Nobody was more surprised than Vines drummer Hamish Rosser when bass-playing bandmate Patrick Matthews called him to arrange rehearsals late last year.

“’Rehearsals?! Excellent!’ I thought to myself. Then I thought we’d do one or two and that’d be it, but we rehearsed at least ten times, so I was really happy that was happening,” Rosser reveals.

Of course, the band would have had a difficult time not noticing the slew of scathing reviews surrounding their live performances. From Sydney to Seattle and everywhere in between, the general consensus was that witnessing a Vines show was akin to watching a car wreck. Indeed, one London performance was labeled ‘turgid’ and ‘pedestrian’.

But Rosser insists the surprise practice schedule had nothing to do with outsiders’ reactions. Like most rock’n’roll bands at the top of the heap, The Vines claim not to care.

“Craig never reads the press at all,” Rosser says. “I read it but I don’t let it upset me. I mean, I was in bands for so long just wishing we could get a photo in the local street press so I’m not going to get upset about a magazine that doesn’t like us. At least they’re taking an interest.” 

Despite the negative press Australia dished out on the band’s 2002 tour, Rosser is adamant the shows “weren’t really that bad.” Yet he does acknowledge the band’s effort at the Gold Coast Big Day Out in January 2003 – unfortunately, the set Channel V filmed and repeated for weeks afterwards – was below par.

“Oh yeah, that wasn’t the most special gig,” he cringes. “We hadn’t played for weeks and we didn’t even rehearse before that show.”

In an ideal world, Rosser says, the band wouldn’t need to promote their records; they’d concentrate solely on recording albums.

“Before Highly Evolved was out, Craig was talking about recording the second album. Craig would rather just record albums, like The Beatles did after 1966. The reality these days though is that if you record an album you have to go out and tour on it. But yeah, just recording would be the ideal situation.” 

On the eve of dropping their second album Winning Days, Rosser says the band have come to terms with the inevitably of touring and are “a slick outfit.” Well rehearsed and committed to delivering tight (dare we say professional?) performances, the Vines are looking to prove they have the goods. After all, they’ve already proved they have the songs.

Punchy Highly Evolved rockers like ‘Get Free’ and ‘Outtathaway’ are undeniable in their appeal. Meanwhile, slower, more considered songs like ‘Mary Jane’ and ‘Autumn Shade’ were largely overlooked by all but the most devout fans. But rather than pander to radio playlists by stuffing the second album full of two-and-half minute rockers, The Vines have stuck to their guns and delivered an album that traverses remarkably varied territory.

The opening pairing of first single ‘Ride’ and ‘Animal Machine’ fly the flag for Nirvana-styled rock, while ‘TV Pro’ meshes urgent distorted choruses with swirling psychedelic verses. Then ‘Autumn Shade II’ shows off Nicholls’ penchant for an acoustic ballad. And that’s just the first four songs.

Rosser says the band are even looking to release one of the ballads as a single.

“Hopefully ‘Winning Days (song)’ will be the next single, which will be really good because it might help change people’s perceptions of us. A lot of the time people come to the shows who have heard ‘Get Free’ and ‘Outtathaway’ on the radio and they expect to hear an hour’s worth of slamming rock. When they hear some of our slower songs they boo and yell at us to play more rock!”

“The idea with the album was to pick as diverse a mix of songs as possible, because we wanted to show as many sides of the band as we could. Bands like Regurgitator were always like that and I think all the best bands do it. You want each song to sound quite different to the rest.”

Rosser says Nicholls is again looking ahead, already talking about the band’s third long player. But perhaps he should slow down a little because in rock’n’roll you never know what’s going to happen. Indeed, Rosser admits there was a time when even he wondered if the second album would see the light of day.

“I think Patrick quit the band a few times but it was only for a day or two,” Rosser says, perhaps understating the tension that culminated in that now infamous onstage fistfight between Matthews and Nicholls in Boston in December 2002.

“The worst time was when we had to cancel a couple of gigs in Japan and come home for a break. We’d just done these things in America called ‘radio shows’ and it’s where a station books out an entertainment centre in every city and puts on like eight bands. So we had Good Charlotte and Audioslave and sometimes Coldplay or Creed playing with us and they’d only give us 25 minutes. People would yell out ‘You suck! We want Good Charlotte!’”

“That was in the middle of winter and we were surrounded by ice and snow on a crowded bus and we’d been touring for forever. That was definitely the low point of the last few years.”

“But it was so great having four months off back home in Australia over Christmas. We got back at the start of October after spending about five months recording and mixing in America. It’s like the reverse of everyone else: we get on planes and go overseas for work and then for holidays we don’t want to leave the house. I’ve got all the frequent flyer points you can imagine but I don’t want to even think about getting on a plane!”