appearing through THE HAZE WITH KOLYA CHAN (LARGE MIRAGE)

• DATE: OCTOBER 7, 2020
• VENUE: THE ‘PINK HOUSE’
• TOWN: KATOOMBA, BLUE MOUNTAINS, NSW

It’s a surreal feeling to remember that I was once the drummer for a short-lived rock ‘n’ roll band with someone who would go on to leave the bohemian Blue Mountains haze to share city stages with the likes of AC/DC and Amyl & The Sniffers. Along with appearing on the bill of a cruise ship gig headlined by members of ZZ Top and Cheap Trick. 

Six years ago, shortly before he co-founded Large Mirage, Australian-Chinese musician Kolya Chan was the quietest sixth member in the room of Katoomba’s fabled ‘pink house’. At the time, he was the third guitarist in a savagely satirical indie rock act, Fuq Boi N Tha Boiz. Aside from Kolya and myself, the lineup was rounded out by Wolf Van Der Made (Blue Cocoon, Feast Of Fools), Sonny Kooma De Bie (Alienativ), and Belal Trad – the titular, handsome ‘fuq boi’ in question. The drummer I replaced was Issac Toppo, brother of the band’s third guitarist, Sam Toppo (Tap Hammer).

If my dusty memory serves me well, we had songs with titles irreverent titles such as ‘Piss On Tap’, ‘Naive’ and ‘Fuck Shack’, (take that, B-52’s), and chorus lines such as Wolf’s brilliant “oven cleaner, it’s what I need…drink it up, a caustic cup…to make me clean”. The only rehearsal of our ambitious six piece lineup, containing as many members and guitarists as Iron Maiden – the last time I played drums in a room with all of those people, save for a few party jams I might be forgetting – was recorded on someone’s phone and has now been lost, or perhaps buried on a forgotten hard drive. There’s a chance of it still being discovered.

Based in Parramatta at the time, Kolya had recently also worked with a hard rock trio called KTB, named with an acronym based on his name and the initials of their other members – high soaring singer and council worker at the time, Ben Sorenson, and prolific, far-travelling drummer Tubby Wadsworth, once an expat from the jazz scene to the world of hardcore and grindcore as a member of Massappeal – once-upon-a-tour mates with the likes of DRI, in the late 80s.

While KTB performed a few gigs, made merch and were recorded, broadcast and filmed live on Radio Blue Mountains’ Retro Rehash show, Fuq Boi N Tha Boiz made the most impact at a talent show in a Katoomba pub in 2020 with a stripped-down lineup of my drums and Belal’s vocals, for a singular original song hyped up by Wolf’s shirtless, shrieking antics, after which he climbed out of the nearest window and escaped down Bathurst Rd in the direction of his brother’s ‘pink house’, allegedly “off to start the revolution”. All the while, Kolya tinkered musically in the shadows, fuelled by a burning yearning to start his own original band in the vein of the 60s and 70s rock artists he idolised – Led Zeppelin, Cream and Ten Years After, to name but a few. 

Before we knew it, he had a fledgling trio called ‘Large Mirage’, rounded out by Hawkesbury bassist Blake Rochester and Castle Hill drummer Daniel Croft, who embarked to the dry, grassy paddocks of Peckman’s Plateau in south Katoomba with amp stacks, a drumkit and a cameraman-drummer, Doran Brewer (The Typical Grrrls). They were there to film a music video for their debut 2020 single, ‘Going Insane’, written by Kolya and filmed on a Super 8 camera by Doran. It happened to be recorded in the Windsor studio of Dave Bleus, who recorded six tracks for an EP for one of my own bands, Red Planet Repairs, this year. After attempting their significant undertaking for the music video, the resulting clip emulated the aesthetics of a grainy piece of footage from Sunbury ‘72, i.e. ‘Australia’s Woodstock’.

The drums on ‘Going Insane’ were actually recorded by a Glenbrook local, Bailey Brown, who replaced Daniel behind the kit last year, right before the band’s first stadium show. Back in 2020, Bailey was rising to local prominence in the year of Large Mirage’s formation as one of the four members of Safire Palms, a psychedelic funk group. In a distant time, I used to hang out with him and many others at smoky, artistic sharehouses near Katoomba’s Big W and Woolies. Safire Palms’ debut, sole EP, Sympatico, was mastered by Michael Macken (The Spooky Men’s Chorale), one of my choirmasters, father of their singer-keyboardist Nic Macken, and a former collaborator with Sydney punks Frenzal Rhomb, way back in 2006. Come 2026, Kolya and Bailey are joined in Large Mirage by longtime bassist Blake Rochester, and female keyboardist-vocalist AJ Stanton, who replaced their former female lead singer Malia Hoffman last year. Kolya sings too, but I think he prefers to shred.

