Optic Nerve’s Gigi: ‘No one will ever make the world that you need other than yourself and your community.’

25th Jan 202425th Jan 2024 | gimmiezine

Original photo: Jhonny Russell / handmade collage by B.

Optic Nerve from Gadigal Country/Sydney aren’t just a band you listen to, they’re a band your feel. A band that defies the worn out tropes of hardcore punk, and expands its boundaries. Reimagining it, to gave us one of the standout albums of 2023, Angel Numbers. It flew under a lot of people’s radar; if you haven’t checked it out, we recommend you do. They’re a glow-up that uplifts the communities they speak to and care about. Vocalist Gigi is deeply sincere, and claims her power on the record, which is lyrically inspired by a French mystic, anti-trans violence, and exploring signs. We caught up with her, last year just as the album was being released, to talk about it. It was meant to be the cover feature interview for a print issue we had pretty much ready to put out last year – but life happened, and things were rough so we didn’t get it out. Finally, though, we get to share the chat with you.

GIGI: Our record [Angel Numbers] indexes a few moments of really intense transphobic violence. It felt pretty emotional to put out our new record, given the context of the last few weeks. Having it come out while there’s Nazis gathering in Melbourne and in Sydney. And Kimberly McRae [an author and trans sex worker], the man who killed her, didn’t get a murder charge. A bunch of friends have been feeling… [pauses]—it’s been a really bleak time for transsexuals. With everything happening, I sort of forget about the record. I didn’t even realise the single was coming out the other day. It was weird to return to some of the ideas or hopes that the record had in what is a really heavy few weeks.

I’m so sorry that it’s been such a challenging time. The craziness of the world seems to feel overwhelming a lot of the time. It’s been great to see the songs from the record live recently. We saw three Optic Nerve shows in three different states.

GIGI: It always feels like such a privilege to go to a city that you don’t really know and have people care about the music. The Optic shows often have a different energy. At punk shows, it’s mostly bro-y dudes. Often, when we play, those dudes move to the back, and all these younger, more interesting people move to the front. There’s space for that, which is really nice. I actually got really emotional playing Jerk Fest. At the front there was all of these really wonderful young, queer and trans people who were shouting out for songs that hadn’t come out yet.

I know that the Decline of the Western Civilization documentary had a really big impact on you.

GIGI: Definitely. When I was really young, I wanted to be like a lot of the bands, particularly The Bags. I drew a lot of inspiration from her [Alice Bag]. Being so defiantly, an outsider. Also, that music seems way more interesting to me than a lot of super self-serious punk music. I emailed Alice a few times after the first Concrete Lawn demo came out and had this really sweet correspondence. I sent her the band’s demo.

I feel like in a lot of the Optic songs, I always try and channel the Big Boys. They were a Texas hardcore band. They were all skateboarders and drag queens, and really flamboyant leather BDSM guys writing these cheesy love songs and having fun. That feels way more interesting to me than flexing.

Was there anything specific that you wanted to do from the outset with Optic Nerve?

GIGI: I’d always wanted to sing in a hardcore band. The first demo and all of the earlier songs are a lot more straightforward hardcore music. Moving forward, the record is quite a bit more spacey. I would say, not really hardcore at all. The intention is to continue on that trajectory of getting a little bit more studio with it.

Joel, Joe, and John, who was the original guitarist in Optic, they had all moved from Canberra at relatively the same time and all started writing songs together. Then, they just asked if I would sing. So, I came into it with a bunch of the songs already written and did lyrics over the top. It was nice to ease in because at that time, I was playing in three or four other really active bands. To have almost a ‘burner project’ where I could turn up to practice and, I don’t know, be on Twitter on my phone [laughs], and write lyrics. Then, we started to play shows. It’s become a really fab, more creative venture for us all together!

Across the album there’s flute; that’s you, right?

GIGI: Yeah. I played flute as a kid. We were thinking about the flute as this sort of returning-to-childhood thing, which felt really nice. But we were also thinking about the record in parts, in the way you would frame a ballet or a really grand performance. We were thinking about setting up the listener—audience kind of engagement that our shows aim for. We were hoping to use the flute almost as this classical framing device that would bring people in and out of different moments on the record. Loosely there’s flute the beginning, middle and end. It almost provides an emotional structure to the music through flourishes. It was fun. I borrowed my boss’s flute and just winged it. I did it all in one or two takes.

That’s awesome. I love that! The album is playful, like your live show. It’s a cool lighter juxtapose to the heavy themes on the album.

GIGI: That’s it. When we were recording, we set this rule for ourselves that we couldn’t use any synths. We didn’t want to use any digital effects. So a lot of the record was recording a base of the song and then overdubbing things with really fucked up effects on it and then using heaps of tape delays and dubby effects to kind of give things this sort of synth-y ambient flutters throughout.

It’s nice to be playful. With the live shows, I play around and see if I can climb something on stage—like, climb on a speaker. Also, live, it’s worth protecting your energy. If you’re in a crowd full of people who don’t resonate with the kind of violence that the record talks to, it’s only going to be exhausting and exposing to talk about it really explicitly. Leaning into the playfulness of it and trusting that the people who will get it, will get it, was important. I’m glad that you picked up on the playfulness because I think it is.

That’s one reason that I really love your band! It’s hardcore punk but without all the gross stuff—tough guy nonsense, perpetuating traditional gender norms, racism, homophobia etc.

GIGI: Yeah, we’re something else.

Thank you for existing! I love people doing their own thing, standing up for what they believe in.

GIGI: For women and people of colour, anger is a really powerful tool. For boys, I don’t really know if it changes the world very much. There’s a lot of anger and a lot of hatred in the music, but I’m wary that the audiences who engage with it, that’s not necessarily a productive emotion for them to hold on to. Trying to make the shows feel a bit different to that is really important,

From your release Fast Car Waving Goodbye to the new record Angel Numbers, what do you think has been the biggest growth for you?

GIGI: The EP, we were just playing live. It was an assortment of songs; they are all really different from one another, in a nice way, but there’s not much cohesion. This record we wrote it to be a record, it was thought of as being singular, rather than writing music to play shows.

I’m proud of myself because now the music talks more directly to what I want it to be talking about and not just being vague, almost as a protection strategy. That’s how I feel listening to the older Optic stuff.

The newer recording we spent a little more time on. We still mostly recorded it ourselves. It’s a more mature of a record.

It’s one of our favourite albums of 2023! The booklet/zine that comes with it is really interesting and cool. I love that we get more insight into inspiration and thought for the songs. The title Angel Numbers speaks to seeing signs. What influenced that? Did you see signs when writing the album?

GIGI: The title is half a joke and half not [laughs]. I was interested in these practices of divination or magic or whatever that really rely on a kind of politics of faith and really believing in yourself. At the same time, it also thinks that those things are a little bit bullshit. It tries to peddle the fact that no one will ever make the world that you need other than yourself and your community.

I was feeling that at the time the record was made. Maybe I felt a little abandoned, and like people were pinning too much stuff on almost leaving stuff to the stars. It felt like things that were needed in the world were too immediate to pin stuff on hope or fate or the stars. It was like, ‘Oh my god, get your head out of your arse’. But finding structures that can make the world meaningful or powerful to move through, felt really important as well.

A lot of the record is about context and bending the context of the world and social communities that you’re in, or social practices or things to make yourself and other people safe. One of the ways that can happen is creating a structure for yourself that creates meaning in your life. That’s very much what these magical, mystical practices I was looking into kind of do at their core when they’re really successful. They give you a set of structures that can really meaningfully harness your power and bring it to the fore. That’s what the record is talking to in the title.

I picked up on the mysticism—that’s my jam.

GIGI: I was researching Silvia Federici (whom I left out of the citations on the lyric booklet for the album because she’s a massive TERF), this Italian Marxist feminist. She has this really fab book called Caliban and the Witch that talks about the beginning of capitalism coinciding with the mandate for gendered labour, necessarily creating a kind of subjugation of women. That coincided with women who were seen as independent, holders of deep spiritual knowledge, or community leaders being branded as witches.

She writes this really amazing historical overview of the beginnings of capitalism and the witch trials. Thinking about ‘witch’ as this kind of socially condemnable term rather than a cohesive set of magical practices. I found Marguerite Porete, the mystic and author, through that book. I got really obsessed with this idea of this woman totally on her own in the world, trying to make sense of God through her own desire or love or faith.

I got really captivated by this image of her getting burnt at the stake, and she’s just blissful and happy. Her almost giving over to the violence and persecution because it means not compromising yourself. That was a super meaningful image for me to understand. Like, you can never escape the violence or the risk or whatever of this world, particularly thinking about anti-trans violence. You just have to embrace risk and embrace joy in the face of that. It’s the most powerful thing you can do.

Has there been times in your life where you’ve experienced that kind of violence?

GIGI: Yeah. The record speaks to this few-month period where I got jumped four times and was put in the hospital twice. It’s exhausting, so brutal. One thing that I’ve been trying to get into people’s minds, which also feels hard to justify when the record is about a French mystic and angel numbers and all these things, is that there are no metaphors in it, at all. A lot of it is explicitly about the stakes—life or death in a very literal sense.

I am so sorry that happened to you. I can’t even convey words of how much this upsets me to hear.

GIGI: Yeah. It doesn’t feel valuable to list off traumas that anyone has gone through because it does just upset the people who get it, and then the people who don’t get it are just like, ‘Oh, that sucks.’ Instead, honing in on the ways that reverence and grief can exist together and hold each other up is really important to me.

The footnotes in the booklet are great.

GIGI: I thought they would be helpful for younger people to find out more about what I’m singing about. There was a period of time where I really lamented that a lot of the bands that I was getting into as a teenager had the same politics as me, but were really reserved about it. I was thinking that younger transsexual listeners could discover some of the things that are really foundational to my politics, that it would be nice to have a resource for people to go to if they needed to.

