TAWNY HAWK are a high energy, loud and rowdy punk rock/thrash band from Brisbane, QLD. Here’s the origin story …
During 2019, Singer/songwriter Nathan E Murphy re recorded his 1990’s Sasqauvine album. Session Musicians were hired for the recording, including Chris Gilbert on bass. Through the recording process, Chris made his Brother and drummer Anthony aware of the project. Anthony met Nathan shortly after with the intention to bring Nathans Sasqauvine songs to the live stage. Rehearsals began immediately as well as writing new music. During this time, Nathan recalled the story of his past drummer and close friend Tony Garry (RIP) who sadly passed away after a gig in 2017. At Tony’s memorial one year later at the property where he died, a Tawny Frog Mouth landed beside Nathan in broad daylight and flapped its wing into Nathans leg. Nathan said “Gday little buddy, you’re a friendly little guy”, and lent down and gave the Tawny Frog Mouth a little scratch behind the head and it sat there like he enjoyed it !Was the most bizarre experience! That Tawny frog mouth slept under the awning of the front verandah that night where Nathan and Tony played their final gig. Its been 3 years since and Tawny, the frog mouth has now mated and brings his mate to sleep there aswell. Its like he is Tony’s spirit animal. This is how the name TAWNY HAWK came to be. The band have played frequently both as a two piece, Guitar/vox and drums, and also as a three and four piece outfit. Currently Rodney Crowley has stepped in on the undertones as bassist.
Tawny Hawk released their self titled debut EP on the 18th of July 2021. It was recorded by Branco Cosic @1000hz recordings, mixed by Darek Mudge at Matthew Gray Mastering-Mix studios and Mastered by Matthew Gray at Mathew Gray Mastering. The Tawny Hawk EP features 7 tracks in total and has a runtime of around 20 minutes.
The opening/title track Tawny Hawk (3:36) lyrically seems to be a bit of an introduction to the band, interestingly there is also a familiar punk muso DIY theme. Musically I really like the guitar intro, that distortion sound is nice. delivering a handful of distorted power chords is nothing special but the progression hits like a hook and is the foundation the verse parts of the song are built on. The Tawny Hawk EP features lyrical content that is typical of punk bands, tracks like Scum Duster (3:12) address the political landscape in Australia, Take out ya bins (2:54) and It’s just a job (3:16) are also songs with typical lyrical themes. It’s just a job had some quality guitar parts and this was the first track that the bass really stood out. JNM (2:27) is the song you’d expect from a band named Tawny Hawk, skate! this has hardcore/thrash crossover vibes and although its the shortest song on the EP it was a standout musically. Party (2:28) obviously a party song, I really like the line ‘how come you got your bitch face on’. The guitar shows off some rock style licks in this one and the whole thing almost feels like an anti straight edge song with positive vibes. The closing track Self Descent (2:35) feels dark and heavy with musical stabs turning into a fast thrash punk track, its almost artsy for an intro and then becomes in my opinion the best song on the EP, it certainly left me wanting more.
you can check out the Tawny Hawk EP on bandcamp here
