The Mad Dash

 

ORIGINS: Sydney, NSW

GENRE: Ska-Punk

YEARS ACTIVE: 1999-2003

 

MEMBERS:

• Dave 'Gus' Gustafson - Bass
• Ryan McCluskey - Guitar
• Peter Gould - Saxophone
• Dave Berry - Trumpet
• Will Montgomery - Vocals
• Adam 'Simmo' Simpson - Drums
  
• Luke Hegarty - Drums (1999)

RELEASES: 

 

• Convivial Times Are Here (2000) - Download Here
• 1. Mad Dash
• 2. Nude Up
• 3. Shafty
• 4. Go Away
• 5. Idiot Box
• 6. Convivial Times
• 7. Drunk Again (live)
• 8. Shafty (live) 

• Time (2002)
• 1. Bahnhoffen
• 2. Mad Dash
• 3. April Four
• 4. Spinning
• 5. Any Other Day
• 6. Learn To Run
  

SUMMARY: Forming in November, 1999, The Mad Dash were a Sydney-based third wave ska-punk band who gigged heavily across Australia's east coast after releasing their first EP in 2000. Highlights for the band include placing high in both the Channel V Leg Up competition and 2000 Sydney Uni band comp, having a song featured on the Xbox game The Mad Dash, and playing on the Warped tour. There were some significant difficulties around recording the second EP and the band disbanded shortly after this point, though they did reunite for a couple of shows approximately 15 years later.

 

SHOWS: 

• Iron Duke, Alexandria - 20th May, 2000 
• Green Square, Zetland - 1st July, 2000
• Iron Duke, Alexandria - 21st September, 2000 
• Northpoint Tavern, North Sydney - 15th November, 2000
• Iron Duke, Alexandria - 18th November, 2000 (DAY)
  
• Manly Fishos, Manly - 18th November, 2000 (NIGHT) 
• PCYC, Parramatta - 8th December, 2000
• Rocks Rhythm Boat, Sydney - 28th January, 2001 
• Skank Around, The 9th Ward, Melbourne - 4th February, 2001 (VIC)
  
• The Metro, Sydney - 12th April, 2001
• Grounded Festival, Museum of Fire, Penrith - 13th April, 2001
  
• Club Beach, Club 77, Sydney - 19th May, 2001
• Vic on the Park, Enmore - 2nd June, 2001
  
• The Gabba, Brisbane - 22nd June, 2001 (QLD)
• Northpoint Tavern, North Sydney - 6th July, 2001 
• Newtown RSL, Newtown - 21st July, 2001 
• The 9th Ward, Melbourne - 25th August, 2001 (VIC)
• Vic on the Park, Enmore - 7th September, 2001
  
• The Punters Club, Melbourne - 27th September, 2001 (VIC)
• The Punters Club, Melbourne - 28th September, 2001 (VIC)
  
• Annandale Hotel, Annandale - 11th October, 2001 
• Annandale Hotel, Annandale - 22nd November, 2001 
• Warped Tour, Ulladulla - 6th April, 2002
  
• Warped Tour, Dee Why Beach, Sydney - 7th April, 2002
• Rocks Rhythm Boat, Sydney - 1st June, 2002
  
• Wyong Leagues Club, Wyong - 8th June, 2002
• Club 77, Sydney - 22nd June, 2002
• Roma Room, The Metro, Sydney - 5th July, 2002
• Lions Den, Brisbane - 6th July, 2002 (QLD)
• Central Club, Melbourne - 13th July, 2002 (VIC) 
• Gingerfest, Factory Theatre, Newtown - 19th December, 2015 (Reunion Show)
• Manning Bar, Sydney Uni - 1st December, 2018 (Reunion Show)
• Manning Bar, Sydney Uni - 9th December, 2023 (Reunion Show) 

ORAL HISTORY:

RYAN: I had a lot of reggae and Afro-beat records played to me growing up so I guess I developed a bit of a taste for the offbeat early on. Getting into bodyboarding and skating in my early teens led me to punk, which eventually led me to find ska-punk, which just hit the spot perfectly. I remember hearing that first Goldfinger album then becoming obsessed.

