18 February 2025 – Stay Gold, Melbourne – words and pictures by Maxine Thomas
On 14 February 2025, acclaimed Canberra five-piece band Hands Like Houses blessed fans with their own Valentine’s gift of the long-awaited Atmospherics album. Combining their four latest EP releases, Hands Like Houses returned to their roots when creating the masterpiece in one sitting whilst also changing up the band dynamic with lead singer Josh Raven (originally from Perth’s The Faim) being the latest edition. Since the departure of Trenton Woodley, the modern stadium rock group wasn’t sure if they would be able to further release music. But coming up with the original idea of Atmospherics being a collaboration album between varying artists and that turning into Raven becoming the new frontman (where at first Raven’s response was “fuck no”) the next independent stage of Hands Like Houses began.
Premiering their 15-minute documentary and showcasing acoustic versions of the record, Hands Like Houses created a very intimate evening at Stay Gold, Melbourne on 18 February. Revealing their raw and true selves whilst answering questions from fans in the audience, Josh Raven, Joel Tyrrell (bass) and Matt Cooper (lead guitar) were not afraid to show fans the real artists behind the creation of this project. They found showcasing the songs in this way (acoustically) was a ‘great way to see where you can take the songs but also showing off how the song[writing] process begins.’
When creating this album, the rock quintet resided merely 10 metres from the waterfront, allowing them to hit refresh whenever required. Which is usually proven more difficult when not in fresh environments. Although taking on this new venture in writing an album, at the end of the day, ‘beyond this band we’re friends enjoying our time together’ Raven states.
Josh’s arrival to the band came at a key time and was able to rejuvenate what was the message behind Hands Like Houses with his genuine, full-throttle, and chaotic personality. Working with an array of artists, especially people who were once fans of vice versa with HLH looking up to these artists, was an important part of creating Atmospherics. It was “easy for ideas to be heard without an agenda outside of what Hands Like Houses is.” Callan Orr of Dream on Dreamer impacted the writing and producing of this album heavily and became a part of the writing process after previously meeting them in Florida.
During and after the show I was lucky enough to speak with Josh Raven about his transition from The Faim to Hands Like Houses and how criticism has affected this new chapter of his life.
Coming from The Faim being a completely different project to Hands Like Houses, are you ever able to bring anything you learnt from your other band to your new one or is it something you’d rather steer clear from entirely?
Josh Raven: First off, this doesn’t mean the end of The Faim or anything like that. Still very good friends with everyone in The Faim. The Band will release some new music at some point, I’m sure. But we’re just taking a lot of space to just do (other things). But that won’t take away from this (Hands Like Houses) either. But I definitely think, I think I’m just a different person to be fair if I’m going to be honest with you. Not like in the sense where my values or morals or anything like that has necessarily changed, but I think my perception of myself after going through a lot of real crazy shit, especially after Covid, you know? Not being able to play shows, have things cancelled, just going through a really weird space. Going from touring ten months out of the year to nothing really fucked with me, like really messed with me. Then I had to sort of reinvent myself to sort of exist in a space where I could just feel like a human again. Like this, the reason why I’m here doing this is again, like I sort of said it before when we did ‘Heaven,’ I couldn’t remember the last time I actually enjoyed writing music. Being around these guys that I’ve grown to love and stoked to be in (this band), it’s just become a space that’s so nurturing and beautiful for someone that wants to be creative you know? I almost sometimes stop myself where I’m like, cause it’s weird to just have like something so open and transparent, it’s great. But I’ve had to bring a different version of myself, a better version of myself and I’ll bring that version with The Faim as well.
Is there anything you’d like readers to know about the creation of Atmospherics and you’re joining of the band?
Raven: “I guess the only thing I would say is that, I’m coming into this band and into this space with the most genuine version of myself and I understand that there is a lot of progression and a journey to be had. I’m just really excited to continue to meet people but also explore the endless opportunities that music is giving us at the moment and Atmospherics is the first stepping stone of many, many things to come.”
With Hands Like Houses stepping in this new direction with their music and you becoming the new edition to the band, especially lead vocalist, there’s been criticism with long time fans holding concerns with where it’s all leading. How did you go about handling that? Have you managed to get positive outlooks of it or has it hit home?
Josh Raven: “Yeah 100%. I mean obviously (it was) extremely stressful at first. I’d never really had that kind of (pressure), well it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I thought it would be a lot, lot worse, and also anytime I’ve met with honest criticism or something like that, it’s an opportunity to grow. Like there’s always going to be people that just hate something for the sake of hating it. That’s kind of the world that we live in now. Everyone wants to hate something for the sake of it. But, sometimes when there’s honest criticism it’s actually really good. Cause I would prefer people say like ‘Oh I love this but I think I like this aspect of it’ because it’s like a genuine feeling, it’s a genuine thing. But also, at the end of the day, we’re just gonna do what we do creatively and we’re gonna follow our own journey within that. If people wanna be on board with it they can, if they don’t then we can’t control that. But we’re just gonna love what we do, and I hope people are going to love it too.”
Atmospherics is out now. If you haven’t already buy a copy from Hands Like Houses online store or give it a spin on any streaming service now.
