Motor Ace To Celebrate 20 Years Of Five Star Laundry On Reunion Tour

Motor Ace will be hitting the road in June to celebrate 20 years since the release of their debut album ‘Five Star Laundry’.

‘Five Star Laundry’ was released in March 2021 so the tour dates align closer to the release of the second album ‘Shoot This’ from June 2002, but hey, Covid delays will do that to you.

The Motor Ace story is a short story, just three albums in five years and then a very long hiatus.

Damian Costin says the band never really broke up, they just stopped working. “The long story short is it just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t right for us. Patch had had some issues previous to that and he came back to do the third record. Circumstances had changed. Dave went off in a direction, same with Matt and the writing was on the wall when Festival Records literally the week we put out the record folded”.

Motor Ace had also evolved from being a Triple J band to a Triple M band. “I think we had in that traditional sense with Triple J a national platform where you got played everywhere. We transformed into a position to more commercial radio that we weren’t so familiar with. It wasn’t where out heads were at. We never said we were breaking up but we certainly didn’t think we were going to get back together.”

When talk of the 20th anniversary started to bubble, the four members started talking. “It started when someone called and asked if we wanted to make a vinyl of ‘Five Star Laundry’. I called Patch and said ‘lets get this remastered and make some vinyl’. I then organised dinner for us all and in some ways was slightly scheming my way in to make sure everyone was plastered. I liquored them up and tabled the idea and said ‘hey, wat are you doing in two years?’. It was going to be 20 years of when he got together, 2019 for 1999. I said ‘what if I booked us a tour, would you come along?’ and there was a resounding ‘yes’. It was like ‘as long as its fun, I’m there’ and it was a fucking hoot.

As for four old blokes getting the band back together, Damo says, “We are better with age. We are much, much better with age”.

Motor Ace will head out on the Five Star Laundry 20th anniversary tour in June.

Motor Ace dates are:

10 June, Fremantle, Freo Social
11 June, Perth, Badlands Bar
16 June, Brisbane, The Triffid
17 June, Sydney, The Factory Theatre
18 June, Newcastle, The Cambridge Hotel
23 June, Adelaide, The Gov
24 June, Melbourne, 170 Russell

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