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

PETER: I hadn't played in any bands before The Mad Dash, just in a few duos and at school all through Primary and High School in the Turramurra School bands and Stage Band. Friends at my school drew me into heavier music... I was really into punk and heavy metal and the bad Rancid were a great crossover point for me into ska-punk band. 

Peter Gould (Saxophone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

DAVE: Before The Mad Dash, I'd sung in a few punk/rock bands in high school but none that did anything much of note. Just played a few parties a couple of youth centre shows. Mostly we annoyed my neighbours because we rehearsed in my parents' garage. One of these bands was called the Bonk, another was The Four Eligible Bachelors. The Mad Dash was the first rock band I would play trombone in. I'd played trombone since I was 8 years old - in school bands and orchestras. Then I went to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music for uni majoring in performance on trombone. This was during the peak of the the late '90s ska-punk boom. Since I was already into punk music, I was keen when I was asked to join a ska-punk band on trombone.

Dave Berry (Trombone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

GUS: I wanted to start a new band after Box 144 kind of fell apart, which happened after I changed schools. I found a few people - some from my new school and some from Bradfield who were friends of friends. Luke from Box 144 was on the drums for only a few months and then sort of disappeared.

Dave 'Gus' Gustafson (Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

 

RYAN: Basically The Mad Dash morphed out of another ska band Step Too Far that Gus, Pete and I briefly had with a bunch of other people. That band played one show at a school band comp and nothing else came of it. Gus joined Dr Raju for a while and I tried to start another band with not much success. In Summer 2000, Gus and I decided to give it another crack with some new people he'd met at Sydney Uni - Dave Berry, Will, and a drummer called Luke who he used to play with in a band called Box 144. 

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

GUS: I found Simmo in the year below me at my new school. I saw him at an Ataris gig at Manly Kanga Youth Centre and he joined the band shortly after that.

Dave 'Gus' Gustafson (Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

RYAN: The first ever jam was in my bedroom at my mum's place in Newtown with Gus on bass, Will on vocals, Luke on drums, and me. Luke didn't last long and Gus called his old school mate Simmo, who was and still is a machine on drums, and had played in a Northern Beaches pop-punk called Pokerface. We got back in touch with Pete (sax) and that was the lineup. Somehow it all seemed to work pretty seamlessly once we had the final lineup. Maybe we were lucky, but we were gigging within a few months.

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

SIMMO: I went to high school with Gus. He was in the year above me but I played drums for him for his HSC performance exam. I think the band had had a few rehearsals before I came along and weren't called The Mad Dash yet. Gus and I felt comfortable straight away, musically, and from memory it wasn't long before we had a bunch of songs, worked out how to write with a big group of people, and started to think about playing a show. 

Andrew Simpson (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

 

 

DAVE: We started to find out feet, musically, pretty quickly. Everyone in the band was pretty strong on their instrument, had a passion for the genre, and our playing styles all gelled pretty well.

Dave Berry (Trombone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

RYAN: The band name came first, then the song. Will just came up with the song one day shortly after we named the band 'The Mad Dash'. There's no real story attached to it, we were just trying to think of names and Gus came up with it one day. I think we were almost called Spin Cycle, which would have been terrible.

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

PETER: Dave and I would share ideas on horn lines and we would collaborate to work out what we thought was best. Dave is a great musician and was far better at the reading, writing, and composing - whereas I always had a good feel for improvising. As a mostly introverted person who cannot move or dance at all, the worst part of being a horn player was the bits on stage where I wasn't playing. I usually stepped back or if I'd had a few drinks I'd get into it. Dave did a lot of backup vocals in these parts, but we did usually have quite a lot of horn lines in most songs or we would harmonise and add volume to the rest of the band so there was not a huge amount of downtime.

