Hungry Kids of Hungary

Hungry Kids of Hungary
Hungry Kids of Hungary at Albert's Studios in Sydney. L-R: Kane Mazlin, Ryan Strathie, Dean McGrath, Ben Dalton
Background information
Origin	Brisbane, Australia
Genres	Indie pop
Years active	2007–2013
Labels	Stop Start / EMI (Australia and New Zealand only) / Rough Trade (Benelux)
Website	http://www.hungrykidsofhungary.com/
Members	Ben Dalton Kane Mazlin Dean McGrath Ryan Strathie
Past members	Remy Boccalatte

Hungry Kids of Hungary were an Australian four-piece indie pop band from Brisbane, Queensland. The band consisted of Dean McGrath (lead vocals, guitar), Kane Mazlin (lead vocals, keys), Ben Dalton (bass guitar, vocals) and Ryan Strathie (drums, vocals). They are no longer active, and announced that they would be parting ways as a band on 28 November 2013.

Forming in mid-2007, the band appears to be the brainchild of drummer Ryan Strathie who had played in separate bands with both Kane Mazlin and childhood friend Ben Dalton. While Mazlin was living in London for a brief time, he kept in touch with Strathie sending him demos. Dean McGrath, Strathie and Dalton went to different local high schools and the boys became friendly playing in competing bands. When Mazlin returned to Australia, Strathie assembled the four for their first rehearsal with the intention of Mazlin fronting the band. It quickly became apparent that McGrath had a number of songs of his own and so they agreed to two singers and two songwriters. The band began to rehearse and recorded their debut, self-titled EP after playing a couple of local shows. They launched their EP at seminal Brisbane venue The Zoo in mid-2008 and quickly set out to play as many shows as possible.

They quickly garnered attention from the Australian music industry, most notably that of Triple J's Richard Kingsmill who played the songs "Lenny", "All You Need To Know" and "Set It Right" which would later go on to be added to high rotation.

In December 2008, the band were announced as the Queensland winners of Triple J Unearthed that entitled them to play the Gold Coast Big Day Out. They also went into the studio to begin recording of their next EP with Brisbane producer Matt Redlich.

The band embarked on the formative International Relations Tour with fellow Unearthed winners Philadelphia Grand Jury (Sydney) and Washington (Melbourne). The tour was a great success and sold-out nine of the 12 shows on the east coast.

Their second EP "Mega Mountain" was released into stores nationwide, along with their debut, in April 2009 via MGM Distribution and the radio success continued with their single "Scattered Diamonds" being another to reach high rotation on triple j, FBi, 4ZzZ and RRR. The single reached top 5 on the AIR Charts and the EP garnered favourable reviews everywhere. A second single "Old Money" was issued with a No Device remix of "Scattered Diamonds" which become a dancefloor hit at Purple Sneakers in Sydney.