If you love lo-fi, quirkiness with fast tempos, and a scrappy, spontaneous vibe and 70s stripped-down punk sound, you’ll love Sydney band Meow Meow and the Smackouts! They dropped their first release, a basement demo ‘ROUND TOWN’ in March this year, followed by singles and a live bootleg recording just this month. Claws-out, impurrfect fun!

What’s one of your favourite albums of all-time?

LEE: In The Studio by The Special AKA and Rhoda Dakar—I love the fusion of funk and soul (with a bit of ska/reggae sprinkled in), and Rhoda Dakar’s vocals are so hypnotising, especially in the opening track ‘Bright Lights’.

PATTY: Smile Sessions Beach Boys The fusion of accessible writing with avant-garde techniques.

CHARLIE: London Calling by The Clash—the songs go hard.

CAM: The Lethal Weapons compilation, because it reminds me of my Dad. 

SEB: Crazy For You by Best Coast—I used to listen to it on school holidays in high school. It made me feel like the holidays lasted forever. It’s a very lovesick album, but also fun and beach-y.

How did Meow Meow and the Smackouts get together? 

LEE: Initially, Patty and I started a band with Rohan (from Maggot Cave) called Teeth Eater, but it fizzled out due to conflicting schedules. We played a gig at Studio 178 in Petersham, where Cam, Seb, and Charlie were discussing making music together. I invited myself into the conversation and brought Patty along, too.

Can you tell us something about each band member?

PATTY: I make my own pedals, I enjoy making fuzz pedals most.

Cam- The CEO of Sony Music screamed profanities at me when I didn’t protect Guy Sebastian from someone invading his private box when I worked at Qudos Bank arena. He called me ‘fucking useless’ and then he was cancelled and fired for inappropriate behaviour.

CHARLIE: I don’t know what any of the notes are on the fretboard. 

SEB: I love Brazilian music.

LEE: Buster Bloodvessel from Bad Manners waved at me, and I almost imploded right in front of him.

How did you come up with the name Meow Meow and the Smackouts?

LEE: I came up with it when I was thinking of names for my old band, Teeth Eater. It’s a double entendre—Meow Meow as in the street name for the drug mephedrone, and the Smackouts being the users. It also means Meow Meow, the name of a cat or character, and the Smackouts being their posse.

What’s the band’s biggest inspiration?

MEOW MEOW AND THE SMACKOUTS: Big inspirations for us are definitely 60s garage rock, Australian 70s punk, and The Stranglers.

LEE: I’m inspired by Kathleen Hanna performance-wise.

The band are from Gadigal Country/Sydney; who are the local bands people should check out? Anything else we should check out if we visit your town? 

MMATS: The punk scene in Sydney is booming, which means we’re surrounded by so many awesome musicians and bands like Gee Tee, Satanic Togas, Grand Final, R.M.F.C., Maggot Cave, Daughter Bat, and the Lip Stings (RIP—we’ll miss your shows), and heaps more.

]If you’re looking for something interesting, cool, weird, or exciting, definitely check out Terrificus. They’re weird in the best way possible.

Enmore Hotel is always a fun show. Lazy Thinking is a great, cute local venue run by the legendary, Jim. And Moshpit is a cozy, homey bar.

Meow Meow… released a basement demo ‘ROUND TOWN’ in March; what do you remember from recording it?

MMATS: Recording is always very in the moment for us. ‘Round Town’ was the first song we wrote and recorded together. It’s more of a demo than anything, but stay tuned for our EP soon.

Where do you often tend to get your best song ideas? Is the writing process collaborative? Lyrically what kinds of things have you been writing about lately?

LEE: A lot of the material comes from Patty and Cam, who create a riff or chord progression and build off of that. I have lyrics in the vault we use at times, or I’ll just come up with them when we’re writing. Lyrically, I write about a lot of things, but the meanings aren’t always obvious. We like a bit of whimsy and fun.

In April you released song ‘Cap Gun Run!!!’; where’d the inspiration for that song come from?

LEE: ‘Cap Gun Run!!!’ was originally a Teeth Eater track I wrote in 2022. It’s about robbing a servo with a cap gun, pumped up on mephedrone and whatever else they can find.

We love the fun artwork that accompanies your releases; who does it? 

MMATS: Lee! 

What’s the best and worst show you’ve ever played?

MMATS: Our best show was probably at Enmore Hotel with Tee Vee Repairman. Our worst was our first gig at Addi Road, since we weren’t as confident and had only been together for a month.

What would be your dream line-up to play on?

MMATS: We would love to open for DEVO, ’cause like, it’s DEVO—c’mon!

Are you working on anything else?

MMATS: Yes! We have an EP coming out very soon… just finalising the mixing.

Besides music, what are some things that are important to you?

MMATS: Community, friendship, anti-racism, anti-fascism, and cats (MEOW!).

Follow @meowmeowandthesmackouts and LISTEN here.