Peter Gould (Saxophone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025 

 

SIMMO: Ryan was always onto getting us shows so before long we had a gig at the Iron Duke. I don't remember much but it was daytime when we played - I remember that, haha.

Andrew Simpson (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

 

RYAN: First show was an All Ages at the Iron Duke Hotel, probably around March/April 2000, some kind of mini-fest that Anthony from Bad Town zine put on. Our earliest shows were nerve-wracking and a lot of fun. I think the first three shows were all at the Iron Duke in the same week. The Northpoint Tavern was another early venue we hit a lot - Wednesday $4 jug nights there used to get wild! Some of the guys' uni mates used to rock up and take the song 'Nude Up' a bit too literally. I think we may have been banned from playing Bar Broadway for it at one point. 

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

DAVE: The first show was at the Iron Duke and The Last Hemeroids were headlining. I'm pretty sure Kamikaze Harry were on the bill too. The Last Hemeroids really took us under their wing early on and we played a lot of shows with them. They took us with them up to Brisbane, which would have been our first tour, and Martin (Last Hemeroids singer) even came to one of our last practices before the first gig to say hi and have a listen. I remember having such a sick time at the first show and being pretty stoked with the turnout and how cool the other bands were. We had a blast hanging out with them.

Dave Berry (Trombone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

REVIEW: .Kids were skanking around, the band's up-and-down ska kept the kids bouncing. The Mad Dash are a tight band who have what it takes to make it in the tough ska scene. The kids were loving it and they were having a great time.

Review of Iron Duke show by Brad 'Bomber' Moore, Bombshellzine, 2000

 

SIMMO: One show that stands out was opening for The Porkers at the Metro after only being a band for about 6 months.

Andrew Simpson (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

 

REVIEW: ...I found myself having a bit of a dance to their last song, 'The Mad Dash', which I'd heard before with the catchy chorus, "We're all going on a mad dash" sticking in your head. The crowd were skanking their hearts out.

Review of Manly Fishos show by Brad 'Bomber' Moore, Bombshellzine, 2000

 

RYAN: The first EP was recorded at Trackdown in its previous studio in Camperdown. I luckily had a hook-up there through my family so we recorded there for a fraction of what it should cost. I think we'd been jamming for about three months but had yet to actually play a show.

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

SIMMO: We recorded within the first year. Recorded the first batch of songs and that ended being the first EP. We recorded it (mostly) live.

Andrew Simpson (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

PETER: Recording was a lot of fun as well as intense. Lots of long hours and late nights. We were lucky to work with some really talented engineers.

Peter Gould (Saxophone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

 

DAVE: We recorded at a studio in Camperdown. It was a digital recording studio, which was still quite a new thing. It was my first experience in a recording studio. Before that the closest to a recording I'd done with bands was whacking a cassette in a player and recording the whole band live. I remember when Will went in to record the song 'The Mad Dash' that when he got to the bridge section he said he didn't have any lyrics yet, which was funny because we'd been playing it live for at least a year and no one knew that he'd just been making shit up or singing nonsense words the whole time. Our mate Jimmy did the artwork for the EP - he had his own graphic design company. I'm not sure if he also did the logo or if we already had someone draw that up. The photo on the back of the EP was taking in the rotunda in Camperdown Park, just near the studio. I'm pretty sure we just pressed it and sold it ourselves at shows. I think 'Nude Up' got played on Triple J a couple of times, which was heaps exciting for us back then. We also ended up chucking two live songs on the end of the EP that were recorded at Bar Broadway - we got banned from playing that venue twice, haha.

Dave Berry (Trombone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

REVIEW: The Mad Dash got the crowd on their feet, they opened up with 'Spinning Round', which was probably matching the thoughts of a few people in the crowd by this stage. Their ska sound got the crowd skankin' round the boat in fine form. The energy reached another level as the crowd got right into it... guitarist Ryan battled off what seemed like WW2 invasions from envious crowd members just wanting a piece of him. Showing that in their short time they've come a long way, they are a totally different band to when I saw their first show last year.  

