Remember when pop music was weird and dark and got played in garages and old cluttered living rooms? Community Radio do. In fact, they never forgot.

We’re not talking about ourselves here, promise. Community Radio are a band: Cameron Emerson-Elliot and Patrick Matthews (Youth Group), Mal McKernan and Jen Kevin. Reminiscent of the best bits of the 1990s guitar scene, these folk never cottoned on to angular haircuts or weird reverb. Community Radio is straight-up head-nodding guitar music and we love it.

Having crept around the scene (and into our hearts) for a couple of years now, the band have just put out two new singles that have us sporting that unflattering expression that just screams ‘heck yes’. If you love dirty pop and basslines you can twist to, keep an eye on these guys – a full album should be out by the end of the year.’

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We had a bit of a chat with Cameron from Community Radio:

Sam: Highlight of Community Radio‘s musical life so far?

Cameron: The thing I keep coming back to is the first time we handed in a CD to FBi at their music open day a few years ago. I took it in myself, and it felt very exciting to be dealing with the folk at the station on such a personal level, and it was so rewarding and encouraging to have these people who didn’t know us or have any reason to say they liked our music choose us as one of their top picks of the day and upload our track to soundcloud with a few others.

Say you’ve just met me in a bar… How would you describe your music to me?

I always say “College Rock”, but I don’t know if that means anything really. It’s just the kind of music we were listening to a lot when we were talking about starting the band. I don’t know how else to describe all those bands like R.E.M., The Feelies, Dream Syndicate, The Go-Betweens, Jonathan Richman and Beat Happening. They’re all kinda alternative bands, but it feels odd to call them just indie. Those guys are like the classics.

Where did you grow up? How do you think it’s influenced your sound, if at all?

Three of the four of us are from Canberra (and Pat is from a suburb further out in Sydney) – so I think in a way we’ve all grown up with playing music as a social thing to do. I think this kinda influences our sound, or at least in the way we approach making music together. We try to make it as enjoyable an experience for ourselves as we can.