When musical art imitates life experience

It is a blend classic rock, modern rock, alt rock and punk. So if you like that familiar cocktail served up loud and strong – then all hail Empra. These guys have a clean, rich sound that simply smacks of goodness. Forming a thick wall of energy, theirs is pop punk in all its bright glory.

With frontman Sanny Veloo saying he’d love to go to the US – where the biggest market is for his music – the big dream right now is to play music as much as possible. ”We’d love to support a big Australian band in summer, or a big [international] band touring nationally,” Veloo says.

With 23 radio stations nationally supporting Empra, as well as rotation on Triple J and Triple M’s Radar Rock, it doesn’t sound like a distant dream.

To create their music, Empra draws on life experience. ”A lot of rock’n’roll bands, they sing about the rock’n’roll lifestyle … The difference between us and most rock’n’roll bands I’ve seen in Australia is that Empra’s music is born out of real-life experiences,” Veloo says.

The music lives in the rock’n’roll context, but is also autobiographical. ”Ups and downs, losing a friend, losing a loved one, falling in love, falling out of love, having a day job that sucks, that kind of shit. It seems to connect with a lot of people in our shows who sing along to a lot of the songs. On stage I can see people shouting the lyrics to the choruses and stuff,” he says.

Set to visit The Basement soon, Empra have just released a cracking debut album. In a bit of a creative coup, track 11 packs a bit of a secret weapon – a cameo by Gotye a.k.a Wouter ”Wally” de Backer.

”We did a lot of shows together in Melbourne, so we knew each other. And this was even before Gotye started to take off, when he won his first ARIA,” Veloo says.

With the Big G performing his keyboard and sampling magic on a track called Sabrina, ”It sounded great. The guy’s a musical genius,” Veloo says.

”I was thinking that it would be really awesome if Wally could do his Gotye thing on this song, so I just called him up and asked him. And he said yes even before he got the song.”