WHEN police knocked on the door of an Airbnb in the Hawkesbury one morning they were investigating a report of a woman screaming.
However, it turned out all-male Newcastle and Wollongong band, Jacob, were merely laying down demos.
Ruairi Burns (vocals) and Stuart Magill (drums) live in Newcastle, while the other members of the steel city five-piece - Andrew Jago, Jamie Manny, and Kristian Buncher - are school teachers based in Wollongong.
Throw in the complications caused by the pandemic, and it meant Jacob were forced to hire Airbnb properties around the Hawkesbury during school holidays to practice and demo tracks.
After two years of sporadic practice sessions, followed by recording at Broadmeadow's Woodriver Studios, Jacob have finally released their third album The Rock Band.
"We'd make as much noise as we could, as long as we could," Burns says of writing the demos.
"But one time the police did end up coming and we thought we were far enough away neighbours. Police came as they were investigating reports of a woman screaming. I think that might have been me.
"Luckily it was one of the last days at that place. So we said, 'yes we'll turn it down', and then went hard that night and packed up and left the next day."
The Rock Band follows their self-titled debut (2016) and Show Me Some Passion (2018). It finds Jacob embracing their influences, such as early 2000s New Jersey punk bands Saves The Day and Lifetime.
"It was on purpose that we wanted to write an uptempo, fun record in comparison to the previous releases, which are a bit moodier maybe," Burns says.
"On this one we went balls to the wall."
The album also features Jacob at their most experimental. Burns created three demo tracks alone - Jacob Is A Real Boy, Last Of The Great Slackers and Before The End - which serve as electronic-heavy links among the thrash of punk rock.
"I whipped them up on my computer and sent them as demos and we never turned them into full band songs, but we thought we liked having the home DIY aspect involved in the record, because it was such a huge part of the two years of writing," he says.
Jacob's The Rock Show is out now and will be launched at the Hamilton Station Hotel on September 9.
