Cry Club Celebrates Debut Album With Sold Out Shows!

Cry Club, the ‘Bubblegum Punk’ duo from Melbourne with a keen sense of musicality and a sparkling stage presence to boot, caught up with Star Observer a few days after their debut album, God I’m Such A Mess was released. Even with COVID putting a dampener on the achievement, these two genre defining artists are building momentum for what is sure to be their massive explosion onto the Australian music scene.

The band, made up of Jono Tooke (he/him) on guitar and vocalist Heather Riley (they/them), coined the term ‘Bubblegum Punk’ because they found they couldn’t fit themselves into any of the existing genres and felt like this represented the kind of sound they were going for.

“It’s kind of evocative of punk and synth and a certain kind of like, queer punk as well,” says Heather.

Jono, who developed an interest in music via computer games growing up, has “been in a million different creative relationships with people and played in a million bands.  But when we started doing stuff with Cry Club, it was just, the path ahead just seemed really clear.” 

 Jono along with Heather, who has never been in a band before but comes from a childhood of community musical theatre, are a winning combination.  Each of them bring something special to the mix. Jono has excellent musical theory and technical skills and Heather has a natural ear for music and they collaborate well together to come up with the catchy sounds that got them to this point.

And an impressive point it is, though COVID has done it’s best to put a dampener on things! In what sounds like a common theme, they’ve chosen to look on the bright side and tell us that the extra six months that COVID “gifted” them has only strengthened their bond and given them a chance to fine tune their act, plus get a whole lot of music written.

Cry Club was supposed to have played Splendour In The Grass, which would have been their biggest “we made it!” moment to date,  though they are confident there will be other opportunities in the future. A fact which seems evident when you hear that the concert dates they’d released had been sold out within a week, with an extra show having to be added to keep up with demand! 

‘God I’m Such A Mess’ is now available on vinyl or streaming here.