Restless Leg by Restless Leg

Restless Leg (RL) formed when former band mates guitarist/vocalist Ben Chamie and drummer Jared Harrison, found themselves at a musical loose end. With long time friend Fiona Whalley recruited on bass, RL was born debuting on Saturday 31 March 2012 at a party in an Erskineville backyard, with not two weeks of rehearsals under their belts.

RL had a busy 2012 playing the usual dive bars, culminating in the recording of its self-titled debut album over 3 days at the end of November with Tim Kevin of Sydney indie heroes Knievel, and who recorded Toby Martin of Youth Group’s solo record.

Despite RL’s quick-fire formation, some of the songs on Restless Leg have been written over years and are imbued with a long view of underground pop music and draw a line from Ray Davies’ observational pop classics, through the Velvet Underground’s stripped down minimalist rock and roll, to the Modern Lovers’ laments of life in the suburbs.

Of middle-eastern and anglo-Australian parents, Ben Chamie grew up in the inner western suburbs of Sydney and like Jonathan Richman’s gawkish outsider, Ben’s songs capture moments of suburban geekiness as viewed from the periphery. RL take the classic influences mentioned above and give them an antipodean twist, as The Go-Betweens, The Clean and Smudge have before them.

Restless Leg got born in March 2012 at a backyard party. Constant gigging lent itself to lean and direct song arrangements recalling classic antipodean indie rockers such as The Go-Betweens and The Clean. RL released their self-titled debut in June 2013, follow up album 'Some Kind of Restless' in October 2017 and 'Dream Buffet' in June 2021.

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