It's a sign of Hockey Dad's popularity that it took a mega star like Taylor Swift to hold them out of the top spot on the album charts this week.
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The Windang pair's third album Brain Candy entered the ARIA charts at No2 this week, only beaten out by the surprise release of Tay-Tay's Folklore.
Guitarist and singer Zach Stephenson said coming second to Swift (or anyone else for that matter) was better than what they expected.
"It was a surprise because we couldn't do our usual record promotion run and play in-stores and sell records that way," Stephenson says.
"So the pressure was definitely on to get out there and make yourself known through this time."
What they did - with the help of record company Farmer and the Owl and BMG - was keep the Brain Candy release in the public eye through creating a collectible "breakfast cereal box" filled with Hockey Dad goodies (which Stephenson and drummer Billy Fleming hand-delivered) and setting up a series of drive-in shows.
The shows were postponed but they'd done the job of reminding people the album was coming out; as did the last-minute replacement live-stream gig filmed at Wollongong's Regent Theatre.
That No2 finish continues the band's upward trajectory - their 2018 album Blend Inn entered the charts at No6. But Stephenson and Fleming have stayed level-headed and far more relaxed than what you'd expect from two guys in their early 20s with a hit album on their hands.
They really don't seem all that far removed from the two kids who lived on the same street in Windang, who met when Fleming walked past Stephenson's house, saw him playing footy in the front yard with his dad, and joined in.
"He lived down the road and after that he never left," Stephenson says. "He was there every day."
They went through primary school together and then high school, and the fact Stephenson was older and two grades ahead of Fleming didn't seem to matter to the pair.
"We had a bunch of mates who were older than us, by far," Fleming says.
"So when I got into Year Seven, Zach was in Nine and we had mates who were in Year 12. The reason was because we all surfed together, it broke down the barriers. It meant the whole age difference thing didn't matter."
The pair started a band with two friends - Fleming started playing the drums because no-one else wanted to. The foursome's first show was a performance at a school band comp, where they played The Living End's All Torn Down.
As is the nature of teenage bands, it didn't last long. The two friends left, but Stephenson and Fleming kept playing together, recording demos at home before starting to play gigs as Hockey Dad - the presence of another Wollongong "guitar and drums" duo in Mother and Son giving them some confidence.
Some of those early demos were briefly made available on Bandcamp this year, though Stephenson describes them as "pretty crap".
"It was strange listening back to them," he says. "They didn't sound anything like we do now, they were really different. It was fun to see that starting point, to see what we were doing."
What they were doing back then couldn't have been as crap as Stephenson thought, because a very young Hockey Dad impressed Music Farmers owner Jeb Taylor when he saw them playing in front of five people at Rad Bar.
"The first time I saw them they'd probably only played less than five shows," Taylor says.
"They were pretty rough and young but there was something behind that roughness in the songs. Zach's vocals really stood out a lot back then, even though they were pretty undeveloped and raw.
"You probably don't see it that early with a lot of bands, where you can look through that rawness and feel there is some potential there."
Taylor and Ben Tillman from Yours and Owls had been talking about starting a record label, with plans for a compilation of Wollongong bands as the first release.
One of those Hockey Dad demoes changed their plans. Stephenson and Fleming were at Music Farmers and handed Taylor a demo - which he felt didn't capture the band's sound.
That wasn't the demo that changed things, it was the one that came next that did. Rather than ignore what Taylor said, they went off and came back with something better - which became Dreamin', the first release on Farmer and the Owl.
That Stephenson and Fleming took his feedback on board influenced Taylor's decision to sign them as much as the music did. Other bands wouldn't have followed up, or maybe even thought "screw that guy", but the two Windang kids listened.
Dreamin' came out in 2014 and the debut longplayer Boronia followed two years later - the same year they inked a deal with New York label Kanine.
In 2018, they took a big step up with Blend Inn, which captured a lot of people's attention. Stephenson says that put a bit of pressure on him to come up with songs for what would become Brain Candy.
"I felt the pressure straight after we had some songs in the Hottest 100 and trying to write songs for this record," Stephenson says. "I felt a little bit of pressure from myself, 'thinking 'surely I can't write a song as good as that one again'."
The band took off to country NSW for a few weeks and just jammed and "mucked around". It helped Stephenson find a way forward and the concerns about living up to the standards he set on Blend Inn were gone.
Hockey Dad has become the biggest band from Wollongong since Tumbleweed - in fact they've probably pushed the guys from Tarrawanna into second spot.
Taylor knows what effect having a big band come from your town can have. He was inspired to work in music after seeing Tumbleweed go big nationally because it showed him what was possible, and he's certain Hockey Dad is filling the same role for kids all over the Illawarra.
"Part of the story of Hockey Dad is them growing up on the same street together and still being based here," Taylor says.
"I always liked how Tumbleweed kept that story of how they still lived in Wollongong. Tumbleweed were always really proud of being from Wollongong and I think Hockey Dad have done the same thing."
When it comes to Hockey Dad being Wollongong representatives, Stephenson says they'll take that mantle - even if it was one they didn't seek out.
"I guess it was kind of thrown upon us and we thought, 'yeah, sure we'll take it on'," Stephenson says.
"We always see bands that we're on tour with, they come down to Wollongong and fall in love with the place. We have friends who grew up in Adelaide, lived there their whole lives and just moved to Wollongong because they love it so much, after hanging out with our crew for a few months."