Perhaps I detected a glimmer of Large Mirage’s future popularity way back in 2020, when I decided to angle my first piece as Youth Editor for The Sydney Sentinel as promotion for my friend’s new band. It helps that Kolya was quickly becoming known as something of a prodigy on the electric guitar.

Years before the overseas tours and stadium shows would enter the realm of Large Mirage, I attempted to capture their early lightning-in-a-bottle approach:

In a niche development for modern Sydney rock, Large Mirage are a new young male trio who cite their main influences as The Who, Ten Years After, and Santana. They recently released their debut single ‘Going Insane’ on the 30th of October, which was filmed in a large paddock near the Kedumba River in Katoomba.

Defining the scope of the project, vocalist/guitarist Kolya Chan states, “It’s all about what is relevant, and that’s what we want to be.”

The duo congregated at Windsor’s Studio Bleus to record the single, with Glenbrook musician Bailey Brown – drummer for Katoomba funk act Safire Palms. However, time commitments resulted in Bailey not being able to join the band, so the group found Daniel Croft. Kolya is deeply appreciative of Bailey’s passionate efforts. His ability for recording a variety of dizzyingly rapid fills has not been understated, and the track sizzles with retro crunch and sonic punch. Praising studio owner Dave Bleus, Kolya remarks, “[he’s] probably the nicest guy I’ve met in the industry [so far]…he’s a really top bloke and it’s a good rehearsal studio as well.” 

With Large Mirage having now marked their recording debut with ‘Going Insane’, it’s fitting that the music and lyrics were written by Kolya in the days of his former band, K.T.B Project. While involved in this earlier trio, completed by Tubby Wadsworth and lead vocalist/guitarist Ben Sorenson, Kolya explains that the experience was a “foot-in-the-door” for his career. On October 12th, 2018, the trio performed an original song live in the Radio Blue Mountains studio in Katoomba, on a popular show called Retro Rehash. One day later, K.T.B Project performed at Lithgow’s Resilience Festival – a mental health/suicide awareness fundraiser headlined by Tonight Alive, with The Chats and Clowns in attendance. Although now emerging as a superb lead guitarist with Large Mirage, to deliver some blistering solos on ‘Going Insane’, Kolya’s previous bass playing was highly valued in the project.

‘Going Insane’ was filmed on a Super 8 camera by Katoomba lensman Doran Brewer (@foreignfilm_ on Instagram). As is the case for many young bands, the overall filming process for the clip was improvisational and low-budget, despite the use of vintage film.

After transporting their guitars, drums, and two large amps outdoors through dry grassland to a tranquil location by the Kedumba river in Katoomba, Kolya remarks that the Blue Mountains location was “a pretty cool spot to put the band”.

Kolya explains that the topic of the single is open to debate. “I find myself trying to write stuff that people can latch onto”, he explains. Focusing on their current position in the local rock scene, Kolya mentions that Large Mirage are currently rehearsing to piece a number of songs together, for the ambition of performing their first live show.
Keep an eye on these guys.

Having kept two of their three original members, while re-grouping with their first-recorded drummer to expand as a four-piece, Large Mirage now have two EPs and a handful of singles to their name. Their fashionable style and virtuosic talents are still entrenched around the late 60s/early 70s, and they’re currently preparing to appear on a lineup headlined by the one and only TISM at Melbourne’s colossal PICA venue on May 2. After first recording their early tracks in the Blue Mountains and the rural Hawkesbury region around five years ago, Large Mirage have now played shows in the UK and Germany, they’re managed by the same bookings agency who handle The Screaming Jets, Spiderbait and King Parrot, and I’ve even managed to sneak them into the pages of the Australian Guitar Magazine, while working as their Editor at Large.

Oh yeah…like I was saying, they also performed in front of 80 000 people as an opener for AC/DC and Amyl & The Sniffers at Sydney’s Accor Stadium in November 2025.

Sometimes, the quietest people in the adolescent jam rooms can go on to make the loudest impacts…