We know saying that a band is our new favourite is a big call, well, it’s simply the truth. We saw Perfect Actress play at this year’s Nag Nag Nag fest. They were the opener and there was a handful of people in the room, us included. We saw them soundcheck a song and from just seeing that we were intrigued and blown away. When they played their set we witnessed four really cool, diverse, highly creative individuals – Naomi Kent, Darren Lesaguis, Gus McGrath and Marcus Whale – come together and make magic before our eyes. Their energy, fun, and smiles were infectious. Their songs were well-crafted compositions and the band are one of those ones that feel fully formed out of the gate. After the set, we spoke to them and discovered that they’re also really lovely, genuine humans. 

Gimmie spoke to vocalist and keys player, Naomi, just before they announced their debut EP and released single ‘Leather’. Today Gimmie premiere their very first music video shot by Garden Reflexx for banger ‘Perfect Actress’ and share that chat.

How’s your week been? 

NAOMI KENT: It’s been really busy. I work full time. I had an art show on Thursday. Work Friday. And then yesterday, we had a show in Canberra and I worked today. We drove down to Canberra, played, and then I left everyone in Canberra and I got the 6PM bus home. It was a big day, but it was really fun. 

You’re originally from the Yugambeh Country/Gold Coast?

NK: Yeah, I was born on the Gold Coast. I lived overseas growing up and then we moved back to Australia when I was eleven and then I moved to Sydney in 2019.

Whereabouts did you live overseas? 

NK: I grew up in Canada and America. My mom is Canadian and my dad got a job doing soccer coaching over there. So dad was driving every day from Canada to America and crossing the border.  And they would always say like, what are you doing here? And there was a bunch of casinos. So, I think at one point he just started telling them that he was going to the casino. 

What was it that inspired you to move to Sydney? 

NK: I had to do an internship with my studies. I studied fashion design and I couldn’t find one on the Gold Coast, so I thought, I have to move to Melbourne or Sydney. I just decided on Sydney and I never looked back. 

What was it that made you want to pursue fashion? 

NK: I’ve always wanted to. When I was little I watched The Flintstones and I would go on my mum’s really old Apple computer and I used to draw. I made a fashion line for Pebbles Flintstones. 

Amazing!

N:K Yeah, it was fun. 

Was there lots of leopard print? 

N: Yeah. I would name each piece of clothing. I think it’s nice to have your fingers in different pies and just see where it takes you. 

How did you start playing music? Did you play music before you moved to Sydney? 

NK: No, not at all. But I was always around people who played music. Maybe you would know the band called Donny Love?

 Yeah. 

NK: I used to live with Andrew and Randy from that band at one point.  So I’ve always been around people that were making music. And then I think it just happened. I never made music by myself. I guess I really started with Perfect Actress. There’s kind of an overlap of Carnations and Perfect Actress where I’d started.

I was living with Gus and Marcus, and we were like, let’s make a band. And then COVID happened so we couldn’t practise at all. After the second lockdown lifted, I think Mac from Carnations said that he wanted me to come and jam with them, so we did.

Carnations practise a lot more. I felt like Perfect Actress was on the back burner for a bit. And then our friend Grace, who does Rebel Yell and 100%, was doing a show and she wanted us to play, and I was like, okay, we really have to do this now.

I think at that point, we only had three songs, and then we just got the ball rolling. My first show with Carnations was only a few weeks before the first show with Perfect Actress. 

How did you feel like playing those shows for the first?

NK: It was really fun. I remember me and Mariana being really nervous for our first show, and then now we’re just like, oh, we’ve got this. We just have lots of fun with it. But it’s always funny when Perfect Actress play because my band Carnations always come, they’re always really supportive and its nice.

We really love Carnations as well. We’d been wanting to see you play for ages. At Nag Nag Nag, there were so many people there that had told us Carnations are the band you have to see in Sydney.

NK: That’s so nice. I love playing in both of the bands. It’s so fun. 

When you started Perfect Actress, was there like a particular sound that you wanted or did it just sort of come from playing together?

NK: In both bands we always like to make a playlist, especially when we were first starting, to figure out what our influences are and where we would see it going. I feel like Gus, in particular, loves Sonic Youth.

I love this band from Ohio called, Crime of Passing. I love them. 

They’re so good. I was meant to do an interview with them when they released their album but it unfortunately fell through. I called at our scheduled time and they didn’t pick up.

