Discovering Sticky Fingers

            

               Sticky Fingers is an indie rock/RnB soul band from Australia, the band started in 2008. They have slightly a bit of reggae too in their music, the reggae influence came from the band King Tide made in Australia as well. I first knew Sticky Fingers because of a friend in my old high school. It was break time, I was listening to music and my friend recommended me a Sticky Finger’s song, the one called “Happy Endings”. We watched the music video for “Happy Endings” together, I instantly fell in love with their music and especially with Dylan Frost, the lead vocal. From then, I started listening to their albums and exploring their songs. I am genuinely grateful that my friend did not gatekeep Sticky Fingers. A bit of information, gatekeeping is slang for when a person likes something and does not want everyone to know or like the same thing they like. Sticky Fingers have 2,011,382 monthly listeners on Spotify (a music platform) and 366 thousand subscribers on YouTube with an average of over 40 million viewers for their hit songs and music videos. I also watched some of their interviews and documentary. In eleventh grade, I moved to high school and started recommending Sticky Fingers to my new friends. Surprisingly, a couple of my friends knew the band. One time, there was a free class, and we blasted Sticky Fingers and sang along loudly. The ones that did not know Sticky Fingers also seemed to enjoy the songs.

   The band was made in Beaker “Beaks” Best parents’ garage, Beaks is the drummer. Sticky Fingers consists of five people; Dylan Frost, lead vocals and guitar, Paddy Cornwall, backing vocals/bassist, Seamus Coyle, lead guitar, Eric “Beaker Best” Da Silva Gruener, drums, and Daniel “Freddy Crabs” Neurath, keyboard. The members had a dream of performing at the Newton Festival, which is a free community gig. Unfortunately, the band was turned down by Newton Festival many times. They are frustrated and come up with an idea, their friend lived near the festival with a clear view of it. The band convinced their friend to let them play in her backyard. This “little” show attracted Dann Hume, a producer, that later sealed a partnership between the band and the producer. The next year, they finally succeeded and performed at Newton Festival. That’s when Sticky Fingers started to hit off, “Australia Street” is one of their hit songs along with “Gold Snafu” and “Ghost Town”. The music video of “A Sky Full of Stars” by Coldplay reminds me so much of the “How to Fly” music video, they are both fun and heart-warming. Sticky Fingers has unique styles, their appearance screams reggae/psychedelic/hippie. Frost has this kind of like Pablo Escobar mustache for his signature look. As Frost said, the motto they hold for their sounds is, “Erotica-psycho-Tropica…sex, pugs, and rock ‘n’ roll!”. Sticky Fingers is quite controversial, the most recent controversy was when Paddy Cornwall had a fight with Frost. Frost and Cornwall had been drinking for six hours straight, Cornwall hit Frost five times in the head and proceeded to punch him 26 times. The reason behind this fight was that Cornwall felt abused and discriminated against by Frost during the band’s career. Cornwall did not go to jail; the sentence was replaced with community service, and he avoided jail since he plead guilty to assaulting Frost. While Frost did a recovery in the hospital, the band took a two years hiatus. This year, 2021, the band has been teasing the fans via Instagram with a snippet comeback of their upcoming album. Cornwall and Frost made up and none of the members left Sticky Fingers.

   Despite the bad habits and controversy that followed the band, I like Sticky Fingers because I love the vibes in their music. Their vibes are like a drug, they are addicting, can make you feel really light, and are able to make you really enjoy yourself. People also said listening to Sticky Fingers while getting high felt like heaven. I do not do that, though, do not worry. My favorite song from them is “Clouds & Cream” but the one that has impacted my life is called “How to Fly”. I was at the lowest point in my life, the fact that I am an overthinker made it worse. The lyrics of “How to Fly” is basically taking drugs to escape reality though from my point of view “How to Fly” taught me to just let go as well as just bask in whatever life takes us and face the problems along the way. I often blasted “How to Fly” when I am riding in the car with my mom, she liked the song. I cannot really say that Sticky Fingers is a good role model but it is common sense plus the knowledge to know we have to pick the good things and avoid the bad things from our idols (musicians, actors, anyone in particular) actions as well as their behavior. Abi, one of my friends, said that this “punk” lifestyle where they take drugs and live life carelessly is not exemplary, our idols certainly have flaws since they are still human so it is our job to know the lines, we should not cross. I have been wanting to buy Sticky Fingers merchandise, the band has cool designs on their t-shirt, however, the tax and the shipping cost definitely will be pretty pricey. I have not got the chance to watch Sticky Fingers live concert too, I only watched it on YouTube. My most go-to concert to watch is their show in Amsterdam Paradiso, which was back in June 2018. Even through a screen, I can feel the euphoria, everyone was singing along and banging their heads to the music, it is so intriguing. Unfortunately, I do not think Sticky Fingers will come to Indonesia any time soon because of the pandemic and the fact that the band is not fully well-known yet in here. I bet when I get the chance to watch them live, it will be a very majestic feeling.