Spitfire Rain are a new Melbourne based band, fronted by the mercurial Suzani Rain. Their weapon of choice is melodic, riff driven Stadium Rock. Roaring,dynamic guitars lock in with the big block rhythm section, providing the backbone for Suze's distinctive vocals and super sized choruses. Taking the DNA of great Australian acts such as The Divinyls and The Baby Animals and welding it to their unique songwriting prowess, Spitfire Rain are proving that "radio friendly" needn't mean "sans cojones"...

Having already conquered the stages of some of Melbourne’s rock venues like The Espy, Ding Dong and Hi-Fi Bar, 2009 will be a red letter year for the band with the release of their debut e.p and more gigs than you can wave a Les Paul at.

Spitfire Rain – how and when did the band come together and what’s the inspiration behind the name?

The band initially arose from good songwriting chemistry that Suze and I both discovered we had waaaay back in 2003. She came into a guitar shop I was gainfully employed at and was looking for band members. Up until then, I ‘d had no luck finding the next Bruce Coverdale Perry, so we got together and came up with some tunes straight off the bat that we were very happy with. The name of the band was initially Spitfire which we knew would be taken by zillion other bands so I just added her surname, Rain.. Similar to what Yngwie did with the J... Great minds think alike..

Can you introduce each member of your band and give us a rock "n" roll fact about each of them?

Suzani Rain –Vocals. Too talented for her own good, not too bad on the old optic nerve either. R’N’R Fact: She has 55 tattoos.

James Bunney- Drums: Quite frankly, he is the man when it comes to pure unadulterated skinsmanship. A powerhouse rock drummer and also the singer for his own band, Tall Order.

R’N’r Fact: Will quite happily play with broken gear.

Andrew “Earl” Irwin-Guitar: He actually taught me my first song on guitar, Battle Hymn by Manowar, back before the wheel was invented. Is probably the only sane person in the band and thus extremely valued.

RNR fact: Drives a Valiant… None more Rock.

Steve Cox- Bass: Ladies man and all round raconteur, used to have super long hair which I envied, then gallantly shaved it off to raise money for cancer. The people’s champion.

R’nR Fact: Loves beer more than life itself and has toured with Jeff Scott Soto AND Zakk Wylde..

Ben Webster-Guitar: (me) The Ward Cleaver/Reuben Kincaid of the band. Stylish, yet firm.

Rn’R fact: Not too long ago I had 5 Ibanez Destroyer guitars at one time. It was rumoured to be the biggest collection in the South Eastern suburbs.

You describe yourselves as a melodic hurricane...please explain what a melodic hurricane sounds like exactly for the benefit of those yet to hear you guys or for our hearing impaired readers :)

Look, I’m not gonna lie to you.. At the time of publication, I thought that ‘Hurricane” description (as it’s now referred to) would just make good copy, rather than the standard 8 million band name list or the usual “Imagine the love child of” or “Sounds like a jelly wrestling match between” type rundowns we’ve come to expect on these self promotion websites. But as time wore on, we’ve really grown into our somewhat lofty title. Just listen to the songs super loud on your stereo or Ipod, while standing in the afterburner of a Stealth bomber. Easy as.

Since you insist though, imagine a high stakes poker game between The Divinyls, Danger Danger and The Foo Fighters.. With Butch Walker dealing in one of those green-tinted visor things. Aim high, I say..

You have two killer songs up on your Myspace page, when can we expect to hear more new songs from Spitfire Rain or perhaps get our hands on a CD/EP?

Great question and thanks for asking, I'm stoked you like our tunes...Those songs are very basic demos we did to realistically suss out the band's sound. We are currently finalizing the list for an album which will hopefully be out by the end of the year. When you’ve got 11 songs to choose from, it’s really hard to nail down the final 10.

In terms of YOUR songwriting, what do you consider to be more important a killer hook or a thought provoking lyric?

Hooks first, ask questions later.

Bob Dylan can sleep easy.. For now.

What do you think sets Spitfire Rain apart from other rock bands out there today?

Apart from being a melodic hurricane?? Last time I checked, there wasn’t too many of those kicking (or blowing) around.. Seriously though, I reckon we’re pretty unique in Australia, the only band I can think of that’s on the similar path as us are a Boston band called Damone, who funnily enough are pretty awesome.

What bands did you grow up listening to and how did they help in creating the style of music that can now be heard through Spitfire Rain?

The ‘big guns’ for me as a youth (gone wild) were Iron Maiden, Queen and AC/DC.. And still are. I played for a little while in a melodic punk band called Gameover and they introduced me to Jimmy Eat World, The Donots, Anberlin and the more ‘contemporary’ sounds etc., which had a huge impact on my writing.. I really like the energy that the music had.

Suzani comes from Veruca Salt, The Divinyls, Fleetwood Mac, Icehouse, Noiseworks and Hole, even Dolly Parton. I’d like to think there’s a little of those influences creeping through, although it’s never a conscious thing, we just go with our feeling on a song by song basis. It all revolves around the chorus and hooks for us. That’s the bottom line.

If you could travel back in time and play your music to one of your musical heroes, or record labels or musical eras, who, what or when would it be?

Personally, out of my extensive gallery of musical heroes, I’d actually like to play our stuff to Justin Hawkins.. His outlandish delivery sometimes overshadows his freakish songwriting ability for some people. The ace thing is he doesn’t care. I’ve got nothing but great respect for that man. And I reckon he’d ‘get it.’ Or maybe Mutt Lange if he’d do us a real bargain production deal.

Aside from seeing some killer t-shirts, what can people expect from spending 45 minutes at one of your live gigs?

A kickass set of songs with a unique perspective, there’s usually something most rock fans can latch on to with our stuff. We’re not in one particular niche I don’t think, just a plain ol’ ‘rock’ band, which may or may not be to our detriment. We’ve played gigs with The Baby Animals, Vanessa Amorosi, The Dead Things and we’ve got one coming up with Electric Mary.. Basically, we shoot for a lot of melody mixed in with a tough, rawer delivery. No backing tracks or other types of smoke and mirrors.. Except for our sterling selection of vintage band t-shirts, as you’ve noted.. Nothing compels an audience like a 25 y/o picture of Don Dokken glaring out at you..

What are your thoughts on the current state of the music scene here in Melbourne and Australia?

I think it’s real healthy at the moment, there are plenty of good bands around if you do your homework and try and keep your mind open. Sites like yours and Melodicrock go a long way to help make the picture a lot clearer when there's so much information out there.. The music business however??? Totally different story. It is what it is though, you just to have adapt to survive.

2009 - What’s in store for the rest of the year?

We’ll keep playing shows but we’re mainly focused on the studio side and getting a really strong record for people to listen to and hopefully enjoy. Making sure the songs will be all they can be and if we’re really lucky they’ll live up to our expectations. Our next gig is Saturday 13th June at The Espy and the Electric Mary bonanza is the 25th July at the Pelly Bar in Frankston.

Thanks a lot Scotty for giving us some air time and May The Rock Be With You!!!!