NK: I got to see them in Memphis last year when they played at GonerFest because my friend played. It was so good. I really love their style. I feel like they’ve influenced me a bit. 

Marcus loves prog rock, so there’s a lot of the drive and progression in it as well that I think comes from him. 

Your band combines so many things that we really love together, so well too. We really love your band. 

NK: Oh, that’s so nice. Thank you.

Is there any particular performance that you’ve seen a band play that has really stuck with you? 

NK: I feel like Marcus Whale my bandmate, when I first saw him play, I was shocked. Even when I see him play now, I really get a kick out of watching his audience because I feel like everyone is really captivated and mesmerised by him. That’s really fun to watch. It’s always fun to watch his shows.

Yeah, his solo stuff is really cool. 

NK: Who else have I seen that I’ve enjoyed watching? 100% the other night. They’re really fun. I loved the cover of ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

Growing up, what kind of music did you used to listen to? 

NK: I grew up listening to a lot of UK pop music and then as I got older, I really started to appreciate a lot of 80s music. I feel like that has really stuck with me. I love China Crisis and Gary Newman. Obviously, Depeche Mode. I listened to The Cure a lot as well when I was younger. I like the British.

Perfect Actress have a cassette coming out? When will we see it? 

NK: I think July or August. We’re releasing one song, and then I feel because we’re all a bit busy, we’re kind of staggering each thing. We’ve filmed a music video. We’ll have a digital release launch night and video premiere type of thing. Our cassettes probably won’t be made until July or August. Yeah. 

What song is the video for?

NK: ‘Perfect Actress’. We did it with our friends Jenna and Andre, who are filmmakers. We filmed it a couple weeks ago. It was during one of our sets. There’s lots of close ups and us being rat bags. It’s nothing too crazy, but I think it’s a nice introduction to our music.

Was that one of the first songs you wrote? 

NK: No. I think ‘Instagram’ is the first song we wrote. We wrote that one really long ago. ‘Perfect Actress’ we wrote just before our first gig. Gus and Marcus had established a beat, and then Marcus was like, ‘You know what would be funny? If we just wrote a list. Of our favourite actresses in their movies.’ We were like, yeah, let’s do that!

Do you have an all time favourite actress that you’ve mentioned in the song? 

NK: My favourite is Nicole Kidman in To Die For. Her acting is so phenomenal in it. I actually saw Laura Dern in Wild At Heart the other day. I thought her acting in that was really good. I don’t think there’s a minute without her back being arched or her hands above her head. It’s so funny. I love it. Did you have a favourite movie? 

I really like the The Godfather trilogy. I like a lot of movies though. I went to film school. I grew up watching a lot of movies with my mum. She used to go to the video store and she’d get out 20 VHS tapes and watched them while she did the ironing and I’d sit with her. I love a lot of 80s movies. All the classics like The Outsiders, Pretty In Pink and Breakfast Club. 

NK: I love Molly Ringwald!

Me too! She should be in your song. 

NK: I’ll have to figure out where to fit her in!

When writing songs, do most of the songs sort of start the same way?

NK: Someone will bring something in. ‘Dream’, and this song ‘Hands’ (that is not on our EP, but I think we’ll record it at some point), those ones were Gus and Marcus. I guess because they live together, they have more free time to learn. Marcus wrote the lyrics for ‘Hands’ and I wrote ‘Instagram’, but they kind of start out the same. It’s usually like, if we’ve been at practise and we’ve figured out the instrumentals, then the next time we come in, I’ll try and think of some lyrics for it.

Do you find writing lyrics hard? 

NK: Yes, I do. I just feel like I don’t have that tapped in yet. Just because life is so busy and winding down, it’s hard to think of words sometimes or sit down and read and find inspiration.

Was writing ‘instagram’ hard? 

No, that one I found easy, but because it’s just kind of like one or two word increments. I really like performing that song. I always make a joke to the audience that it’s about deleting Instagram.

What was one of the first songs you ever wrote? 

NK: I guess it was ‘Instagram’.

So you were doing Perfect Actress before Carnations. 

NK: Yeah, I think I had the lyrics for that song before Carnations stuff. For Carnations, the first song I wrote by myself was ‘Videodrome’. That was inspired by the film [featuring Debbie Harry]. We have a song called ‘To Die For’ [featuring Nicole Kidman], which is about the movie as well. But I’m trying to not write about my favourite movies lately [laughs]. I got to think of another theme. But there’s endless inspiration in movies. 

