some certifiably whacked out shows, they set off in early 07 with their first batch of weird pop songs with punk spark, quirky dance beats, antics aplenty and Melbourne drummer Nick Coppin. It wasn't long before Adelaide was wondering how it had spawned such a band.

The band's name MAD SHAPES comes from a quote by British comedy The Mighty Boosh, "Some friends of ours heard it said and thought it was the perfect name for us," Ben explains, "it means literally to pull crazy moves on the dance floor and that's us to a T."

After recently parting ways with drummer Nick - "long distance relationships don't work," says Shep - and the addition of Jenie 'The Nightmare' Kusic on Keys, the band is now firmly focussed on the future. "World's greatest party band has a nice ring to it", jokes Shane but then seriously, hmm, maybe we'll start with Australia and go from there."

Mad Shapes: your place TONIGHT, bring balloons.

madshapes@gmail.com

Mad Shapes

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