Our single ‘Trap Door’ is really powerful to me. It speaks to moments of violence and then moments of going out and having fun afterwards anyway. The other tracks speak a little bit more vaguely about liminal spaces or administrative violence or these kinds of facets that make up the record. ‘Trap Door’ is climatic, it talks about getting jumped. Making the music video was really healing. It was going back to something that has been really hurtful and really violent, and in a way making it beautiful and fun. If that makes sense?

I totally get what you’re saying. I spoke with filmmaker and musician Don Letts a while back. He told me about, how punk was seen as this negative, nihilistic thing, but really, it’s about empowerment and turning negatives into positives. Like what you’re talking about.

GIGI: Yeah. Punk is about empowerment and turning pain into something more joyful that you can share with others. It’s about a commitment to never having to compromise. It’s also very much about community and making a space to feel and process emotion. While songs or bands may not meaningfully change the world that much, they galvanise people to come together, creating a sense of collectivity that is powerful and special. It’s about processing, feeling, and working out what I feel about the world. Allowing that process of feeling emotion to become a chance for connection.

Where are the places you find community now?

GIGI: When I was first getting into punk and hardcore, it would have been at Black Wire Records. Tom [Scott] and Sarah [Baker], who ran that, are like my parents. I used to go there every day after school when I was a teen. It was this DIY record store that put on all-ages shows in Sydney. I saw so many of my favourite bands there, and it really gave me my sense of politics as well as my music taste. After that, Tom and Sarah were running another place called 96 Tears that I was helping out at, doing the bookings.

Sydney is a really interesting city because it doesn’t have much creative infrastructure, so there’s not really many clubs or venues that are safe. I feel really grateful for the continuous structure that practising with Optic has. I know personally, for me, a lot of raves in Sydney or the warehouse parties have really been super informative to that sense of community as well.

But it’s always fleeting. The movements or people that this record is written towards, are never going to be the kind that have consistent, stable access to resources, like a venue or a building, or a place to come together. For me, community is always moving and that’s what makes it really exciting. That’s the real answer and also a poetry answer [laughs].

Poetry rules. In the booklet that comes with the record, it’s interesting to see the form of each of song on the page.

GIGI: Yeah, it was my intention to have them read more like poems than lyrics.

When I read them on stage from my phone, because I’m actually so forgetful, I have line breaks every time I’m supposed to breathe. People think it’s a nerves thing or anxiety. I don’t really get particularly nervous when we play. If I was to write the lyrics out how they’re originally written, it would be annoyingly long to write. Some are one word per line. So it was nice to come back and rewrite them as poems. Poetry is a little more contemplative and lets people in more than just like a didactic lyric sheet. I was hoping that people could read it and come to terms with it however they wanted to.

When I wrote the lyrics for Angel Numbers it was pretty much while we were practising in a little studio in Marrickville. I would just sit there antisocially on my phone and write ideas down. With the last song ‘Leash’ on the record, I finished those lyrics two-minutes before we recorded [laughs]; I was really putting off finishing the lyrics. It was nice because the emotion of the record could be really confined to this space with my friends, where it felt safe.

After recording, mastering, and the art was done, we sat on the record for 18 months. It felt like it came out at the right time though, it felt really serendipitous, given the political tensions of the last few weeks.

What else are you up to?

GIGI: I’m playing solo a fuck tonne in the next few month. Optic are really hoping to go back to Europe. Joe needs knee surgery so we won’t be able to play for a bit because he’ll be healing. Hopefully we’ll be able to write and record more songs. I want to sing more and shout less. But I don’t really know how to do that—I’ll work it out.

With your solo stuff, what can you do that you don’t do with Optic?

GIGI: I can make it in bed [laughs]. It’s the same emotions, but a different mode of address. They dovetail each other. Very inward and very much about my emotions: What does it mean to be angry? Or sad? Happy or horny? What does it mean to feel alive?

Angel Numbers available via Urge Records HERE. Gigi’s insta. GI music.

More Optic Nerve live videos – via the Gimmie YouTube.

R.M.F.C.’s Buz Clatworthy: “I procrastinated cause I was scared of it not turning out right”

6th Sep 2023 | gimmiezine

Original photo by Vas. Handmade collage by B.

R.M.F.C.’s Buz Clatworthy seemingly writes songs with natural born ease—uncomplicated and catchy. But R.M.F.C.’s debut full-length album Club Hits came together over four years through self-doubt, rethinking, pushing through and determination to keep improving. It’s been worth the wait, the record gains energy and charm from both punchy songs and subtly, each song moves R.M.F.C. forward, holding something memorable. Club Hits is a well made rock record. Club Hits is one of the essential albums of the year.

Today we’re premiering track ‘The Trap’! We also caught up with Buz to find out about it and making the album.

What’s life been like lately for you? What have you been spending a lot of your time doing? Is there anything that you’ve been really getting into?

BUZ: I haven’t been up to much exciting business lately. Haven’t played any shows for a while since members of all the bands I’m in have been away on tour in Europe with Gee Tee or Research Reactor Corp. I’ve been recording a little bit for other projects or just for fun. I’ve been really getting into Dragon’s 1983 hit “Rain” which peaked at number 2 and stayed in the Kent Music Report singles chart for 26 weeks and also reached number 88 on the United States Billboard Hot 100 charts in mid-1984.

We’re premiering song ‘The Trap’ off of your up coming album, Club Hits; what do you love most about the song?

BUZ: I like the guitar melody/solo bits.

What’s ‘The Trap’ about?

BUZ: I can’t really remember exactly what I was going on about when I wrote it now. I think it was one of the songs where I just collaged words together that sounded right more so than trying to have a considerable level of meaning behind the lyrics, it’s open ended.

I know that you took your time making the new album; how’s it feel that it’s finally finished? How did you know that it was finally finished? What was the biggest challenge you faced working on it?

BUZ: It feels really good to have it done. A lot of the time it took to make the record was circumstantial rather than making a conscious choice to take my time on it, but that gave me a chance to rethink and improve on what I otherwise wouldn’t have. In saying that, there were also a lot of times even in the late stages where I had finished writing & demoing everything and just needed to get the final recordings done but I procrastinated cause I was scared of it not turning out right. The biggest challenge was definitely writing the lyrics and recording vocals, some of the songs took me days of redoing vocal takes cause there’d be one little part where I’d make a minor & probably unnoticeable mistake like pronounce a word weirdly or sound too dramatic in my vocal delivery or something. I find doing vocals really hard cause I have to use my own voice rather than hiding behind the voice of an instrument.

Musically, do you feel any pressure to conform to what people may expect from you?

BUZ: I initially felt a little bit weird about how people would respond to the new songs cause they’re quite different to what I released when I was 17 & 18 which makes up the bulk of what people listen to of R.M.F.C having not released a whole lot since, but once the new songs started getting positive feedback at shows I felt better about that. I never necessarily felt any pressure anyway, I think the new songs are better and less derivative.

Your first release Hive Vol. 1 came out in 2018. Do you feel you’ve made any mistakes or had any regrets along your musical journey within these past five years? Do you try to not give them much energy or use them as fuel for your next creation?

BUZ: I try not to give them much energy anymore but I definitely have regrets with some of the creative decisions I made on the first few releases and avoid revisiting them. I also agreed to play a fair few questionable shows in the early days but I guess that’s all part of learning the ropes and figuring your shit out, especially at that age. I guess it’s also pretty normal to cringe at things you did when you were younger. 27 year old me looking back on 22 year old me and cringing at this album is not outside the realm of possibility.

What can we expect from Club Hits, thematically? Did you draw from any specific inspirations when making the record?

BUZ: There weren’t really any specific inspirations that I drew from, I wanted to just write my own record and try to just sound like R.M.F.C.

I asked Daniel Stewart [Total Control, SJN, UV Race, Distort zine etc. etc. etc.] to do a write up on the record in which he made a connection to Wire. I didn’t necessarily draw any direct inspiration from them but my obsession with Wire definitely peaked while I was making this record and I really like how they kinda defied the parameters of genre which is something I made an attempt to do with Club Hits

How did you land on the album title, Club Hits?

BUZ: It came to me in a dream where Keith Urban was being mean to me so I hit him really hard in the head with a club.

Last question, which song from the record means the most to you (and why)?

BUZ: Maybe ‘Harmless Activity’ or ‘Rock Tune’ because they feel more reflective of myself and my emotions as opposed to most of the R.M.F.C catalogue which is intentionally disconnected from that, I’ve always found it hard to make songs like that without hating them. Wistful pop songs are my favourite kind of songs and that’s how I’d describe ‘Harmless Activity’. I also really like drones and repetition in music and both of those songs reflect that.

Pre-order R.M.F.C.’s Club Hits via Anti Fade Records HERE.

More Gimmie chats with Buz:

R.M.F.C.’S BUZ CLATWORTHY: “TRYING TO FIND A BALANCE BETWEEN MY PLACE IN THE DUMB SOCIAL HIERARCHY AND MY INDIVIDUALITY WHICH I’VE ALWAYS STRONGLY VALUED”

And

R.M.F.C.’S BUZ CLATWORTHY: “MOST OF MY FAVOURITE MUSIC WAS MADE BY PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T REALLY KNOW HOW TO PLAY”

The Unknowns and The Chats’ Josh Hardy: “I nearly died”

11th Aug 202312th Aug 2023 | gimmiezine

Josh Hardy is a genuine, down-to-earth guy, who is a fanatic music lover. We’re sitting at a burger joint in Meanjin/Brisbane as the excitable member of punk bands, The Unknowns and The Chats, sips on a strawberry milkshake. He’s wearing a shirt repping power pop band The Prize, has a Nikki and the Corvettes pin on his jacket, and is showing us the records he just bought, including the Hard-Ons’ Yummy. Hardy lives and breathes music. His own, is deeply influenced by punk and rock n roll bands of the past.