Review of Harbour Cruise by Brad 'Bomber' Moore, Bombshellzine, 2001

 

RYAN: The band arrived at a pretty good time because, apart from Kamikaze Harry in Wollongong, there wasn't really any other bands in the Sydney area doing the third wave ska thing with the horn section at the time. The Kirbys, Bagster, Little More Than You, and The Lyrical Madmen all started just after us. Lightly Salted Peanuts may have started around the same time as us but they were more attached to the Christian pop-punk scene. Melbourne and Brisbane already had a bit of a scene happening but Sydney was really underrepresented at the time. 

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

 

DAVE: The first Brisbane tour was pretty loose. We had a rad time. Bomber (Brad Moore from Bombshellzine) came up too and we played with some awesome bands, including Wiseacre, who we went on to play with nearly every time we toured to Brisbane. I think we might have played with Community Cervix too - I'm pretty sure we crashed at their singer's place after one of the shows. I might be blending the memories of a couple of tours here... I don't think we played with Blowhard until later tours but they were another great Brisbane band we played with a couple of times.

Dave Berry (Trombone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

SIMMO: It was loose for sure. We were all 19, 20, 21, so everything was based around being stupid and having fun. It was early on when we first went to Melbourne and Brisbane for some shows. We went back a few times to each city and it felt like we did pretty well in both places after repeat visits. It was the usual early touring stuff - vans, stinky dudes, sleeping on couches, fucking around, drinking, weed, meeting other bands and new people.

Andrew Simpson (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

PETER: We played with a lot of really cool bands like Antiskeptic, One Dollar Short, The Ataris... I was always just blown away by being able to play with and watch them all. Touring was always fun and crazy. Playing schoolies on the Gold Coast on the stage on the beach was pretty fun, and the Warped Tour gigs were great too. I think there was one on the South Coast and one on the North Shore with bands like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones on the bill.

Peter Gould (Saxophone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

RYAN: Emily from Kamikaze Harry made this comment that Gus looked like one of The Wiggles and it's just sort of suck.

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), These Boots website, 2001

 

GUS: I wore a bright yellow 28 Days shirt and Emily was watching TV and a Wiggles advertisement came on and the connection was made... Now it has escalated to a stupid height of it being mentioned at every gig. Now there is an internet fan page devoted to the Wiggles of Ska, which is basically a big payout on us. We actually talked about getting colour-coded Mad Dash shirts but we voted against it.

Dave 'Gus' Gustafson (Bass), These Boots website, 2001

 

 

DAVE: After the first EP was done we'd ramped up the gigging and touring and started getting some support slots for bigger bands while continuing to work on new songs. We played heaps of the Tartan Heart Nite Club Shows at the Green Square Hotel and lots of local shows - there were so many sick Sydney and touring Australian bands around this time to play with. Some of my faves off the top of my head were Bagster, Muta, Secondbest, The Louisville Sluggers, The Lyrical Madmen, Topnovil, Loin Groin, The Shirkers, and of course the previously mentioned Kamikaze Harry and The Last Hemeroids. We toured to Melbourne and played with some rad bands like Mister Coffee and 99% Fat, who were absolute legends to hang out with.

Dave Berry (Trombone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

SIMMO: We played with The Porkers, The Shirkers, Unpaid Debt, The Last Hemeroids, Wiseacre, Bagster, Mr Coffee, 99% Fat, Crank, Antiskeptic, Area 7... Later on we were lucky enough to play with some bigger names like Frenzal Rhomb, The Ataris, Bodyjar, and played a few shows on the Warped Tour.

