Hindsight

ORIGINS: Sydney, NSW

GENRE: Melodic Hardcore

YEARS ACTIVE: 1995-1996, 1997-1999

 

MEMBERS:

• Matt Hunt - Vocals, Guitar
• Ziad Beydoun - Guitar, Vocals (1997-1999)
• Matt Bassett - Bass, Backing Vocals (1997-1999)
• Damian Coward - Bass (1995) Drums, Vocals (1996-1999)
  
• Chris Dewsbury - Drums (1995)
• Daniel - Bass (1996)
  

RELEASES: 

• Business Class (1998) - Download Here.
• 1. Intro
• 2. What Happened to Me?
• 3. Good Intention
• 4. Friend
• 5. Wear Me Down
• 6. Burn My Eyes
• 7. No Prize for Second
• 8. Soon Come the Rains
• 9. Hindsight
• 10. All That's Left
• 11. Outro
  

• The Natural Science EP
• 1. Coalesce
• 2. Natural Science
• 3. Sandcastles
• 4. If It Helps
• 5. Three Weeks to Live
• 6. Band Aid for a Broken Leg
  

SUMMARY: Hindsight began as a pop-punk project in the mid-'90s before the lineup solidified with the addition of Beydoun and Bassett in 1997. After this point, the band became one of the most solid melodic hardcore bands playing in Sydney - a four-piece powerhouse who played somewhere between 200 to 300 shows in the space of two years. The band split in 1999 after touring their second EP.

 

SHOWS: 

• Time and Tide Hotel, Dee Why - 20th January, 1996
  
• Wollongong Youth Centre, Wollongong - 16th May, 1998
• Northpoint Tavern, North Sydney - 8th August, 1998
  
• Sandringham Hotel, Newtown - 10th September, 1998
  
• Finnegan's, Canberra - 9th October, 1998 
• Iron Duke, Alexandria - 20th April, 1999
• Caringbah Bizzos, Caringbah - 21st April, 1999 
  
• Iron Duke, Alexandria - 17th July, 1999
• Bungalow, Kallangur - Ard September, 1999 [QLD show]
• Beergarden, Surfers Paradise - 24th September, 1999 [QLD show]
• Amitystock, Stradbroke Island - 25th September, 1999 [QLD show] 
• Queen Street Youth Centre, Calundra - 25th September, 1999 [QLD show] 
• Metro, Melbourne - 30th September, 1999 [VIC show]
• The Tote, Collingwood - 1st October, 1999 [VIC show] 
• The Esplanade, St Kilda - 2nd October, 1999 [VIC show]
• Red Lion, Wagga Wagga - 7th October, 1999
• ANU Refectory, Canberra - 8th October, 1999
• Iron Duke, Alexandria - 9th October, 1999 

An early show in 1996, before the band reinvented itself as a four piece

ORAL HISTORY:

MATT H.: I started playing drums in the school band when I was around 8 years old and continued that into high school. I played in both the school concert and school jazz bands and had the opportunity to play at the Opera House. I picked up guitar later in my teens and always wanted to sing in bands so I started doing that around the age of 16. I played guitar and drums in Deify but the first band I sung in was Pandagrass. After that I played in a few other bands, all during school. After school I met Damien while I was working in a music shop and we became fast friends. We started Hindsight, then folded that lineup, started another band called 567 with Matt Bassett, and then the three of us went back to the name 'Hindsight'. Damien met Ziad and the rest is history. 

Matt Hunt (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

MATT H.: Chris Dewsbury had played drums with us for a little while but Damian wanted to try playing drums. He'd not really played them before, so it was fun and inspiring seeing him pick it up one beat at a time. Luckily, being a pop-punk band, we only needed the one beat, haha. We were a three piece at this time, with Daniel playing bass. We only played a few shows with that lineup.

Matt Hunt (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

The above two pics are from a mock-up made by the band in 1996.

 

 

ZIAD: Hindsight started when Blitz Babiez was going on hiatus in May 1997. I really wanted to start jamming on some new music I'd been writing. I answered an ad in the Drum Media looking for a guitarist for a melodic hardcore/punk band. I met up with Damien Coward, Matt Hunt, and Matt Basset at Zen Studios for a chat. We organised a jam the following week. Our first jam was at Damian's house... it was so exciting exchanging songs and riffs in this cleared-out lounge room, loud as hell, but all of us feeling an incredible energy. In something like four hours we had 5 or 6 songs. After a few more jams we organised our first demo to be recorded at Zen Studios. 