Growing up on the Sunshine Coast, Hardy was introduced to bands such as The Celibate Rifles and The Hitmen, via his mum’s music collection. In high school he fell in love with Ramones, The Saints and The Scientists, learned to play guitar from a substitute teacher, and went on to form The Unknowns. Later he became friends with a fellow music nerd, Eamon Sandwith, and joined his “shed rock” band The Chats, who have become one of the biggest modern-day punk bands in this country.

Chatting with Gimmie, Hardy is thoughtful and reflective as he opens up about his experiences, both positive and challenging, with a good dose of humour. He’s not afraid to address deeper topics including the night he almost died. Hardy also shares his thoughts on the music industry, meetings with celebs both good and bad, and of writing songs about vendettas against him. We also take a deep dive into The Unknowns’ East Coast Low album.

Strap in for an honest, vulnerable, and enlightening chat!

It was really lovely meeting your parents the other night at your show. Are they really supportive of your music? Do they come to many shows?

JOSH HARDY: They come to the local shows when we play up there [Sunshine Coast]. Or they came to some bigger Chats shows down here [Brisbane], and some bigger ones Unknowns have done down here. They’re quite supportive.

My mum was one of the key people in my life that got me into the music that I love, to be honest. The [Radio] Birdman-era stuff like The Hitmen, Celibate Rifles, Beast of Bourbon, and all the Hard-Ons stuff.

In my adolescent years, I had this massive CD collection with records like Yummy and j other greatest hits a compilation of Birdman or something. Mum really helped with that because before that I didn’t really have much and would just listen to radio music.

How old were you?

JH: I was about 13. I’m originally from the Northern Beaches, and we moved to Queensland. Before that, I wasn’t really into anything. Six months after we moved up, my grandparents followed, with the stuff that mum and dad left behind. There was a big box of CDs with Celibate Rifles, and everything. I never really listened to music until I started going through that box. There was a comp with all those 60s beat bands, Hermit and the Hermits and The Shags. I love all of that too.

From there, I went down this rabbit hole of the Ramones, The Saints, all those really formative bands, I just got obsessed with it. Mum’s always been really supportive because I feel like she always loved that music too. It’s’ pretty cool to have a mum like that.

It’s very cool. Especially because a lot of people, spend their whole life, fighting against following their parents.

JH: I’m lucky to get that from my parents. At the end of the day, it didn’t stop me being a little shit when I got a bit older [laughs].

[Laughter]. What was it like growing up on the Sunny Coat?

JH: There was nothing to do with music. Every now and again I remember there was a music festival that would pop up and radio bands would come and play. There’s no real local band scene. At that stage, it was probably more the time of the hardcore straight edge stuff. It was early to mid-2000s.

North Coast Hardcore!

JH: Yeah. At my age then, I had no idea about it. By the time I got to about 15 or 16, when I was really keen to go and see shows and start bands and stuff, that had fizzled out. I feel like it was kind of at a weird time where seriously, nothing going on up the coast and and then when I was in Grade 10, I started The Unknowns with my brother.

I did’t know you had a brother.

JH: Yeah. I made him play with me, sort of against his will, to be honest with you [laughs]. He had a drum kit my parents bought him. He’d be like, “This is boring!” And, I’d tell him, just keep playing! [Laughs].

At the time, I was loving anything Ramones-style. I’d go to school trying to look like the Ramones.

Amazing!

JH: I really liked the early Scientists, and The Saints stuff. I started the band wanting to be like that whole ’77 punk-thing. But then we’d do Kinks covers and stuff, and cover The Troggs. We’d do ‘Wild thing’ [laughs].

From there, we actually met this guy, he in charge of this lawn mower shop in Nambour. He had this hook up because his wife was this lovely old music teacher called Suzanne (she had a big afro, it was amazing – she’s a Singaporean lady) and she used to do shows in pubs. She’d do her little set and then have an open mic night.

We started doing that sort of stuff; like at The Royal Mail pub. Then he finally booked us for a proper show in the front bar at the pub at 6PM on a Friday, while lingerie girls were going around doing the meat raffle. We played 3 hours for like $300. We’d do a half-arsed version of ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ and a Kinks song and then just play all our half-baked originals that we had at the time.We thought it was the sickest ever! That’s where it all sort of started.

We started coming down to Brisbane heaps to do shows, then I just moved down when I was 19 or 20—rest is history.

My parents were always supportive. My dad would come along when we were underage to those pub shows and he’d sit there while we play or just go home and then come back to be a legal guardian. It’s pretty amazing because a lot of kids wouldn’t have that. It’s really fortunate in that sense, they’re supportive of it. I’m lucky that they’re in the age bracket where into that music. They got it and didn’t turn out being narcs![laughs].

You started out playing guitar?

JH: Yeah, I started playing when I was ten. When I moved up to up here to QLD. There was this substitute teacher that started doing guitar lessons at lunchtimes. I always wanted to learn how to play guitar, so I go in there and he brought a guitar along for me to borrow. The Troggs ‘Wild Thing’ was one of the first things I learnt on the guitar. It’s just the two-finger power chord.

When I found the Ramones, I thought, this makes so much sense now. You could write half a million songs on three chords, as long as you got a tune in your head.

Do you always want to sing?

JH: Well, in the beginning with The Unknowns, we tried out this other guy and he was a bit older and a bit of a wanker [laughs]. We were like, nah. The first ever show that we did as a band was a high school talent show. I just started singing because I had to.

How’d the talent show go?

JH: We didn’t go that good that year, but the next year we actually did it again in Grade 11. That year we came second. I still reckon we would have came first, but my brother, who’s drumming in the band, actually got suspended from school that day for getting into a fight. I thought we ripped! [laughs].

Did you you got any other lessons for guitar?

JH: Yeah, I got lessons for probably about a year, to be honest. Because at the time I also was mad about surfing. I’ve always just been into what I’m into.

That’s like me. Did you have older people around you or just your mum? I was always the youngest hanging out, so I was a punk when I was around seven. I had older heroin addict friends that were like, check out Slayer, check out this or that.

JH:Ihad a lot of older friends. I never really used to hang out with kids from school. I always had a phobia of sleeping over other people’s houses.

Same!

JH: I always used to hang out with the older dudes down at the beach. It’d range from people in their early-20s to in their mid-60s. They were my best friends, you know, like a real entry point to things for me.

Yeah. For me it was skateboarding. All the skate and surf videos had punk music at the time.

JH: Yeah, exactly. That’s how I get to know The Saints, there was this video of Michael Peterson from the Gold Coast and the song playing was ‘(I’m) Stranded’. It was around that time I started doing guitar lessons. I was like, what the fuck? I learned The Saints were from Brisbane!

I started not showing up to guitar lessons because I was surfing. If I did show up, I’d have no shoes, no shirt and no guitar. Because it was at a music shop, I’d just use a guitar from there. I lost interest because when I first went in I was really bro-ing down with the teacher, but then it got to the point where (he was a real shredder) and he’d start trying to teach me Stevie Ray Vaughan. I’d rather go surf.

I always hang out with a lot of older people though never really kids my own age. Not until I became friend with friends Eamon. Maybe one other dude that I started The Unknowns with, but that was it.

I wouldn’t trade it for the world, though, because I feel like by the time I was 18, you start realising that the dudes that would hang out at the beach all day, there’s reasons why they’re at the beach all day, and there’s a reason why they’re always drunk and always probably not the most desirable characters.

Examples of what not to end up like!

JH: Yeah, exactly. I’m glad I got that realisation when I was 18, because I feel like you see people that only hang out with people that are their age growing up, which isn’t a bad thing, but I feel like they’re always going to have more chance of not really getting that until something bad happens or later in life.

I grew up in Toowoomba around heroin addicts and that sort of shit. So you grow up learning what not to do. These drugs are all right, but don’t do heroin and stay away from the glass pipe!

JH: Yeah, totally.

We really love your album East Coast Low. It’s a lot of fun. The songs have a familiar feel to the listener with nods to past great bands.

JH: Thank you. It’s all sort of what goes around, comes around. I feel like my songwriting really draws off the whole 60s beat thing, without realising it. You go back and listen to a lot of those bands and it’s a lot of very similar chord progressions and stuff that’s recycled.

It’s stylistically, changed a little bit.

JH: Yeah, fully. Tom (our drummer) come up with the album title, East Coast Low. I was thinking metaphorically, it’s like growing up in a rural or semi-rural area and getting the blues because there’s nothing really around, there’s not much of a scene, all the kids that are on the block don’t get the shit that you listen to, and aren’t into the shit that. The surf might be great and there’s the blue skies, but at the end of the day, no one gets you.

With the Unknown songs, they’re really about feelings. I’m much better at writing songs about how I feel and a mood then being about going and doings something. They’re expressive songs.

Listening to your songs and watching you play live, there’s definitely a good vibe. It’s really uplifting.

JH: Awww, thank you!

When we posted video of an Unknowns show we went to recently, Billy from Anti Fade Records commented that you have the best guitar faces ever!

JH: [Laughs]. Sick! Yeah. I love Billy.

I feel like The Unknowns is celebrating that expelling of energy. I’m making it fun in the process instead of being too melancholy.

I’m always a big fan of songs that sounds really happy when you first listen to it, but it’s actually about something deeper and morbid or whatever.

Let’s chat about the songs on East Coast Low. Let’s start with ‘Shot down’.

JH: That song is about a person that I knew from the coast, that we no longer keep in contact with. There’s those people that you’d meet in life… ahhh…

Toxic cunts?!

