By Luke Voogt
North Geelong’s Brenton Perry says juggling full-time work with touring in a band is worth the struggle.
The construction worker is the lead singer and guitarist for My Echo, which shot to fame last month in Triple J’s unearthed competition.
“It’s funny, we spent so long wanting to be played on Triple J,” Perry said.
“It’s sort of when we gave up caring that they began to notice.
“To be honest it doesn’t really change anything, it just gets a bit of weight off your shoulders getting airplay on arguably Australia’s best radio station.”
The 31-year-old spoke to The Indy this week before the band’s Geelong show, following their recent tour of Adelaide.
“We spent almost every hour of those days driving,” he said.
“It takes its toll. But it’s what we want to do.”
Perry’s love of music began as he grew up in Bendigo, when his mum bought him a guitar and lessons.
“I just wanted to skate for the rest of my life but she forced me to go to this guitar lesson I didn’t want to do,” he said.
“It turned out to be the best thing that happened to me.”
My Echo formed in 2011 from the “remainders of another band”, with Perry and another Bendigo local and two from Traralgon.
“When that band shut up shop we sort of made the decision to keep doing it because we loved it,” Perry said.
“We feel more like brothers than a band I suppose. We’ve done a few EPs – It just took ages to get a full-length (album) out.”
The band took a short hiatus when Perry had a health scare and doctors suspected he had lymphoma.
“It was a pretty horrific time to be honest,” he said.
“But it gave me a lot of time to reflect on what I wanted to with my music and my life.”
A few months later doctors discovered it was an infection, telling Perry “you’re not going to drop dead”.
Perry moved to Geelong about 18 months ago with his wife.
“It was a bit of a no-brainer really,” he said. “I absolutely love it down here.”
He was looking forward to bringing his distinctively Aussie vocals to the Workers Club on Saturday 4 March.
“Now it’s my home town and I’ve made some new friends here,” he said.
“We might be feeling a little dusty – it’s the night after our Melbourne launch. The band probably parties a little too hard.”