Andrew Simpson (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

GUS: Vans Warped, when the Bosstones played, was a definite stand out. A few Bodyjar shows in Brisbane and Sydney were also some of the standouts for me. Touring in the band was a lot of fun! Some challenging times too - it's hard to get five to six people to all get along when you're that age, or to know when to not be idiots, haha! One time I remember Will thinking it was funny to start making jokes about bombs while waiting in the line to check-in at the airport, so... yeah!

Dave 'Gus' Gustafson (Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

 

RYAN: The Warped Tour was the biggest highlight of our career for me. I came away from the '98 Warped Tour knowing I needed to start a band and then a few years later there we were. The first one we played was in Ulladulla on the back of a truck, which sounded terrible but the Mighty Mighty Bosstones came to watch our set, which made it pretty special. The next one in Dee Why was amazing, we played on a much bigger stage and probably to about 2000 people. Somehow we'd managed to get the same time slot as when Sunk Loto were on the mains tage, so we had all the punk/ska crowd in front of us.

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

DAVE: Over the first year or two we worked with several managers. The first person we took on didn't last too long - if I recall correctly we found out they had a bit of a bad reputation, something like they had kept a bunch of shirts/merch from touring US bands and were selling them for personal profit. Then we worked with another guy, Evan, for a while, who helped us organise grant applications and some tours but things fizzed out with him at some point.

Dave Berry (Trombone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

SIMMO: We made some film clips. Some only exist on VHS. They were fun, as a novelty, but tedious to make. We had fun, were stupid kids, and we didn't care. But the guy that made the clip for 'The Mad Dash' (Tony Gardiner) was a mate of the band so it was pretty easy. He was very professional and has gone to success in the film industry, living in L.A. now.

Andrew Simpson (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

 

RYAN: We went to Melbourne with the Porkers and played this show on our own in a regional town called Seymour for a bit of extra cash. Well, most of the crowd were army recruits from the Pukapunyal Base and let's just say that we felt like we were in that scene from The Blues Brothers where they're getting pelted with glass bottles behind chicken wire, haha. I also remember Dave thinking it would be a great idea to get some amyl that night but then dropped it while we were driving and the van reeked of amyl for the rest of the tour.

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

DAVE: After the first EP we played the Sydney Uni Band Comp and came second to The Vines. I'd thought we had a chance to take it out because half of the judging panel were in Nancy Vandal. But it turns out they made the right call. We made a film clip for the song 'Convivial Times', which never saw the light of day for some reason. We also did a number of shows with The Porkers, supported Unwritten Law (and appeared with them on Channel V during their guest programming slot - Wade beat us up at the Townie in the style of their clip for 'Lonesome'), and we got through to the semi-finals of a band competition on Channel V.

Dave Berry (Trombone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

GARRY: I was at the Uni band comp finals. I thought - these Mad Dash guys have it in the bag. Then The Vines came on and the singer played a guitar solo behind the back of his head and, yeah, that was that.

Garry (The Bedlam Beggars), Noise Levels discussion, 2025

 

NOTES: The Mad Dash are evolving beyond just the simple three chord chicka which have dominated the ears of all fans of ska-punk. Influences like rockabilly, punk and just straight-ahead rock have crept into their songs and have pushed the band past the limits. To me, they sound like The Mad Caddies with a bit of Operation Ivy to speed it up. I always considered them a ska band but I guess over recent times that's changing. 

Unknown, Beanz Baxter Issue 12, 2001 

 

RYAN: I had a guy recently message me saying that The Mad Dash has a huge cult following of gamers in the US and Japan... I'm still trying to get to the bottom of it but it's all because of the Xbox game we had a song on called Mad Dash Racing. It was one of the first Xbox games to come out... I had a guy call me out of the blue one day from a publishing company in America, wanting to use the song for the game. They somehow found the song on our website. We got paid 2k US dollars, haha, and it was on the soundtrack alongside Moby, KMFDM, Propellerheads, etc. Anyway, the recent interest is because the song has also been featured on two massive video game podcasts recently, with like 3 million views or something.