JH: Yeah, toxic cunts! Exactly. You try your best, and at the end of the day, you keep walking away and you’re like, why did I even bother with you? You’re better off just leaving it alone. I went through a stage of reconnecting with them and it went really bad. I actually went for a holiday with my girlfriend on on Straddie, I was down about it. I was like, fuck, I shouldn’t be even thinking about this. I was overthinking. I’m a bit of a stewer. The weather was so beautiful, I thought, I just need to sit down and just write something. So I sat down and it came out.

Do you know if they heard it or know it’s about them?

JH: Yeah, I think there’s a few, but I feel like it’s still subtle enough and not too pointed [laughs].I didn’t want to start any dramas.

What about ‘Dianne’?

JH: It’s basically, you’d think it’d be about a person Dianne, but it’s actually about my first experience trying Dianne sauce.

[Laughter].

Two or three years ago, I tried it and I don’t know where it was my whole life. I couldn’t believe I’d be going to pubs and never tried it until then. It’s a very New South Wales thing, I’ve heard. I tried it in the town of Laurieton. It was amazing.

It’s a very 1990s thing. Maybe they’re just still hanging on to the 90s.

JH: [Laughs]. Exactly. Yeah. I fell in love with it. I was like, you saved my life! The line that says: Adventures of Betty – that came about because when I first left school there was this yuppie burger joint, Betty’s Burgers, in Noosa. I was actually a dishy there. And I was like, this song is going to be about sauces, but I’m going to try and make it sound like a love story. There’s Betty sauce.

[Laughter]

You should try the reverse next, like it’s actually about a girl but everyone thinks it’s about sauces!

JH: Fully!

What can you tell us about ‘Rid Of You’?

JH: It’s about having a bit of a disagreement with the one that you love, but comes back around. That’s a song that sounds really happy, like the riff and everything. And then it’s nastier, like, I need to get rid of you. It came about because me and my girlfriend broke up for a period of time. I wrote a poem idea around then. W were both still living together and stuff and at each other’s throats.

Awww. Tense!

JH: Yeah, tense. It’s about having a disagreement and being melodramatic [laughs].

Musically, the chorus sounds a little like…

JH: ‘(I’m) Flipped Out Over You’…

Yeah, by The Victims. Was that influence was subconscious?

JH: Yeah. That one was subconscious. I did it and I showed the boys, especially Eamon because we listen to a lot of old punk stuff, and he was like, it’s just like ‘(I’m) Flipped Out Over You!” I was like, I’ll just tell people I deliberately did it [laughs], but I didn’t really mean to.

We were at a record store in the Gold Coast and the dude behind the counter was like, “Have you heard the new Unknowns record? We love it!” He said there’s a song that sounds like… I cut him off and was like, The Victims. He was like, “Yeah, but I love how they just embrace it.”

JH: Yeah. The more I think about it, The Victims being a punk band for Perth, they deserve all the credit they can get. If we can incorporate a little tongue-in-cheek rip off in there, it’s an ode to them.

Next song is ‘Crying’.

JH: I was feeling down.

Emo Josh?

JH: [Laughs] Yeah, emo Josh! You know when you feel down and you don’t know why. Everyone gets it. You’re feeling down, but you’re still tough! Sad for no reason. It pops up every now and again for me—I’m still doing it tough though. I’ll be crying but I’ll be like, fuck you!

[Laughter]

It’s interesting that the album track run is ‘Rid Of You’ and then ‘Crying’.

JH: Progression of moods [laughs].

Progression of mental states!

JH: [Laughs] Yeah, fully. Things might be going really good for you and everything, but sometimes you’re still sad.

I’ve had that. I’ve been diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety throughout my life, especially when things are seemingly going great.

JH: Yeah, for sure. Sometimes you just see something and you cry. Why is this happening to me?

How about ‘Beat Me’?

JH: That’s about another person from the coast who I no longer get on with. It’s actually the original guitarist from The Chats.

You should rename your album East Coast Beef.

JH: Fully, that’s amazing. He’s from Coolum too. When he got kicked out of The Chats and I joined, we all knew each other… I was never really that good of friends with him because for starters, I don’t think he really even knew what sort of band he was in. He was a bit of a douchebag. Basically I heard all this stuff when I joined and I wasn’t living on the coast still, I’d hear like, through the grapevine, that he said if he sees me at the pub he’s going to bash me. I go back to Coolum and no one ever said a fucking word to me. The song is about that person looking for a good old scrap in the street. Obviously, I’m not a huge fighter or anything. I envisioned a bit of a rumble and.

Not backing down usually scares off people that are all talk. Jocks at my school growing up would say that they’ll bash me when I get off the bus tomorrow. I’d go up to them and say, let’s roll! Let’s do this motherfucker! They’d always freak out.

JH: Yeah, that’s what it’s about.

You’re like too busy playing music and livin’ the dream to have scraps with losers anyway.

JH: Yeah, that’s the thing. There’s lines in the song: I’m on my own 10 to 1 / I’ll take you on, I wasn’t born to run.

Bring it!

JH: Yeah. It’s still just a fun one.

Less angst, more tongue in cheek?

JH: Fully. Like a 50s rumble knife fight, that you see in a movie like The Outsiders.

That’s exactly what I was thinking! I love that movie.

JH: I was just writing tongue-in-cheek about some dickhead that keeps saying he’s going to bash me.

I’m not looking for trouble, but I’m ready for it.

JH: [Laughs] Yeah, exactly.

‘Thinking About You’? A love song?

JH: That is a love song, for sure. It’s about being on other sides of the world from each other and trying to sort things out. You might be going through a rough patch, but you know how hard it is trying to sort things out when there’s that much distance when you love someone.

You can’t just give them a hug.

JH: You might have a disagreement, but thinking about them, I guess, sometimes that’s the best you can do.

‘Know It All?’

JH: It’s about someone that thinks they just know it all. The chorus is: Don’t come on to me / I’ve got no points to make, you’ll see. It’s like, don’t even try and talk to me because I’m not even going to give you any sort of answer.

I’m not going to feed your bullshit?

JH: Yeah, I’m not going to feed it.

We’ve all met people like that! I’ve been at shows sometimes and dudes will come up to me and start talking to me like, oh, you like punk do you? Then they start mansplaining punk to me and treat me like I have no idea. I’m actually friends with all of their punk heroes but I never tell them and just let them go on and on. You can’t talk to people like that, they’re more inserted in flexing their punk knowledge and cred than actually having a two-way conversation. Most recently at a show a dude was trying to mansplain power violence to me!

[Laughter]

JH: Yeah. It’s really frustrating! I guess you’ll always get that. But that’s the interesting thing about when punk started it was so mixed and it was everyone, all genders.

Just all the weirdos getting together to express themselves.

JH: Exactly. All the outsiders all banding together to actually work with each other and create something, not trying to exclude each other and be too exclusive. The you can’t like that cos I like it culture, the you’re not like us culture, which I feel probably ruined it for a lot of people. It probably inspired a lot of bands to move away from the genre.

Yeah like that Dead Kennedys’ song that talks about “a closed-minded, self-centered social club” and how the bright people get driven out of our so-called scene and you’re just left with thugs. What’s ‘I Don’t Know’ about?

JH: That song just about getting blind drunk and not remembering what happened the night before. Waking up with the booze horrors, which has been a reoccurring theme in my life. Everyone gets that growing up.

Have you ever got really drunk and ended up somewhere weird?

JH: Oh, it actually happened here one time. I was in The Zoo and I was on a tear. I started drinking, it’s when Sailor Jerry’s brought out those bloody, apple flavoured rum. I drank too much and I basically ended up losing all memory. I got a bar stool and tossed it over the bar up in The Zoo. It was on a Wednesday and I got thrown out. I was just hanging out in the Valley, not even knowing what I was doing and basically I ended up in Winn Lane here. I was hanging out with these derelicts and I slipped and hit my head on the curb and was knocked out. I was bleeding very badly. I woke up to the ambulance lady. I was on a stretcher going to hospital. There was so much blood. I nearly died.

I couldn’t find my card. These people that I was hanging out that I thought were friends in my distorted state, had stolen my card, my money and everything. I had told them where I live. During all this they went to my house and tried to rob it. My housemate was there and she was fucking petrified. I didn’t know any of this until I got back home.

I got let out of the hospital 6AM. I had no phone, no card or anything, so I just walked to the Bowen Hills train station and got the train home with this bandage around my head. That was the worst I ever had. That’s basically what ‘I Don’t Know’ is about.

Did that kind of slow your roll for a bit?

JH: Yeah, that changed things for me. I thad to go have a chat with someone after that because I was like, this is too much, the drinking culture.

When I first just doing The Chats stuff I was stoked because I was earning a bit of money off that. Before that I was roofing, so I was heavily into the drinking culture anyway. In trade culture drinking is huge.

I over did it. Because I’m a bit of an anxious person, I was an anxious drinker. It just turned into this snowball, when that happened, we had to postpone a sold out Tivoli show for The Chats.

That would have been full on having to deal with repercussions from your actions that affected other people too.

JH: It was very bad. So that’s ‘I Don’t Know’ [laughs].

Wow. I’m never going to listen to your songs in the same way. In a good way though, there’s so much more depth then you’d initially think there is.

JH: It’s another song that sounds happy, but isn’t.

It’s so cool to learn more about you too. Every interview I read with you it annoys me that you always get asked such dumb questions. I finish reading them and think, I don’t know anything new about you, about what you’ve created, done, or where you’ve come from. Especially Chats interviews, ugh! The interviewers are the worst. It’s like they never treat you guys seriously.

JH: They’re always vague and just goofy.

Yeah. It’s kind of disrespectful because you guys have been playing music for ages and you’ve done lots of cool things. There’s lots to talk about.

