TH3 (aka: Tyson Hodges Trio)

Questions - Sam Murdoch
Sunraysia Daily
Ph. 0350217133

Answers – Colin Thompson
Drums – TH3 & ethanol
www.myspace.com/drums4brains

Ok, so who’s TH3 made up of & what instruments do they play?

Tyson Hodges - 6 & 12-stringed guitars
Donovan Webb - bass
Colin Thompson - Drums

How would you describe the band?

It's a dynamic, instrumental, blues/roots riff machine.

How long have you guys been together?

Our first gigs together were back in 2001/2002.

What brought you together?

Tyson & I were already playing in a band called ethanol (who are also playing at the Sandbar on March 13th & 14th) & Tyson asked me over one time to have a listen to some new tunes he'd come up with. They were a bit different to the type of stuff we'd been doing with ethanol & seemed to deserve their own vehicle. So we jammed on these tunes (just the two of us) & they really took off. They were so juicy & full of riffage, there wasn't really any room for vocals, so we just decided to take them public in their raw state. We played them at a couple of open-mic-nights at our local (the Golden Vine Hotel) & punters were doing their heads in. Tyson suggested getting a bass player in to take a bit of the pressure off ourselves from having to fill all the musical spaces. There was only one man we could think of (& he was perfect) for the Job & that was Don Webb. Don's one of those guys who can play virtually any instrument you put in front of him. His first instrument was bass & he was playing professionally from a ridiculously young age. Don's a groove-merchant, just like Tyson & myself. We're all happiest when the groove is cookin' & we can just close our eyes & play... really let go. Some of the best times I can remember having on stage are those cut-loose moments with the Trio. It really is brilliant fun sharing the stage with these guys. I think that comes across when we play & I think that's what people dig about sharing the room with us when we play.

Who do the band take your influences from?

We don't tend to think much about influences, or who we sound like. We know what the songs want to say & we try to give them the right voice. I guess you could say we've got a very 1970's sensibility in the way we approach playing TH3's songs. Tyson's certainly got a very decisive 70's spin to everything he writes. We've all listened to a lot of Led Zeppelin & Hendrix & the blues-masters of every era, but we've also been influenced by some more modern bands like Tea Party, Audio Slave, Ben Harper, Ani DiFranco, Clutch... generally speaking though, the percentage of music in our individual collections recorded after 1975 is probably embarrassingly low. The only bands we tend to collectively get into in the past few years are those who are also clearly influenced by the masters of blues & rock from those golden days of the late sixties & early 70's.

What can we expect?

You can expect to be knocked on your ass! You can expect to hear pulsing bluesy rockin' grooves that'll make you wanna get up & boogie your buns off. Mate to be honest, none of us can wait to get to Mildy again, so you can expect us to play like we're excited to be there, because we will be! Every time we've been to Mildura, we get such a positive vibe from the crowd who comes out to see us, it's amazing. The Sandbar in particular has become a bit of a home away from home for the band. The other ethanol boys have only been up to Mildura to play once before so they're chomping at the bit as well. ethanol are a four-piece band with a hyperactive Maori fella named Skip up front. Skip's got a voice like an angel expelled from heaven for misbehavior... & he won't let the crowd sit on their hands when he takes the stage. He insists on everyone having just as good a time as he's having. Dan Guille, ethanol's bass player, is a master of the thumping, plucking, slapping funk from every era & puts out a bottom end sound that makes all your special parts tingle just the right way.

Do you guys play much around the place?

We've played a handful of festivals & quite a few regional pubs & clubs. We get down to Melbourne occasionally. We've found a few favorite places to play & tend to keep revisiting them as much as they'll have us. Obviously Mildura is right up there, but another of our favorite haunts is the St Andrews Pub. It's known as Melbourne's Mecca of Blues & Roots & the place just vibrates with the class of players who've graced the stage there when you walk in. The people who go to see bands there really pay attention to every note, every beat, every nuance of the music you play. It's daunting & exciting all at once. On one hand, the pressure's on because you feel like you've gotta prove you belong on that stage, but on the other, we've always been spoilt there with a good reception from the locals & those who come up from the City to see us play. We hope to keep creeping our way into the festival scene. In the meantime we'll keep coming back to Mildura as long as we are as well received as we have been thus far, that's a certainty.

How important are the country areas to music in general?

Well, we're country boys ourselves, so we have to say CRUCIAL! We've got a thriving original music scene down in Bendigo, punter support is up & down like a rollercoaster, but there are always a lot of great bands on the go. We play in Melbourne a bit, but I think it's a very different kind of energy around the scene down there. There's a lot more attitude & a lot less comradery. The other bands we've met (with a few notable exceptions) are a lot more competitive with each other, which we've never really been able to understand. We have made friendships with all sorts of bands from all sorts of areas around Victoria & interstate. One of our favorite bands is from Mildura! Jackson Firebird are two of the funnest guys we've come across in our travels & we have stayed in touch ever since we met them in early '07, having played with them in Mildura, Bendigo, St Andrews & Brunswick since that time. They are testimony that great talent & great music is definitely not exclusive to the big cities. The support we've got from the Sandbar & it's punters is absolutely inspiring... I find it hard to imagine that kind of consistent support in any of the pubs or clubs in Melbourne.

What's the best gig you've played?

Hard to single out one gig & say it's the best. One of the stand-outs for TH3 would have to be our first ever gig with Don on board. We got put on the billing with Geoff Achison, Jeff Lang & Chris Wilson... talk about getting thrown in the deep end! Those guys are all Aussie blues legends & here we were trying to mix it with the best... we thought the crowd would eat us alive. Instead they just ate it up! They were actually screaming for more at the end of our 45 minute set. We didn't really have any more tunes up our sleeve at the time & had to make something up to appease the crowd who wouldn't let us off the stage until we played another song. Thankfully we got away with it, which I think is testament to the chemistry between the three of us, even that early in the piece. Other gigs which rate an honorable mention would have to be the Mildura Beer & Blues Festival - particularly the first year. We got out of the car & loaded our gear on stage just in the nick of time to play our allotted set to a throng of Beer & Blues aficionados. We were so glad to get out of the car after the 5-hour drive, we didn't care that it felt like 100 degrees in the shade, we just bashed it out with everything we had. We played O'Malley's that night & managed to fill the bar with people who had seen us that afternoon & were raving to all their friends about this freaky 3-piece band from Bendigo... I think we fell in love with Mildura right then & there.

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Mp3.com.au - to be shut down

After many years of providing a free service for musicians in Australia, we have decided to close down the mp3.com.au website.

The site will be shut down by end of January 2012. Regards Admin

Bendigo, VIC, Australia

Folk, Blues Rock

Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Tea Party, Jimi Hendrix, Geoff Achison, Rory Gallagher, Jeff Lang, Ben Harper...

Tyson Hodges - Guitars

Don Webb - Bass

Colin Thompson - Drums

Interview re: TH3 returning (with ethanol in tow) to Mildura to play the Sandbar – March 13th & 14th

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