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

Mad Dash Racing, released 2001-2002

 

DAVE: At some point around the end of 2000 / beginning of 2001, we were contacted by Microsoft. They were about to release the original Xbox console and had a game called Mad Dash Racing coming out alongside it. They somehow found us and wanted to use our song 'The Mad Dash'. I think they offered us $2000 to use the song. By this stage the song had developed, reflecting the direction we were heading musically, so we thought that we would spend the money to re-record the newer version of the song and spend a little more cash to get a recording with a more polished sound. I remember thinking at the time that it may be good to also avoid any copyright issues that could arise from our use of the 'Monkey Magic' theme in the horn breakdown in the middle of the original recording, since there'd be a potentially larger audience from the game. We ended up at Powerhouse Studios with engineer Greg Stace. I really loved working with him - he's a great engineer and producer. We were stoked with how it turned out and decided to book in with him to record the second EP 'Time' soon after, which would also include the new version of 'The Mad Dash'. Greg was great at getting good performances out of us and knew how to get the sound we wanted. He also had great suggestions and ideas on finger details to include that enhanced the end product. We recorded drums and bass to tape and everything else was recorded using a class Neve desk and Pro Tools.

Dave Berry (Trombone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

RYAN: Annoyingly, we spent all that money re-recording 'The Mad Dash' for the game but they ended up using the old version from the first EP. Also, the masters for our new version ended up getting wrecked and we had to re-recorded it yet again for the second EP. Somehow during a file transfer (it was the early days of Pro Tools) everything crashed and we lost an EP that was about 75% done.

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

DAVE: After we recorded everything except for a few lead vocals and backing vocals, we ran out of cash. We booked in for a couple of months later to finish it off, giving us some time to save the money needed. Around this time the Xbox came out along with The Mad Dash game. However, they used the original EP recording instead of the one we'd spent the $2000 fee re-recording. They also never paid us. At one point, a lawyer-friend looked over the contract for us and then charged us $750. So I guess the recording of the song cost us $2750 in the end. Then, when we returned to Powerhouse to finish the EP it turned out that someone who worked at the studio, perhaps thinking we were done, had wiped all the digital content we had recorded. So all we had left was the drums and bass that was recorded to tape. That was devastating. To make things worse, the studio owners didn't want to give us any free studio time to re-record. There was a lot of angst about that and I can't remember exactly how it worked out, but I think we ended up renegotiating with the help of Greg Stace to at least get a little free time... but we essentially had to pay all over again. So that was an expensive fucking EP. I think we spent something in the area of $20 000 on it by the time it was done.

Dave Berry (Trombone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

DAVE: Despite all the issues with getting the recording done, I personally was so stoked with the final product of the Time EP. Listening back, I still enjoy the songs. I fucking loved writing and rehearsing them and playing them live. Our style definitely evolved over the first couple of years with our second EP featuring more refined songwriting and arrangement than our first. Hearing them back today brings back good memories. On a personal note, two of the songs were ones that I wrote and it was so exciting how they turned out after the band arranged all their parts and developed them.

Dave Berry (Trombone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

SIMMO: Our second EP was called Time. It was a much better produced version of the band and sounded more like we actually sounded live. Betters songs too, I reckon. It was out via a label called Beanz Baxter and distro through Shock Records (which we thought was super cool). I think there were a few channels but I was working in record stores and knew some people so we got invited to play some Shock showcases and they said they'd do a packaging and distribution deal initially and if it went well they might sign us. It didn't happen of course as we broke up maybe a year or 18 months after that.

Andrew Simpson (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025 

 

 

 

DAVE: A personal highlight was getting the legendary Fox Trotsky (Nancy Vandal) to design the nude Australia artwork for the second EP. I had gotten his contact details after he was a judge for the Sydney Uni Band Comp. I was so bloody excited to be the liaison with him when organising the EP artwork. And even more stoked with the artwork we got.