JH: There’s a lot of people within the music industry that want to hear goofy shit. They’ll be like, everyone’s going to love this, it’s funny! I’m like, OK [laughs]. I’m enjoying this chat.

I’m glad. Do you ever feel external pressures?

JH: No, I was sort of bought into it. It’s the way I make my living now. It’s pressure. I just remember I’m lucky to be in an industry where if you can have a level head and you can learn how to navigate through it correctly, it’s one of the best because, it’s very flexible working hours. You can have beer while working. I only feel pressure, to be honest with you, if I’m too hungover or had too much, because then the anxiety starts kicking in. It’s like, fuck! I got to get steady on stage, I’m doing deep breaths. I just try and just be a good boy.

You have a good time after you’re done?

JH: Yeah, exactly. I feel like there’s only pressure bringing on to yourselves.

Tell us about song ‘Deleted’.

JH: That’s like another long distance one. It’s like, I’m deleted from your heart and I can’t get back by your side. It’s also about being in Brisbane, it’s a very small world. So if something was to happen and you’re away and someone does the dirty with someone else, it’s a very small world. It’s too close to home. If you’re not there for someone enough, you’re just going to drift apart inevitably.

That’s a common thing I’ve found with musicians over the years, it’s hard for them to have meaningful relationships. To have something that’s going to work, you have to share space and time with your partner. If you’re on tour all the time and you’re never home, how can you properly get to know someone? How can you truly be there for them?

JH: Yeah. You have to put in effort. It only takes ten minute phone call every day for it to be okay and still be present. Thinking of each other and doing everything you can, like calling each other.

I love that you write love songs. That’s a big reason I love Eddy Current Suppression Ring too. A lot of power pop is about love also.

JH: That’s the thing. I didn’t even know the actual genre term of power pop until, to be honest, a lot later because people started calling it that. It was a bit ditzy of me [laughs]. I just thought they were the best rock and roll bands. Look at the Beatles and the Kinks, all the British Invasion, they brought back the whole resurgence in rock n roll and got kids listening to that stuff again. A lot of those songs were love songs.

A lot of the Nuggets stuff too.

JH: I love Nuggets. I don’t have any Nuggets thought, but I’ve nearly got the whole discography of Pebbles.

Do you find you get much support for The Unknowns in Brisbane? I ask because for us, we get more support for Gimmie from Melbourne, Sydney and overseas than we do in our own town.

JH: It’s funny around here. It’s the same for The Unknowns. People are, I don’t know…

Too cool for school?

JH: Yeah!

To be fair, it is a smaller scene and it does happen to Australian bands in general. Often I’ve seen bands have to go overseas and make it, then people here follow after. It’s such a big thing in punk especially, people hating something because it’s popular. It’s the same mentality of only liking something because it’s popular. It’s the same stupidity, you’re not liking it because of your own taste; you’re basing it on what other people are doing.

[Laughter]

JH: It’s not very punk, if you ask me.

Exactly. If music you like happens to get popular and it’s still the same music, why wouldn’t you still like it?

JH: It’s so weird. There’s a few older punks, the old crusty crew, that are like, “Fuck The Unknowns. They’re not underground, they’re not in the trenches!”

[Laughter]

It’s like come on mate. I don’t want to go see your punk pop band that plays at King Lear’s every weekend. The venue is good though, it’s good for local bands. I love the Beardo, it’s the best!

The Bearded Lady has the best sound and best vibes!

JH: It’s my favourite! I’ve had so many good times there. One of the best things about it is that it’s not in the fucking Valley! You don’t get stuck there at midnight when you’re trying to get a ride home and it’s just clowns walking passed. West End is much more chill.

The last song on your record is ‘Supersonic Love’.

JF: That’s one of Nato’s songs. He’s the Unknowns bass player. It’s a love song. It’s a a bit of an instrumental freak out in that one. We hang on the one riff and there’s a bit of an expression session at the end. We thought it’d be cool to do live. We usually play it at the end, ‘cause we’ve been playing the album through. We have some audience participation in that one too.

We saw seen Billiam get up with you guys!

JH: Yeah. And we played The Old Bar and Allan Stacey from Street Sleeper was there having a rip. Then we saw Wayland from Flight to Dubai and he played with us. I love Nato songs. He doesn’t write that many songs, but when he comes to us to us with a song it’ll alway be a fun one.

What’s one of your favourite things you’ve ever seen live?

JH: Kim Salmon playing Tym’s Guitars a few years ago, he played heaps of songs off the first Scientists record. I was loving it. I was 19 and drove down from Coolum for the afternoon. It was so sick.

Also, the first time I saw Schizophonics, in Belgium, they played this small stage and it was absolutely insane. Pat Beers was pulling the splits and doing acrobatics.

Have you ever met someone who you’ve admired and they sucked?

JH: Yeah. Tex Perkins.

When I was a teenager, I stood beside him in a news agency in Sydney in Centre Point browsing music magazines. I didn’t say hello because he looked kind of mean.

JH: He came and did a book signing on the Sunshine Coast. I had a Salamander Jim record. I took that to get it signed. He’s like, “Where’d you get this?” I was watching him and he’s still trying to be Tex to all the old married mums.

[Laughter]

I snuck a joint with my friend, then went back and was observing him signing all these books and chatting up these mum’s and trying to cuckold…

Being super sleazy?

JH: Yeah. I was like, what is this dude? Someone was like, “oh, that’s just Tex!” That’s not cool. I do love Beasts of Bourbon and all his bands, but I’ve never been a massive fan of the Cruel Sea.

Anyone you met that was super cool?

JH: The dudes from The Spits! They so sick. Also, John Brannon.

I saw that he wished you Happy Birthday, that was lovely of him.

JH: He is so lovely! He’s just like a classic Detroit music nerd. You’d think he’d be like real tough but he’s a goofball, man. He loves music. We hit it off!

Also, Nikki Corvette is an absolute sweetheart. She just is amazing. We were just talking and she told us stories of how she dated Johnny Ramone for two or three years. And of all the times that in the early-70s that Iggy would try to get to sleep with her because she was also from Michigan, but she never did. She always played too hard to get, which I love. I pinched myself because I never thought I’d met her. She’s a big influence on The Unknowns.

What’s the rest of the year look like for you?

JH: Touring the UK and Europe. The Chats go overseas in October. We go to the States again, which will be fun, and then go straight to Europe. Lots of travelling. I love it. I’m so fortunate to be able to go around and play music and meet amazing people along the way!

I’m slowly starting to book Unknowns European tour for next year. We got an offer to do Funtastic Dracula in 2024 in Spain, which should be sick. It’s a big festival over there. They have bands play like The Mummies and those sort of bands. We’re looking at probably putting new music out for The Unknowns towards the end of the year.

Find The Unknowns:

theunknowns4.bandcamp.com/album/east-coast-low

instagram.com/the_unknowns_/

facebook.com/Theunknown4573/

Find The Chats:

thechatslovebeer.com

Jerry A. Lang: “As long as you keep someone in your heart… they’re never really going to die”

10th Aug 2023 | gimmiezine

Sitting down to chat with founding member of Poison Idea and legendary frontman Jerry A. Lang, I noticed that he’s softly spoken and super lovely. A surprising contrast from his loud, in-your-face, envelope pushing “Kings of Punk” hardcore band that we’ve all heard crazy stories about over their 30 year career.

Last year, Jerry released a three-part memoir series Black Heart Fades Blue (which we highly recommend) that tell his intriguing, unconventional life story, the events that inspired his songs, and what made him stop hating and hurting. They’re a true reckoning of his past and present on the page.

Why is music important to you?

JERRY A: It seems like the easiest answer in the world, but it also seems like the hardest one. I don’t know why. Why do do children love their mother? Why do we breathe air? Why do we like sunshine? I had a great appreciation for art at a very young age. It’s just the music, it’s intoxicating. It’s like a drug. I was a little child and I heard it, and it was just magical.

In one of your books in your memoir series, Black Heart Fades Blue, you mentioned that when you were a kid, music seemed magic for you and that it made you believe that anything is possible.

J: It’s still that way. I hear some of the new stuff and I think it’s bad black magic, voodoo. These kids are throwing out some bad mojo. But I’m an old man, so that’s what people are going to think, damn you kids [laughs].

Can you remember the first piece of art that you experienced that had a really profound impact on you?

J: I was at a birthday party for a friend of mine when I was young, his older brother had Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones. I remember looking at that album cover, just staring at it, and they were playing it. The record cover has a bicycle tyre, then a cake and then little figurines of the Rolling Stones. It’s stacked up. I remember looking at that and thinking it was so cool. I was probably three or four. I remember looking at it and going, wow, that’s amazing! I was mesmerised. That’s still a really cool record.

One of my favourite moments in your books is when you were talking about making art, all of your band’s flyers and album covers. It was cool to read about you making the logo for Poison Idea. How you had all these magazines and you used an X-ACTO knife to cut out letters, and how you turned a “B” into the “P”.

J: Yeah, you know what? It never left either. Me and my wife do art together, we try to make a weekly calendar. There’s some evenings where we’ll paint. I make collages and just stuff like that too. And it’s still as fun as it was then. It’s great. It’s actually working with some kind of magic bringing these things to life.

It makes me happy to hear that you still do art. I love that you still get excited about art and music after doing it for so long. I know so many people who get jaded.

J: Yeah. I’m on social media, I belong to this one group, it’s a bunch of old punk rock guys, a bunch of pissed off punk rock guys. They’re always taking the piss out of Amyl and the Sniffers and The Chats and bands like that. But these bands are saving punk rock. You don’t understand, you old bastards. They’re the new kids of punk rock. You guys just can’t accept it because you’re old and bitter. Australia’s always had just such great, amazing punk rock like The Saints, and it’s still coming.