Ziad Beydoun (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

MATT H.: When we first jammed, having Ziad validate the trajectory we were already on gave us the confidence to keep trying different things. We weren't interested in playing a set of pop punk-style tunes, and Ziad was ready to try something different as well. I think that's one of the things that set us apart from others - we enjoyed pushing the limits and not being pigeonholed as one thing or another. Ziad was well-established in the Sydney punk scene with Blitz Babiez - we already respected what they had accomplished and, honestly, we were really excited that we would even consider jamming with us, let alone be keen to start something new. That first sweaty jam in Damian's tiny spare room in his terrace house in Chippendale was magic. We all just laughed and got a huge rush from the injection Ziad's playing gave us. He's a world class guitarist and we aspired to reach his level.

Matt Hunt (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

ZIAD: Our first show could have been either Feedback in Newtown or the Green Square. It would have been about 6-8 weeks after our first jam. We were all working part-time in '97-'98, so I was constantly looking for gigs and putting interstate tours together. From June '97 to September '99 we would have played 100 to 150 gigs.

Ziad Beydoun (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

ZIAD: There was a great deal of writing and dropping songs before recording the first EP. Essentially we were both subconsciously and consciously trying to be a little darker in sound. Tastes were changing and ideas were developing all the time. Having the opportunity to play a lot of gigs gave us a good indication of what songs worked and what didn't. Matt Hunt was very good at coming up with riffs that I wouldn't have thought of - dissident and emotionally-charged. Damian was incredibly gifted with arranging and playing drums in an unorthodox kind of way. Self-taught too. Matt Basset played the bass like it was his personality - straight up, simple, quiet most of the time, but you would notice if he wasn't there. I was kinda still unlearning - trying to play 'less is more' and discovering how to use more dynamics in music. One example was utilising guitar parts where one will repeat a riff and the other will move chords to give that wider feel. Once we agreed on the set of songs to record we hit up Zen Studios with Geoff Lee. We recorded all the music live and overdubbed vocals. Even I'd recorded albums and EPs with Blitz Babiez, it felt like it was a new thing again. Both in a good and bad way. Good in that it was so exciting but bad as in you would have thought I had more experience at that point. The outcome was that the recording was rough and aggressive-sounding, but that added to the punk aspect of the songs. Matt Hunt sings most of the songs - I sing two of them and Damian screams on one. We all did backing vocals. 

Ziad Beydoun (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

MATT H.: We were rehearsing at Zen Studios in St Peters. We had worked with in-house engineer Geoff Lee previously so going back in with him to record was a no-brainer. He's really efficient and knows how to pull a great sound quickly. We recorded live to tape and most of the songs were either first or second take. Ziad and I overdubbed our vocals later in the session. I think it was recorded and mixed in 8-10 hours. Pretty standard stuff. It was mastered by Wayne Baptist at Sony.

Matt Hunt (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

REVIEW: Business Class is a nine track mini-album that contains nine great songs. The bio lists their influences as MYC, Refused and Fugazi. Add to that a healthy dose of No Use For a Name and the recent Bodyjar stuff and you have a pretty good idea of Hindsight's sound. I'd say this is melodic punk... There is a hard edge to the songs but melody is always important. The lyrics are mostly personal type stuff about relationships with other people, with the odd rant about society... I really like this CD. 

Review of Business Class by Paul Mernagh, Censored Thought website, 1998

MATT H.: We brought 28 Days up from Melbourne and did a show with them at the Iron Duke to help launch the first EP, followed by a harbour cruise the next day. Those harbour cruises were fun... fun and messy. Business Class ended up being the first release for Damian on his Building Records label.

Matt Hunt (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

ZIAD: We did some crazy drives, including for one-off shows, We scored a gig with 28 Days and Mid Youth Crisis at the Punters Club (Melbourne) in early '98. It was on a Thursday and we drove all the way to Melbourne from 5am. We played the gig and then drove straight back to Sydney. We also toured a lot - especially to Brisbane and Melbourne. Later on we would also play regional towns and in South Australia.

Ziad Beydoun (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

 

MATT H.: We resisted offers from a new booking agent to take us on and then finally accepted, only to drive all the way to Adelaide and be told at the venue, "Ahhh, we don't book live bands here, and haven't in over 25 years." On the same tour, we were apparently booked for a festival but when we arrived we couldn't see our name on the lineup. We played after the headliner... to two security guards. Another time we were chased out of Toowoomba when the publican asked us if we were there to deal drugs. After punching me in the head he told his wife to "get the gun". On a positive note, we played with some of our favourite bands - MYC, Sommerset, Fahrenheit 451, Fallout. No Grace was also always a highlight. Playing All Ages shows in Melbourne was great fun - it was a really strong scene down there at the time and we could play two, sometimes three shows in a day. We couldn't do that in Sydney.

