Local band De Porsal have been entertaining audiences throughout Geelong, the Surf Coast and Melbourne for the last six years with their diverse, sometimes wacky brand of lo-fi indie rock.
De Porsal formed when four brothers, Cooper, Chay, Rory and Xander Willingham, began writing music together, which seems like an expected outcome for a bunch of musical lads growing up together.
But Chay Willingham is not so sure.
“We like to think that it happened naturally, but I think secretly our parents plotted it all along,” Willingham said.
“I think they were trying to create a boy band to make money off of us.
“They were very encouraging. I think it was a way of getting us to do something together without fighting.
“But I’d largely credit our parents for being like, yeah, we’ll give you a drum kit and you can put it in the lounge room and turn it into a studio.”
A quick listen through their discography – four studio albums and a live recording from the Barwon Club – shows a broad, creative output ranging from psych to indie, punk and even a Western album.
It is obvious that De Porsal, self-described “indie-rock dipsticks”, are not concerned with fitting in the mainstream.
“We find it hard to take ourselves seriously (but) we take the music fairly seriously in the sense that we put a lot of time and effort into it,” Willingham said.
“Our goal is to try to make ourselves laugh. We like to mess around with a bunch of different genres and ideas.
“Our intention is to do stuff that we find interesting. I think we’re mostly trying to avoid boredom, essentially.”
This weekend De Porsal will feature alongside fellow local acts Ella Sweeney and Finnigan Parker at the final gig of the year for Sofar Sounds, a series of secret location gigs that could be anywhere around Geelong.
The brothers will eschew their electric guitars, pedals and synths for an unplugged acoustic set, which they are fully embracing.
“We’re stoked for it… we’ve only done the unplugged thing once on a radio show in Sunbury, and it was really fun and different,” Willingham said.
“We try to make it so that each time you see us it’s a different experience, so we’re excited about that.”
De Porsal will perform somewhere in central Geelong on Saturday, December 14.