I’ll make you a cassette mix tape of new Australian music!

J: I would love that. Thank you.

I love sharing music, that’s why we do our zine, Gimmie. It makes me so happy to be so stoked on someone’s music that I just want to share it with everyone!

J: Yeah, the mixtape thing in the 80s was such a really cool thing.

I used to make YouTube playlists for my wife when I was courting her. I would send her playlists with these punk rock love songs, and soul songs, and Al Green. How could you say no to something like that? [laughs].

Totally. The same thing happened with me and my husband. We lived in different cities and we started sending each other mixes of music, and art; that’s how we got to know each other. Then one day I was like, I’m moving to his city, he’s the coolest person I’ve ever known, I can’t not be near this person every day!

J: It’s like a movie, like, You’ve Got Mail or Sleepless in Seattle. But with a good soundtrack [laughs].

[Laughter]. Yes! I’ve heard you say that being a singer is the best job in the world; how so?

J: Well, it’s the best and the worst. Because I could kind of phone it in, call in sick or I could drink and do drugs during the job and that’s really not healthy to do any kind of job when you’re not up to standard. I got used to it.

You go on tour in Europe or wherever, and every city you play, the people are waiting for you. For them, it’s a big event. They’re waiting and they’re saving up all their party—they just blow out and have a giant party and go crazy. You’re thrown right in the middle of it. But the next day you have to do it again. The same exact thing, like Groundhog Day but in another city. So you you wake up and before you even open your eyes, you grab a beer and chug it to just try to take the drive to where you’re going to next. You do that for 50 days in a row, it’s going to do some wear and tear on you, but it makes you who you are. Hindsight is 20/20. But it can be a great job.

After writing the book and having people review it, I learned things that I didn’t know. It was pretty much a confessional. I listen to people’s podcasts and read stuff, people taking my songs and dissecting them. I was like, oh, that’s true. They say, it’s like a child screaming in anguish, it’s screaming in pain and throwing a fit, like firing on just the emotion. I never thought about that. I was like, hey, good call. And, besides maybe a politician, it’s the only job where you can get up there, scream and make a complete asshole of yourself. People agree with you or think you’re a complete asshole. I’ll put that on my job resume for future jobs [laughs].

[Laughter]. How does it feel different for you when you’re performing loaded to when you’re performing sober?

J: Well, I’ve only done it a couple of times sober, and I was obviously nervous. There’s a happy medium with everything. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I still have a couple of cocktails in the evening when I’m making art or playing my records or dancing or doing whatever, and there’s nothing wrong with it. I learned I should have done that earlier, just had a couple of cocktails. Everybody, most of the musicians and authors that I respect and all the good actors that I like, they would do that. But there’s parts where you abuse it. You shouldn’t go there. It’s not good.

Do you think having a couple of cocktails helps you relax?

J: Well, it’s just what I know, it’s just what I’ve always done. To try to say that I’m not going to do that, I’m going to do it like this, that’s like me going up and trying to sing in Spanish or Japanese. I don’t know Japanese and I can’t sing in Japanese. So that would be the same thing as going up there and singing without having any drinks tonight. I’ve never done that. I don’t know how to do it.

You mentioned you got nervous singing sober; have you gotten nervous before singing other times?

J: They say the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, I know that I can do my job, but there’s other people up there doing it with you. There’s the sound people, the instruments going out of tune, my band and the people at the club…It takes a perfect scenario for everything to go right. Things do tend to go wrong lots of times.

Sometimes I’m good to jump right in the middle of chaos and surf in it, I excel in that. But sometimes it’s hard, it’s like, your tyre flying off, as you’re driving down the street. You get a big rush of adrenaline, but sometimes it’s deadly.

The first time that you sang was at house party?

J: Yeah, a house party in Portland. It was all-star. There was a Portland punk band called the Neo Boys.

I love them!

J: I love them too. Pat [Baum] was playing drums and. K.T. [Kincaid] was playing bass, and people were up there, doing different songs. They were doing ‘I Want to Be Your Dog’ by The Stooges. I sang. It’s like riding a bike.

Before that you were playing bass in Smegma. When you decided to go from playing bass to being a frontman was it a conscious choice?

J: I was playing bass in a couple of different bands and it was fine. I really enjoyed it. But then I started seeing other bands and I didn’t think the singers were doing that great, I thought I could do better. They were really good musicians. I thought, wow, if I could do that, if I could get in that band with these people, then we could actually do something good. I made the effort to do it. It took a lot of tries.

In the Poison Idea Legacy Of Dysfunction documentary Mark Barr mentioned that you’re really a sensitive and mild-mannered guy. Would you agree?

J: I was just a kid, and I was taking everything in. I just kept my mouth shut, and I was watching everything happen and learning.

What’s something you remember learning that’s stuck with you?

J: I was a young child. I was a young man. There’s things you learn by yourself. I guess I pretty much confessed everything in the book.

Have you always been a sensitive person?

J: My wife seems to think so. Mark and I would watch the punks and the scene; the punk rock scene was very creative and very feminine-friendly. It was like a renaissance. But then the hardcore punk thing came in and like Tom [“Pig Champion” Roberts] said, it was an uglier music, it was a dumbing down. It was violent, it was mean and it embraced the nihilist stuff and all that crap. We were in it and we wanted to be the big band, so we wanted to be the kings of the nihilists. If you want to do that, you need to up your game. There was a time when I thought GG Allin didn’t have nothing on us. But honestly, who wants to fucking do that?

Totally. Previously you’ve said that you started Poison Idea when you were around 18, and at the time you were kind of having these feelings, of feeling unwanted and alone, and that’s what brought out the anger and made your art so intense.

J: It took me years and years to figure out why I did that stuff. Why all that, with everything, with the self-abuse and the drug abuse and the alcohol abuse and the abuse and the anger and the rage. Luckily, I married a therapist, a woman who’s actually, you know, kind of just tells me what what she sees. I was like, yeah, I guess you’re right. She’s an art therapist too.

That’s wonderful! Art can really help with healing and processing things. When I started reading your books, I actually read the last one first.

J: Oh, wow.

Yeah, I went backwards. Over the years, I’ve heard lots of full on stories about Poison Idea, and I was really interested to know where you were at now and what helped you change for the better? That’s why I read the last book first. You seem like you’re in such a happy space now. I feel like one of the biggest things that’s helped you is, love.

J: Yeah, definitely. You know, I was a drug addict for a long time, we all were in the band. Out of five people, two are dead and one’s completely M.I.A. – I have no idea where the other one is, and the other one’s just trying to survive. You come to a time in your life where you’re just like, I don’t want to do that anymore.

Now on the west coast of America, where I live, some drugs are decriminalised and you can be arrested or stopped on the street and nothing happens to you. There’s Fentanyl and stuff, it’s going to kill generations of people. Crime is going through the roof and businesses are closing down, and I don’t know what the end result is.

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would say that somebody is wanting this whole society to be a society of masters and slaves. They’re letting us burn it down. So finally we just go, we’ve had enough. It’s like some fucking movie. It’s like Batman or Road Warrior. It’s so bad. I don’t know why people would want this. I don’t know why they’re letting this happen. They’re letting it happen, so it gets so fucking bad that we just go, please, do anything. Anything. Just make this stop. And then they’re going to say, okay, we will. No more of this, no more that, no drugs, no guns, no freedom, no anything. We’re going to say, yes. Just make it stop, please. It’s scary. There’s no such thing as moderation. It’s horrible. Lucky for me, I got sober. I can see it happening because I was there. I was in that life, I know how horrible it was.

Do you think with the times we’re living in, that maybe looking after yourself is more of an act of rebellion?

J: Sure. Yeah. I don’t think a lot of people are thinking about tomorrow. There’s a lot of people on a death kick. There’s a lot of people who are dying from drugs, like young kids. We had three kids die last week.

One of the things with punk rock, you were always taught to ask why about everything, to question everything— I’ve never stopped. I’m still questioning, why is this going on today? Why is this happening? Why are we letting this happen?

Like I say, there’s no moderation. There’s no grey area. It’s either black or white, and it’s really polarised. The whole world has been broken up into that side or this side. We keep fighting with each other, and we don’t really see what’s really going on. We focus on who’s the enemy because we know we’re right and this person is wrong. Maybe stand back sometimes and just look, the signs are everywhere.

It’s just about having awareness. There’s a lot of people out there that don’t even have awareness of themselves.

J: Yeah.

A lot of Poison Idea’s songs are based on things that have happened, personal experiences, and experiences of friends. What song do you consider to be your most personal that you’ve written?

J: Every song is personal. There’s a few where people would give me titles of songs, like my guitar player would say, here’s a song called ‘Hangover Heart Attack’ then I would write the lyrics around that thing.

Like I said in the book, I was with my friends in New York and they said, why don’t you write a song about rebellion? About the old rock and roll, getting in your car and driving off a cliff as fast as you can with your girlfriend thing? So that was it.

Two years ago, when we stopped playing, we did a series of shows because I wanted to come back and play good shows and then stop. And we did our second or third last show in Japan. I wanted to do a behind the stories type thing, where we played three songs, then I introduced a song and told the story about why I wrote it. So we chose Japan where they don’t speak English [laughs]. And I was up there explaining the songs to these crowds of people and they were just staring at me like, what are you talking about? A few people got my feeling; they were picking up on it. We said, this song’s about my friend dying, and this songs about my friend dying and this song I about my friend dying. There seems to be a theme here with our songs. They seem to be about people dying or people getting arrested or people having enough, or people being sad.

All the songs do have their little stories. Songs, they’re kind of like movies. Three-minute movies where you try to jam the whole thing in there so you can picture it in your head. I’ve never really thought about that before. So now I’m reflecting and thinking about that and going, wow, these are sad little movies.

