Heartbreak Club were initially conceived as a parody of
emo bands, recording their "...lamecore" EP in a local high school's music room in 2006. Since then, they have toured Australia multiple times, and the US in 2007. In 2008, Heartbreak Club recorded and released their second EP 'O Tempora! O Mores!' which was produced by US producer
Ed Rose and distributed by the (now defunct) Amphead. In 2009, Australia's federal Arts Minister
Peter Garrett caught wind that Dougy Lawstein had "thinned out" the lineup and immediately announced Heartbreak Club would receive a grant from the
Contemporary Music Touring Program to tour through Australia. 2010 saw the independent release of Heartbreak Club's debut album 'Our Horse Is Dead', having teamed up again with Ed Rose at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia. Singles from the album have been broadcast on
Triple J,
Triple M,
Nova, and
ABC1 television. Reviews of the album were favorable, with BLUNT and
Reverb Magazine giving it 4 Stars (out of a possible 5), while
Drum Media was positive. Heartbreak Club signed a
publishing contract with
Centrifuge Music Publishing in 2011, publishers of
Noiseworks and
Steve Balbi. Heartbreak Club (with the track 'Chin Up') were a finalist in the Rock category of the 2009
International Songwriting Competition, alongside a high proportion of fellow Australian finalists including
The Living End,
Eskimo Joe, and
Children Collide. ==Members==