In the past couple of years, Sydney rock trio MY FUTURE LIES has firmly established itself as one of Australia’s most popular unsigned bands. With over a million MySpace plays to their credit, plus a brilliant debut album, several singles, plus two self-funded live DVDs, MY FUTURE LIES is the epitome of what it means to be a highly successful, truly independent band in this modern music age. One of the hardest working young outfits in the country, MY FUTURE LIES have performed literally hundreds of live shows right around Australia, forging an ever-growing loyal fanbase in every port of call. The band’s MySpace success has also seen the trio’s popularity begin to be replicated in Europe, even though they’ve yet to set foot on the Continent. Incredibly, MY FUTURE LIES have sold almost as many records in Europe as they have here at home. Although the earliest incarnation of MY FUTURE LIES was playing shows together as early as 2006 under the banner of Acid Eyeliner, it’s only been in the past two years that the band has solidified its line-up and only in this past year that the trio adopted its new name. The name-change coincided with the release of MY FUTURE LIES’ self-titled, self-produced, self-funded debut album. Since then, on the back of the debut album’s success, the trio has toured more intensely than ever, travelling and playing as far and wide as Adelaide, Rockhampton, Bell’s Beach outside Melbourne and Uluru in Alice Springs. But for all that success and experience and hard work, it’s only now that the members of MY FUTURE LIES feel like the real game is about to begin. The group recently released a brand new single, “Just One Chance”, and it marks a major step up in sound and commerciability. Released as a four-track EP, it’s MY FUTURE LIES’ first professionally-recorded work (everything up until this point was recorded in drummer Murray Danger’s home studio). The “Just One Chance” EP sparkles with melody and energy and exhibits the group’s readiness to step up and be embraced by the mainstream. Now with professional management in place, MY FUTURE LIES is slowly working towards recording album number two – pencilled in for an early 2010 release – which will undoubtedly let all of Australia know, and all of the world for that matter, that this is without doubt one of the hottest young rock acts in the country. The driving force behind MY FUTURE LIES is the band’s frontman, guitarist and lyricist, Lukey Lukess. A gifted guitarist and songsmith, Lukey has been a professional muso ever since leaving high school, performing in a variety of bands and establishing himself as an in-demand session player while still a teenager. Everything changed for Lukey in January 2006 when his party band decided to include a couple of originals in its set during a show at the legendary Twin Towns Services Club in Tweed Heads. The reaction was nothing short of phenomenal and career-changing. “We had 400 or 500 kids, a really holiday crowd in there, and they really enjoyed the original stuff,” Lukey recalls. “It wasn’t until we got back to Sydney after that first show that we suddenly had 500 hits on MySpace and friends were adding us. So overnight, from that one show, from 400 kids seeing us, we got home and there was 500 hits on our site, and then there was 1000, all spreading the word from that show. There were people who had commuted from Sydney, so suddenly we had people saying, ‘When are you going to play in Sydney?’ So the ball started rolling really quickly after that.” The band immediately recorded those two original songs in drummer Murray’s home studio, and one of those first two songs, the cheekily titled “Penny Lane”, was immediately picked up by Nova in Sydney as part of the radio station’s unsigned campaign. It led to the release of the band’s first EP, which led to the video of “Penny Lane” getting national plays on TV, and another massive spike in hits on the band’s website. They ended up performing an extraordinary 126 shows in that first year alone. The following year, 2007, saw the ball keep rolling in a big way. Highlights included regular appearances on MTV, as well as a massive support slot on The Veronicas’ show at the Hodern Pavilion in Sydney. (The band has since shared bills with the likes of The Living End, MCFLY, Dragon, Choir Boys and Mental As Anything.) Towards the end of the year, the band released a new single, “Kissing In The Driveway”, which went on to top Triple J’s Unearthed Charts and remains one of MY FUTURE LIES’ most popular songs to this day. Then came 2008, which saw the name change, the release of the debut album, a second live DVD, more singles and many more live shows. By the end of the year, the performance count had ticked over 350. Since then, MY FUTURE LIES’ MySpace page has gone ballistic, with over 500,000 hits in that past year alone. Lukey Lukess puts his band’s success so far down to a few simple things: great musicianship, hard work and the simple truthfulness in his songs which have connected with so many people. “The thing I try to do most in my music is to be really honest,” Lukey says. “The lyrics are simple but convey the message really well, which is usually message about love. The latest song (“Just One Chance”) is about a plane crash but there is a deep message in there about loving someone as well.” Such is the relationship that MY FUTURE LIES has forged with its fanbase that the band had already sold hundreds of copies of the “Just One Chance” EP … before anyone had even heard the song! Now, Lukey and his band are focusing on album number two which everyone knows will be a defining moment for the band. Lukey says he has about 75 per cent of the new songs written, and the group is already in talks with a celebrated American producer about possibly recording the next album in Los Angeles. “The next step is obviously working towards the second album for us, which is hopefully going to be huge,” Lukey says. What happens between now and then, well, the way things are going, anything could happen! “I am not interested at all in being the latest fad,” the singer says. “I want our gigs to be places where people come because they really love our songs. “Getting a record deal was never my first priority, as much as it would be great, especially having the marketing side and the money behind us to do what we want to do. But the actual ability to do what we want to do, to write the music that I want to write and release the music that I want to write, has been so easy to do just by ourselves. But signing to an indie label or a major is not something that I’ve ruled out, but it has to be right for us. “We want to make music. We want to make another five or six records in the next six or seven years, and hopefully more after that. It’s a long-term thing for us.”