There was a lot of losses of loved ones you wrote about in your books the one that really hit me and stood out was when your dog passed away. I feel like that really affected you.

J: Yeah. They were somebody that gave me unconditional love, my best friend.

My friend passed away about a week ago, I had a photo of him, and I saw the photo, and I thought that he really never left. As long as you keep someone in your heart and fondly remember them, you never really let them go, they’re never really going to die. Like Chris Bailey from The Saints. Because we’re all just energy and we’re all just stars anyway. So people never really left. We’ve always been here forever. It’s just how you look at things. I see some people walk around with black eyes, dead looks of not being there. Then there’s some people you just see and they just shine. I don’t think my friends are gone, the people that I love, I feel that they’re still here. I feel that they’re always there. We’re all stars. Wasn’t that like a stupid Moby song?

Yeah. ‘We Are All Stars’.

J: Oh, my god. I’m quoting Moby. I should stop [laughs].

[Laughter]. Speaking of stars, I noticed you have a copy of Van Gough’s Starry Night painting on the wall behind you.

J: Oh, yes. Right next to a Killing Joke poster, it’s from the Whisky a Go Go. Duality and balance!

Very cool! One of my favourite lyrics of yours has always been from the song ‘It’s an Action’: You can’t change the world, but you can change yourself. What inspired that lyric?

J: You know what? I wrote that thing when I was, like, 16 and I didn’t really honestly, at the time, I don’t think I believed it. I was just saying that. It’s one of these things, it’s like speaking in tongues. It just came out, and I had to eventually learn to understand what that meant.

Do you believe it now?

J: Of course. Definitely.

What’s the significance of the lyrics from your song ‘Feel The Darkness’ that inspired your book title Black Heart Fades Blue from: At midnight my heart’s fading blue?

J: That’s what black will fade to. It’s just the whole romantic symbolism of blue moon, blue hearts, and this horrific incident that was happening at midnight with this feel the darkness thing. It’s kind of like shining some light, getting some of that vitamin D, growing and opening up a little bit. It was an out of body thing. Sometimes things happen and it’s like you’re watching a movie and you don’t know why. You’re channelling it from somewhere or it’s all your experiences that are just coming through. Stream of consciousness.

When I was reading your books, it felt like they were written stream of consciousness.

J: That’s how we roll. A couple old friends who are reading it now and contacting me and asking me about it, I just tell them I kind of felt like I was caught for whatever I did. I was caught and convicted and I’m just confessing my crimes and I had nothing to lose anymore. I’m confessing everything. Saying all these things I kept for years. Confession is good for the soul. They say if you ever go into a jail cell you can see who the guilty person is, they’re the one who’s sleeping because he’s caught and he knows that, and it’s the other ones that are upset because they didn’t do anything. And so that’s how, I guess, I’m relaxing and sleeping because yeah, I did it [laughs].

Was it hard for you to face those things when writing?

J: Yeah. There were some things, stream of consciousness, as I was doing them, it flowed like water. But when I stopped and went back and read them, what I just wrote, then I would really shake and get upset. Sometimes it’d be very emotional because it was like, wow, where did that come from?

I’m so thankful that you shared your story, as I’m sure many other people are. I love learning through people’s stories, I think that’s why I’ve spent most of my life interviewing people. I love learning from others.

J: Yeah, it feels good. I can’t believe that people don’t continue to learn forever because there’s so much to know, so much to learn and it feels good.

You’ve been getting into to cooking and gardening lately!

J: Yeah! There’s so much out there. There’s so much in the world, it’s exciting and it just blows you away.

Find Poison Idea records at: americanleatherrecords.bigcartel.com

Find Jerry’s books at: rarebirdlit.com/black-heart-fades-blue-signed-by-jerry-a-lang/

Find Jerry’s solo album: jerryalang.bandcamp.com/album/from-the-fire-into-the-water

V: Living Their Best Life!

9th Aug 20239th Aug 2023 | gimmiezine

Step into the intricate universe of Naarm/Melbourne-based musican, V, an artist whose life story is as interesting and multifaceted as their sound.

V’s journey into music was sparked when a Slits’ concert shattered their perceptions, unveiling the boundless potential of women in music. The transformative power of music and its ability to break down barriers becomes evident as V tells us their story. They vividly describe the turning points, the chance encounters, and the intense passion that fuelled their creative evolution. V taught themselves to record through experimentation with bass and GarageBand, to craft their own unique sound.

V’s musical trajectory was further shaped by collaborations and experiences abroad. Their involvement in various bands, from grindcore to dark wave and experimental projects, exposed them to diverse influences and refined their approach to music. Our conversation delves into their experiences living in Germany for a decade, the challenges they faced, and the lessons learned along the way. V spent time living in Berlin’s Tacheles artist squat.

The interview also explores V’s struggle for legitimacy in an industry that can often be shallow and unyielding. From their insights on the music scene, being dropped from their label, a story of kindness of a well-known fellow musician when V couldn’t afford to eat, and the unending pursuit of self-improvement, V’s authenticity shines through.

Their third album, Faithless, emerges as a focal point of the discussion. The creative process, the painstaking efforts to capture the right tones and emotions, making the album four times and deleting it, and the significance of collaboration with a choir all come to light. The album’s meaning and themes run deep, loss, yearning, psychic devastation and the failures of mental healthcare in contemporary Australia.

V’s candidness about their emotional struggles, personal losses, and the complexities of finding a sense of belonging adds a raw and intimate layer to the chat. Their passion for their art resonates powerfully throughout. We also touch on latest album, Best Life, a visual album, and a collaborative work between eight directors in Australia and the EU.

Ultimately, this conversation provides a window into the heart and mind of an artist who is unafraid to tackle the challenges of living, confronts personal demons, and channels those experiences into their art.

We chatted earlier this year in-person, while V was in Meanjin/Brisbane to headline the VALE VIVI: A punk eulogy to Vivienne Westwood tribute event at The Tivoli theatre. Their dear friend had passed away a few days earlier, and the chat was very emotional. Tears were shed.

I’m so happy to be talking with you finally. We love what you do, V. You’re incredibly underrated. How did you find music? Has it always been a big part of your life?

V: No, actually, it hasn’t been a part of my life forever. I was introduced to this intense love for music through my sister when I was maybe 16 or 17. Of course I liked music before then. Like, I love the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys, but I don’t think my music tastes really extended beyond that then. But I remember my turning point.

My life changed when she was 16. My sister bought me a ticket to The Slits at The Zoo and I’d never heard of them before. It was the best. That show was a turning point because, I just never considered the possibility of women in rock on stage. I remember Ari Up was like, “Girls get up on the stage.” And I got up on the stage. I got my first taste of being on the stage in a rock and roll sense at that show. It maybe took a year or two after that, I’d just play around quietly by myself with one of those organs that every single Brisbane sharehouse used to have.

When I really started making music was when I got an Apple laptop, when I was 21. It came with Garage Band and I just started pumping music out. I started writing music like crazy.

In my mind, I didn’t really know I was making music in my own way. I released ten albums. I burned them on CDs. I had a little separate CD burner, and I literally had ten V albums.

I read about that. Someone that used to be in a band with, I think, David Hantelius?

V: Yeah.

And they mentioned that when they first met you, they sat down with you to hear your music and they thought, oh, I’m just going to hear a demo. And then it was ten albums!

V: Keeping in mind that they were all demos, they were not developed with the structure or anything. I feel like I must have been in a year long manic phase when I first started making that music. Sometimes I get so into it that I’d go for two days. I wouldn’t go to sleep, and I’d just keep doing it. I haven’t done stuff like that in over ten years. I guess I’ve mellowed out in my age. But, yeah, that’s how it kind of started for me, slowly, and also privately. The writing part has always been very private. I never performed till a bit later.

Why was that? Were you scared to put yourself out there?

V: At the time, I was much more invested in being a visual artist. So that was the practise that I showed to the world. Drawing and painting, scenes and comics and stuff.

The turning point to where I kind of started to resemble what I do now, was back in the MySpace days. I was living in Germany at the time and this guy, Obi Blanche, a Finnish producer, contacted me on MySpace. He asked if I wanted to form some Kills-type band together with him. And I spent about a year in his flat, sitting behind his shoulder, watching him on Ableton, putting these demos to life. That’s where I learned about, not technique, but when you have discipline. He had a lot of discipline for music, and I continue that discipline today.

I’m very disciplined now about my approach to music, and I think it’s very informed by Obi. Later on. we had this band called VO – so V and Obi. That was the first official music I ever recorded.

Shortly after that, I joined this grindcore band, Batalj. That’s where I really cut my teeth live. I wouldn’t be making the music I am today if it wasn’t for Batalj. It was with two Swedish guys. David was the one who we mentioned before who came over and listened to demo. It was David and Per and me in that band. Per was good at tour booking. He would book these intense tours. Two week, three week-long tours.

The first tour I ever did was with Monsieur Marcaille, who’s amazing French classically trained cello player. He has two kick drums on either side and then he has the cello in the middle and it’s coming through to two amps. It’s very grotesque in a way because he plays just with the underwear and he’s snorting on the ground and spitting and it’s very loud and almost kind of metal-like.

I never thought about how that might have influenced me because I also had a little fling with him on that tour. There was a huge age gap, but it was fine. I was 23.

More recently you’ve play with band Dark Water?

V: I didn’t really write anything for Dark Water. I was not quite a session drummer. I also had an important role as a cheerleader in that band.

