The making of ‘Oh the Romance’ by Iron On

(This was written for the 15th anniversary vinyl release of Oh the Romance in 2020.)

This year marks 15 years since Iron On’s debut album Oh The Romance was released. I never imagined that I’d see this album released on vinyl, especially not in 2020. But here we are.

In many ways, 2005 feels like a lifetime ago. And yet, I still have so many memories from that defining period of my life. I was twenty-five years old, and everything felt big and important. I had big dreams and big plans. I also had big anxieties and big heartache. But when a new song started to click in the rehearsal room, or when I stepped on stage with Iron On, for a brief moment I could escape all that. And I suddenly felt alive. It was a period defined by high highs and low lows. The making of Oh The Romance was no exception.

The songs that would eventually become our debut album were conceived at Headspace Rehearsal Studios in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, during 2004. Iron On were a well-oiled machine. We practiced twice a week, every single week. We would write songs, then rewrite them. We would arrange parts, then rearrange them. And we would play them over and over again until there was a consensus that the song felt ‘baked’. We didn’t want to overcook or undercook it. Iron On were very specific about what kind of songs we wanted to make, and selective about which songs saw the light of day. In fact, by the time we went in to the studio to record Oh The Romance, we only had ten songs to choose from to make a ten-track album. There was zero room for error. And there would be no B-sides.

We wanted Oh The Romance to be a progression—sonically and musically—from our first two EPs. We wanted huge guitars and plenty of hooks. Our in-joke at the time was that we wanted an album with ‘more hooks than a pirate convention’. Our first two EPs—The Understudy and Everybody Calm Down—were sprawling, unhinged and experimental. We still wanted these things—they were inherently ‘Iron On’—but we also wanted Oh The Romance to be an album that people could dance to. In essence, an album that sounded like the love child of The Woods by Sleater Kinney and Weezer’s Blue Album. So we asked ARIA-award winning producer, Magoo, if he would steer the ship and, to our amazement, he said yes.  

We headed into Magoo’s studio in March 2005, equally excited and terrified. Over four weeks we recorded and mixed the ten songs for Oh The Romance. We had a day to track each song and a day to mix each song—twenty days total. At the time, the members of Iron On were: Kate Cooper (vocals and guitar), Ross Hope (vocals and guitar), Ian Rogers (bass guitar), and Nicola Phoenix (drums). However, this line-up would not play the album tour later in the year.

Soon after we finished the recording sessions, Nicola (or ‘Nic’ as we used to call her) left the band. Then, after a few months of searching and auditioning, we found Marieca Page—a kindred spirit—and Iron On was complete again.

Marieca meticulously learned all the drum parts to our songs over the next few months. Then, in preparation for the launch, we played a few warm-up shows with the new line-up. But just a week after our first shows together, I got a phone call in the middle of the night: Nic had committed suicide.

The next few days, weeks and months were the most horrible and surreal of my life. We were all completely devastated and traumatised. Iron On could well have ended right then and there, without ever releasing Oh The Romance. But there was a sense that ‘the train that had already left the station’. Everything was in place for the biggest year of our musical lives. There were shows to play (that suddenly we didn’t want to play) and an album to master and release (that we never wanted to listen to again). There was also an unspoken feeling among the band that if we didn’t play the shows, we may never get back on a stage again; and if we didn’t master the album, we were never going to. So we kept moving. And on 5 September 2005, Oh The Romance was released into the world.

For years after its release I had mixed emotions when I’d listen to Oh The Romance. The songs were great, and the production was amazing—but every time I heard the opening drum part to ‘Learn Today Earn Tomorrow’, I thought of Nic.

These days when I listen to Oh The Romance I still think of Nic, but now the music brings a smile to my face—and I remember the making of Oh The Romance for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that it was. Growing up a big fan of Regurgitator and Jebediah, making an album with Magoo was a dream come true. Also, simply being a member of Iron On was like nothing else I have ever experienced in my life. As Ian once said in an email to our mailing list, “Iron On is a pretty tight unit; more family than band, more therapy circle than art project”. And Oh The Romance was our baby.

To me, it is the sound of four people in a room collectively working through their issues by making music: it’s honest, emotional, tense, vulnerable, uncompromising, unapologetic and freewheeling.

For this special fifteenth anniversary vinyl edition of Oh The Romance, we have included two bonus tracks: ‘Burn Collection’ and ‘Again, Again, Again’. These songs were demoed with Magoo in 2007, but never mastered or released in any official capacity—until now.  

For long-time fans of Iron On, I hope you enjoy this audio journey back to 2005. And for those of you who might be listening to Iron On for the very first time, welcome to the romance. 

—Ross

Credits:

IRON ON

• Ross Hope: guitars and vocals
• Kate Cooper: guitars and vocals
• Ian Rogers: bass guitar
• Nicola Phoenix: drums (tracks 1–10)
• Marieca Page: drums (tracks 11–12)

RECORDING AND PRODUCTION

Oh The Romance was produced, recorded and mixed by Magoo at Black Box Studios in February and March 2005.

Bonus tracks—Burn Collection and Again, Again, Again—were recorded and mixed as demos by Magoo at Black Box Studios in 2007.

All tracks (1–12) were mastered for vinyl by William Bowden at King Willy Sound in September 2019.

THANK YOU

A massive thank you to Remy Boccalatte, Paul Voge and False Peak Records. Without whom, this vinyl release would have never, ever, ever happened