Dave Berry (Trombone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

RYAN: We got a pressing and distro deal through Shock with the view to a full signing if we sold enough CDs. I remember there being a fuck up with their pressing plant though and we ended up doing an EP launch at the metro with no EPs to sell, haha. I think up until around 2015 I was still having people tell me they never got the CD they ordered on the night. That launch was an epic night though, we'd been offered some shows in Brisbane with Bodyjar the next day and because we'd spend everything on the EP and promoting it we didn't have enough money to fly us all up the next morning... so we thought, fuck it, we'll drive up after the show. We got all the gear (drums, bass amp, guitar amp, pedalboards, horns, merch boxes), the seven band members, and our sound guy Garry into a Tarago and Simmo's Corolla and hauled ass through the night up to Brisbane. This was before the freeway in Northern NSW was put in, mind you, so the trip was even longer than it would be now! We then played an AA show at the Lion's Den in the arvo at the Waterloo in Brisbane that night, on no sleep!

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

REVIEW: After disappearing... The Mad Dash must have put out the Time EP finally. I found it quite by chance at Utopia and thought it was worth a listen as I was a big fan of their debut Convivial Times. The first thing I noticed about this is the production, which has been turned up about 400 notches... My favourite song is definitely the epic opener 'Barn Hoffen'.

Rhys Lewis, Dropkick Zine Issue 1, 2004

 

 

PETER: We started the band just out of high school, which seemed fairly normal for the time. The hardest thing was coming to the understanding that we all wanted it to succeed but also that we were all young and starting to realise that there were relationships, families, and careers that were starting and that you could not do both. Being a six piece band also meant it was far harder to ever make any reasonable income. We all kind of agreed that we did not have the time. I went straight into a cooking apprenticeship and everyone else had lots on their plates. I think we all sort of realised that we weren't going to easily make it commercially. We all still communicate on occasion today and are on good terms so there was no major falling out.

Peter Gould (Saxophone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

SIMMO: I think some of us could have done it forever, and some wanted to do more with different types of music. We also had some internal issues and just kinda imploded really.

Andrew Simpson (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

RYAN: To be honest, the band didn't actually last long enough to think about a third EP. By the time Time had come out I had, let's just say, "left the band" and they didn't even find a replacement guitarist. The very last show we ever played was main support for Antiskeptic at the Annandale with After the Fall opening. Luke Shirker and I had decided to resurrect Stereo City (we'd played a few shows as The Alleybrats about 6 months earlier) so I was well into that by the time The Mad Dash actually called it a day. 

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

PETER: We did some reunion shows about six years back in Sydney and Melbourne, and the boys did another one about one and a half years ago in Sydney, which I could not make it up from Melbourne for. I don't think there will be any further reunions, we did agree that it would be our last show ever last time. 

Peter Gould (Saxophone), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

Reunion

 

SIMMO: All the bullshit goes away with time and the memory of having a fun time remains, so the reunion shows was an idea that had been thrown around as something we might do. Everyone was up for it and we yes to Gingerfest, in support of a dude from the scene who had passed away. Then we thought why not do a Melbourne show too and then that was it - until a Mad Caddies offer came by and we said yeah to that. We didn't really hunt anything down, they just came to us and the timing was right, I guess. Safe to say it's all done now, we've got it all out of our systems and personally, I'm fine with it being a fun memory.

Andrew Simpson (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025 

 

RYAN: The Mad Dash was an amazing time, we did things that I never thought possible, like playing the Warped Tour, supporting Unwritten Law and The Ataris, playing on the beach at schoolies to 3000 people, and so on. It also started my career in the music industry - some of the people I met during that time are still people I work with today (Darren Hawthorn, Andrew 'Mugga' Kelly, Dan Bombings) so in some ways, even though the band ended, the journey never did.

Ryan McCluskey (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

 

RELATED BANDS: Step Too Far, Dr Raju, Box 144, Pokerface, None the Wiser, S.K.A.M., Bonk, The Four Eligible Bachelors, Stereo City