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Animism was created on a summer day in 2000, the forming of the band happening long before the name was realised. Long-term friendships were forged over alcohol consumption and discussion of which bands were good and which were bad. At this point songs were needed and the next few months were spent writing the first Animism songs. The dedication of the group and the want to make something of it caused the relocation from a small rural community in Victoria to the north coast of NSW. The music scene was better, the weather warmer and the possibility to live as an unemployed musician greater. It was here Animism found its legs and after some line up changes and new material the gigs started on a regular basis. The constant gigging helped to refine the songs to best suit a live audience and we developed our stage show. This was pretty much us jumping around enough to make the overly drunk people dizzy and the relatively drunk get up and dance. The work ethic of the band at this stage was to do as many gigs as possible and never knock back a gig no matter how shit it seemed. It only took a little while for us to realise how things really worked. We were travelling up to eight hours to play gigs to twenty punters, a sound guy and a publican. This soon lost its appeal. Through out 2002 we travelled the majority of the east coast of Australia without any airplay and all that hard work amounted to us still being a relatively unknown band. We did meet plenty of cool people and in a way we payed our dues, but we also got sick of playing the same old shit. We had played the same venue in town over ten times that year and the idea of again relocating was discussed. We also sent our four-track demo to a few record companies and we were soon called back and asked to meet in Sydney with a well-known A&R type person. We were put in a studio and recorded two songs that we wrote just for the occasion. In hindsight we should have recorded songs that were already gigged thoroughly. It was an awesome experience being recorded in one of the best studios in the country and for free made it even sweeter. We again met with the record company in Sydney and it was decided that our songs were not for mainstream radio in this country. 2003 saw us relocate to Sydney and we worked hard to book our own gigs. The booking of shows was a lot different to what we were used to, we now had to deal with booking agents. It was no longer a matter of having a word with the publican. In the first four months of the year we were playing one or two gigs a week and we had a chance to check out what the Sydney scene was really like, and surprise, it was not what we had imagined. We met some great bands and found most of the support was from people like us who were struggling to be heard. We could no longer go on spending the energy on booking shows because we were not finding the time to write songs. We decided to find manager to look after the business side of things and after a few phone calls we had Steve, he became our manager and we got back to writing. Our outlook also changed and we started writing songs with a radio audience in mind instead of what the drunk punters would cheer. September 2003 sees us recording our first batch of ‘radio friendly’ songs. So we hope your reading this after having heard of us on your radio! Animism……..