Totally! Did you learn anything from making this EP?

NK: Probably that this stuff probably takes longer than you think. But also just that we will just keep getting better and better. Especially with the Carnations EP, I feel like we’re already onto more complex and intricate song structures. It’ll be the same with Perfect Actress as well. The songs that aren’t on the EP are songs that we’ve figured out, and wrote after that; they’re just getting better and better and more intricate and more fun and a bit different to what’s being released.

I can’t wait to hear the new stuff! What’s one of your favourite places to play on Gadigal land of the Eora Nation/Sydney?

NK: Perfect Actress had their first show at Red Rattler; I thought that was really fun because it’s a DIY project space and it’s a safe space. It’s queer friendly, which is a big important thing for all of us. I would love to do more shows at Red Rattler I also really like MoshPit in Erskineville. It’s cute. It’s like really little, it’s really cosy and nice, the sound is good.

Nice! I like smaller, inclusive, DIY spaces best. 

NK: Yeah, me too. 

I’ve seen bands I love play bigger stages and sometimes it just doesn’t hit right, it doesn’t have that same feel as they might at a more intimate venue.

NK: Yeah. When you’re a bit more squished, it’s more personal, I guess. 

Totally. I’m still buzzing from seeing Tee Vee Repairmann at Nag Nag Nag, they were amazing. 

NK: Yeah, yeah! He [Ishka] really knows how to get the crowd going.

I got teary when they were playing I was moved so hard by the power of rock n roll!  It was so great to finally see Ish do his thing as frontman.

NK: You can just tell that he loves what he’s doing. He’s always jumping around.  He was just born to be up there. 

After the show, I went up and I told him and told him how incredible the set was. I think it’s important to tell people you really dig what they do. He said, ‘It’s just rock and roll!’ 

NK: So modest. That’s so lovely. 

Yeah. You mentioned that you had an art show this weekend. You were knitting?

NK: It’s was on a knitting machine. My friends do art programmes here and there and they were running this programme at the Powerhouse Museum, which was fun. It was very distracting trying to knit and have people ask questions and coming through.

The night before, Perfect Actress had a rehearsal and we figured out that we wanted to do a cover of ‘Star Power’ from Sonic Youth. We did that, and then it was stuck in my head all day, so I thought for the knitting piece I would do text of Star Power written on it.

That’s awesome. I’ve seen a few of your creations and I’m hoping you’ll do a new drop soon! 

NK: Yeah, one day. It’s so hard to balance work life sometimes. I work full time and I practise with Carnations once a week too. I do have a studio, but I feel like I don’t get enough time there. 

What kind of job do you do? 

NK: I’m a shop manager at a second hand buy sell clothing shop. I took the job because it’s like a five minute walk away from my house. I love it. Working full time is a bit rough sometimes when you want to do so much more outside of it. 

Totally! I work two jobs and do Gimmie stuff the rest of the time.

NK: Yeah, it’s a lot, but you got to hustle.

You mentioned earlier that Perfect Actress was the first time you’d started doing music…

NK: Yeah. 

Was music something that you thought you would do when you first moved to Sydney? 

NK: Not really. I always wanted to, because I had so many musician friends, like Grace from Rebel Yell. Then I met Marcus. I met Gus from California Girls. My boyfriend was in Eternal Dust, which I loved very much. Music was always around me. It was probably inevitable that I’d start making music. 

I’m so glad you did! 

NK: Yeah, me too. It’s always fun to get together and make music. I like that Perfect Actress and Carnations sound quite different. It allows me to scratch both itches. 

What’s something music-wise you’ve been really getting into lately?

NK: I’ve been obsessed with Colin Newman for a while, who’s a singer of Wire, but I really love his solo stuff. I’m always in and out of obsessively listening to his music all the time, listening to all his albums through and through. I really love his music. I feel like I’m really into New Wave at the moment, which is fun, because I get to play the keys and try to mimic things. That type of music is just so fun too, the whole sound, but even the look of it. And everyone just having lots of fun and experimenting with things.

Any shows coming up?

NK: Carnations has a show with Snooper, Gee Tee, and R.M.F.C.. We saw Snooper play in Memphis last year when we were there for GonerFest and they were so fun. I’m really excited for the Australians to see them! I’m really excited to play that show.

Perfect Actress’ EP available HERE. Follow them: @perfect.actress