Taun to tour Taiwan

Rockingham three-piece band Taun will take their rock music to Asia on Thursday, gigging for two weeks through Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Bass guitarists Ana McCoy said among many gigs, Taun will play at one of Taiwan’s biggest festivals, in front of 60,000 people.

‘‘Six hundred bands applied for the festival and only 200 bands got chosen—it goes for over four days and it is huge,’’ she said.

A love of music brought the musicians together about a year and a half ago when drummer and songwriter MichaelMcCoydecided to leave the jazz conservatory he was studying at to follow his passion for songwriting.

Wife Anasays he has been writing music for the last eight years but found it hard to find suitable band members.

‘‘I got on bass, because he didn’t have anyone else, and our friend Scott Baggaley wanted to give it a go, so he jumped on guitar,’’ she said.

Taun recorded anEPin February last year and began gigging.

‘‘We competed in the Battle of the Bands at the Rockingham Hotel andwegig a lot around Fremantle and North Perth,’’ she said.

Taun were given the opportunity to tour Asia when an old friend living in Hong Kong heard their EP.

‘‘Our friend Christian heard our EP and said, ‘You guys have got to come over,’ ’’ Ana said.

The band play rock music, described byAna as ‘‘passive aggressive’’.

‘‘Our music starts off nice and melodic and gets quite heavy,’’ she said.

She said the name Taun is a type of wood, but the band wanted to give their namemore meaning.

‘‘We Googled it. In Indonesian it means epidemic and in Albanian it means town, sowe put those two words together becauseweare hoping to be an epidemic in our local town,’’ she said.

‘‘We are kind of a mismatched trio and what we have now is the fruition of all our experience coming together.’’

Taun hope to record an album in the middle of the year and tour Australia.