Matt Hunt (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

ZIAD: After extensive touring up and down the East Coast for almost two years straight, at times literally travelling interstate every two weeks, we decided to record again. We had a rough idea of the songs we wanted to record for the second EP - in that time of touring we'd collectively acquired a taste for darker-sounding music. Although our set was still a good mix of pop punk-sounding songs through to straight up hardcore, we subconsciously were working towards defining a sound that was, at least to us, unique. The outcome of that was Natural Science. We booked to record at Damien Gerard Studios in Sydney with Russell Pilling. I had recorded with him three times prior for Blitz Babiez. I remember having an appendix operation during that time. Before I could recover, I was keen to get to the studio and record my parts, so I got down there and just did it. The guitar was okay but doing the vocals on the two songs where I did lead vocals, plus all the backing vocals, was such a strain that I ended up splitting the stitches from my operation.

Ziad Beydoun (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

MATT H.: When we started writing new songs we were heading in a different direction stylistically. We didn't feel challenged playing the old tunes and, personally, I was ready to move on. The songs I was writing were not the usual Hindsight-style songs and, thankfully, the rest of the band were ready for a change. My previous bands and my favourite bands outside the scene were eclectic, and I missed that. It was fun to challenge the perception of what Hindsight was or could be. Some punters didn't get it and that only spurred us on. When it came time to record, we took our time and experimented with different sounds and gear. Unfortunately I had a cold at the time so recording my vocals was a drag but w couldn't afford to postpone and book more time later. We were really excited with what we were hearing in the studio and Russell Pilling was great to work with, allowing us to try different things. It didn't sound like a Hindsight record and we knew we had some challenges to overcome once we released it. It was a more mature sound, with more diverse influences. Exactly what we set out to achieve.

Matt Hunt (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

 

ZIAD: Things were improving for the band around the time we recorded the second EP. Hindsight finally got onto Dave Batty's Custom-Made touring agency. We were touring up and down the coast but with bigger shows and lots of international support spots.

Ziad Beydoun (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

MATT H.: After Natural Science came out, we embarked on our biggest tour up and down the East Coast to launch it, playing 10 shows in about two weeks. I remember it being a blur. We did more press on that tour than we had done before and had a great turnout, especially at the All Ages shows. I could see that some people were not so pleasantly surprised at our new sound, but for us the new songs were exciting to play. It was a great time for us. All we wanted to do was play. It was tough juggling jobs and I was jumping from job to job, as I think Matt Basset was too. We had tunnel vision and had trouble keeping regular lives during that time. Ziad had a young family at home and I remember he found it difficult being away all the time, but he always stepped up and gave his all.

Matt Hunt (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

ZIAD: The band was drifting apart, mainly between me and the other three guys. I often wonder what would have happened with the band if certain shit didn't happen. Musically and artistically, Hindsight was a band I really take pride in having been part of. I learned so much about music and songwriting. Damian Coward was such a genius when it came to thinking outside the box with drumming and artwork. Matt Bassett was an awesome simplistic bassplayer who really nailed those songs. Matt Hunt's vocals were scratchy and broken and really suited the songs we played. I was learning the hard way that playing guitar with less manoeuvres and more dynamics really can be more interesting.

Ziad Beydoun (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

MATT H.: I think if you asked each of us why the band ended, you might get four different answers. Damian and I were writing new songs that were very different from previous Hindsight songs. As always, we wanted to push ourselves creatively and sometimes in bands, for things to work efficiently and effectively, you all need to meet on common ground. It became apparent that we'd have to move on to achieve that. It was nothing personal. We loved playing with Ziad and Matt Bassett. Both brought a lot to the band in different ways and we wouldn't have wanted to force things musically. Damian and I went on to form The Vitals and then Damian had the opportunity to move interstate. Who knows if Hindsight would have survived that move anyway.

Matt Hunt (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

RELATED BANDS: Deify, Pandagrass, Dr Bolowski's Garden Party, The Vitals, 567, We Each Knew, Firebrand, Attack/Delay, Arcane, Blood Like Water, Blitz Babiez, Dream Riot, Gwylo, War Rage Within