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Throughout their career, Melbourne band The Fearless Vampire Killers have played alongside some of the world’s most acclaimed rock acts, such as The Hives and Grammy Award winners The Mars Volta. 23 year old lead singer Seán Ainsworth describes those moments as when he feels “all fuzzy inside” and reduce him to a wide eyed school boy. You wouldn’t know it from watching him play, as it seems he and the band merely takes their success in their stride. Ainsworth and lead guitarist Alistair Marx exude confidence of musicians who have been touring worldwide for decades. The band immerse themselves in their songs, and leave the stage drenched in sweat.

However, being an independent band isn’t always the rock and roll life style it seems. Ainsworth, whose appearance could be mistaken for a fifth Beatle, complete with Ray Ban wayfarers, speaks of the financial and personal difficulties The Fearless Vampire Killers have faced. Despite the band forming almost six years ago, they struggle to fund their recording and everyday living.

“We’ve all got [second] jobs. You don’t make any money until, I don’t even know when you start to make money!...It just seems like there’s no obvious point when you start to make money and can live of it…We’re always constantly in debt trying to pay back people,” explains Ainsworth.

Despite Melbourne being called the “live music capital of Australia” in The Age last month, The Fearless Vampire Killers receive very little revenue. The money they do make off shows is never spent on recreation, but rather on the band’s next project.

“The band pays for itself and we pay for ourselves to live as well,” is how Ainsworth describes the cycle.

To receive further exposure, The Fearless Vampire Killers hosted a house party in April this year where fans or even strangers could enjoy free beer and hear the band’s latest material. They used it as an opportunity for a video launch.

“Free beer will always bring people. If you can get free beer for every show, people are going to come…We wanted to make it a house party, like, ‘This is going to be the best night’ of your life kind of thing…We were lucky enough to find someone who was willing to trash and have 400 strangers in their house”, Ainsworth explains, laughing as he speaks.

Perhaps the most striking element of The Fearless Vampire Killers, without hearing their music, is the band’s name. The name was chosen by the group’s founding members, Ainsworth and Marx, in their high school days, before vampires became a worldwide phenomenon through the Twilight franchise and television shows True Blood and The Vampire Diaries.

“We’ve never had another name. It’s like when you first make a Hotmail account, that first email address, and you just kept it all that time [laughs]. It grew on us, the name…We were out before everything [in terms of vampires] except for Buffy The Vampire Slayer.”

You would be forgiven for incorrectly judging The Fearless Vampire Killers’ sound from hearing their name alone, but the group’s music is rock and roll, reminiscent of the ‘60s bands who defined the genre. When ask to describe popular culture’s influence over his music, Ainsworth speaks of his current inspirations, along with the bands who form the backbone of the group’s sound.

“Recently a lot of western films have been influencing us. We’ve been watching the Clint Eastwood ones, the whole trilogy of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. That stuff is just awesome…Other kinds of influences are obviously ‘60s stuff; The Beatles and The [Rolling] Stones. Those are kind of the bands you come back to…The Kinks, Neil Young, The Doors- all the great bands from the ‘60s.

After harnessing a cult following in Melbourne bars for several years, The Fearless Vampire Killers will be releasing their debut album Batmania in October. The album is a showcase of the best songs written by the band throughout their lives, and have been recorded over the past two years.

“It shouldn’t take that long but we’ve had our own personal speed bumps along the way. Being an independent band you’ve got to find money… We ended up just going into this little rehearsal studio in Fitzroy and we knocked the first basic tracks out in three days and we listened to them and said, ‘You know what, these are pretty good, we could release these.”

Despite The Fearless Vampire Killers’ financial struggles, it’s a job that also comes with once in a lifetime opportunities. Ainsworth’s best memories include landing support spots for the bands they listened to in high school; such as when opening for The Hives in 2008.

“We were just sitting backstage playing guitars and talking and we were like, ‘This is just surreal’. You feel like a kid in a candy store…You forget who you are for a moment and just go back to feeling like a teenager, which is great.”

The Fearless Vampire Killers will be supporting Lanie Lane next month, the singer songwriter who recently recorded with Jack White. Expect great music, and if the people are anything like Ainsworth, lovely company.

Photo by Polia Giannoulidis