More recently, I’ve been playing bass for Enola. But I’m doing one last show with them because I just think I can’t be in a band where I’m a session musician. I have to have a creative input. What’s the point of me having almost 20 years of experience and just be a session musician? I want to put my creativity into it. I’m not shitting on that band at all. I absolutely loved playing the music. I learnt so much. They taught me about dynamics. How important they are and how much you can get someone’s heart racing by applying the dynamics properly. You have quiet a part, then you have a loud part and then you go quiet again, get loud again, it gets people on edge. It made me a much better musician.

[V holds up their bass guitar and hugs it to their chest]

This is my new bass, Violetta, I upgraded. I’ve been using, Sheila, which is my other bass, that I bought in the Valley when I was 18 with my tax return. Just on a a freaking whim. I went into this music store and they had this deal for a little Orange amp and a bass guitar. I bought it and that was he beginning.

Did you want to play bass or did you get it because you wanted to play something and thought it was cheap enough for you to buy?

V: It was just cheap. In school, I studied classical acoustic guitar, the one where you get the little footstool. But honestly, I didn’t do that in high school because I liked music. I did it because I didn’t like gym. I got the music lessons put on the same time as PE so I wouldn’t have to do PE. I learned technique from that. But I wasn’t passionate about it. I didn’t think about making music when I was a teenager. That came later.

When you started doing your solo thing, V, you were living in Germany?

V: Yeah, the very first show I ever did was for someone’s art show which was held in a derelict abandoned building. I had this battery operated stereo with a CD that I burnt for the backing track. I had a tambourine, no microphone. I was singing along.

I’ve gone through huge transition to get to where I am today. It took a lot of different bands. I’ve gone to the next level with V because of that.

You were talking about dynamics before, I can especially feel that with your new album, Faithless. I’m usually a big lyrics person, they’re a big part of the equation for me, but then with your album, there’s not really that many lyrics. Maybe the last song. You convey so much with just sound.

V: That’s really what I wanted to achieve with that album. It was by far the hardest work I’ve ever created.

Didn’t you make the album four times and then deleted it each time?

V: I did, yeah.

What was missing in the versions you deleted?

V: I got commissioned to do the album, so it had to have the Bells on it. Many of the songs I’d written would have sounded better on synthesiser and my normal thing. And I felt like I was doing a disservice to the Bells by… it’s almost like I just tried to sub them in. I wanted to justify using the bells. For people reading this, they’re the Federation Bells. I did it four times because it had to be good.

It was written during lockdown, a very isolating period. I was in the shed. I smoked more weed than I’ve ever smoked in my entire life. It was a nice period, because obviously, with the lockdown and getting money from the government, I was able to, for the first time in my life, almost just only focus on the music for two years.

I felt so conflicted because I didn’t like how the Bells sounded. And it took me forever to arrive at a point where I could feel justified, to actually release it and feel like it was still my voice and feel like I wasn’t compromising.

Initially did you have an idea of what you thought the Bells might sound like and was the reality different?

V: It was a harsh reality because the Bells are ugly sounding. They hurt. They hurt my ears. The higher ones, anyway. The album pretty much uses almost none of the upper Bells. It’s like, basically mostly the lower five Bells. You think of a bell in a clock tower, it’s like that. They’re upside down on sticks. It’s a very unique instrument. They’re more of an artwork.

I’m not technically trained, I’m self taught, totally. There’s all this technical information about how the tones work and I just have to do it all by ear.

Dark Water also got commissioned, but on the Grand Organ.

I got dropped by DERO Arcade. I don’t mind talking about that. That was crushing. I can’t even begin to say how crushing it was, because I made ten music videos, I spent all this money, savings. But, yeah, it will come out, it’s going to be fine. That was very difficult.

So that’s another album that you’ve made?

V: Yeah, it’s all finished, it’s ready to go. I’m probably going to probably going to release it in three months, because I want to do a European tour at the end of this year. That’s why I’m doing scrappy jobs, so I can get a ticket and go overseas again.

My amazing sister ives in Norway and haven’t seen her in five years, she’s got five cats I’ve never met. She has a van and has agreed to drive me on tour. I’m going to release ten singles, because why not? I can do whatever I want if it’s my own self-release. The first show of the tour will probably be in Berlin, as cliche as that is [laughs].

That makes sense though, you lived in Berlin for ten years.

V:It still feels cliche, it’s the cliche of the Australian that goes to Berlin. Whenever it comes up in conversation, I don’t say the “B” word, I just say Germany, because I’m embarrassed. It’s fun. I’ve been here [Australia] for seven years now, so it was 17 years ago that I moved there. It was just before turning 22, when I moved.

Why’d you move there?

V: The art scene. Initially I had moved to London because my mum is from there and I wanted to reconnect with her side of the family, but I hated it. I felt alienated, didn’t make any friends. I didn’t feel good there.

On a whim, I moved to Berlin, I had this vague friend that had a studio in a massive artist squat, Tacheles, that I ended up living in. I was meant to be there for five days, but on the first day well, no, the first day was horrible, on the second day I was like, oh, I’m not going back to England, I’m going to stay here. I felt free in a way that I’d never felt. Maybe it was because of the language gap, like not understanding advertising and not understanding any conversations on the street.

V live in Meanjin/Brisbane 2021: by Jhonny Russell

That’s really interesting.

V: That’s where I immediately started making those ten albums. When I moved there, I bounced from art studio to art studio. I essentially spent ten years bouncing from place to place. It was very unstable, but it was nice. I wouldn’t want to do that again, though

Is there anywhere that you feel at home?

V: That’s hard because my family is all split all over the world. I guess I do feel somewhat at home in Naarm because my brother is there. He’s married. He has my beautiful niece. She’s so cute. Izzy. She’s the only child in the family, and at this stage, I’m probably not going to have children. It’s nice to have this child, that feels nice and somewhat homelike.

I also grew up in Singapore and South Korea, and so I’ve never really felt connected to Australia. It didn’t really feel like I was leaving home when I went over to London. I was born here in Brisbane, but left when I was six and then came back to Brisbane when I was about 15 or so. So the formative years was spent over in Singapore and South Korea; changed school, changed houses.

Do you remember much from your time there?

V: Oh, yes, very much so. My mind wanders back there sometimes because I went to school with all these expat kids who were from all over the world. That’s what I really liked about Germany, because it is quite multi-cultural, they call it multikulti. There’s ja lot of different nationalities living there. There’s a lot of different people. That’s something I feel really lacking here. It’s so homogeneous. I miss the heavy accents, and broken English and broken German and broken French and whatever language. When you meet someone, you try to find whatever common language you have, and then you speak broken whatever together or use, like, Google Translate to try and communicate.

I’m searching for home. I don’t think it bothers me that much, though. Maybe I’m more like a wandering Ronin [laughs]. But, I would like to find something that feels like home one day. I mean, this kind of feels like home in a way. I’ve had housing instability for literally 17 years. That’s not the worst thing either, because it feeds into my need for stimulation. I’m always searching for new, fresh stimulation.

What’s the significance of album Faithless to you? It’s your third album.

V: It represents legitimacy. There’s nothing more legitimate than the city of Melbourne commissioning you to make a record. It feels like a new phase for me. I want to reach the heights. I don’t want to have to work this shit insurance job that I hate. I hate working these crappy jobs. It sucks my life out. And it means I can’t put as much thought and effort into my music.

Best Life is your other album you’ve made, right?

V: Yeah. It’s about best life. When we were in lockdown, it’s hard not to self-reflect. That’s what that album is all about—self-betterment, self-improvement. Also, isolation.

I’m always wanting to be better, a better version of myself. There’s a whole bunch of stuff that I really don’t like about myself that I’m working on. I can be so passive aggressive, and other things, that I’m trying to work on and I think bit too much about. Self-betterment is what I use music for. With Best Life, with So Pure, I was really looking inwards and looking at myself and asking questions. Faithless, I’m more looking outwards. I didn’t want to write songs about love and of course, I inevitably end up seeing death, which I’m a little bit tired of it, to be honest.

The last song ‘Faithless’ was one of those songs that came fully formed. It came out totally, there was no arrangement later. I didn’t have to revise the lyrics. I feel like that is a bit of an aberration from the rest of the album, which I feel is like more of an exercise in, I tried to go really deep with the oral sonics of it all. The album represents legitimacy for me, which is something I desperately crave.

‘Memories / Dreams’ definitely exists, because Cosey Fanni Tutti exists. This is heavily influenced by Cosey Fanni.

In what ways?

V: I read Art Sex Music. It’s so good. And it will make you look at Genesis P-Orridge in a totally different light. I listened to her discography and also her collaborations that she did with Chris Carter as well.

I also listen to a lot of group A., they’re from Tokyo but based in Berlin. I played with them before, they’re huge now. They’re amazing. Very influenced, because for me, they were at the forefront of this genre. The way they talk about their music is really cool as well. It’s very conceptual. It’s like, this album is all about wood and wood sounds, and then this one is about metal and metal sounds. It’s clever, it’s intellectual.

I get obsessed with things and I listen to the same thing over and over and over and over again. definitely got obsessed with Cosey’s live recordings on SoundCloud.

Have you heard Lydian Dunbar’s new album Blue Sleep? I’m obsessed. That’s one of the ones that I’ve also listened to obsessively on repeat. It’s one of my favourite albums of last year.

We love Lydian! There’s so many great artists in Australia, but the best stuff doesn’t always get known by a wider audience.

V: Yeah. Because of the industry, you see these super talented people get ground down all the time. It’s never the best stuff out there getting attention, but sometimes it is, look at Amyl and the Sniffers! I’m so stoked they blew up. They definitely work hard.

Quick story about them, a few years ago, I had a bit of a mental meltdown about music and I made this social media post that I’m going to quit. I didn’t even have money to eat. This sucks. I hate it. And then Amy from Amyl and the Sniffers wrote me. I’d seen her at shows and stuff. She said, “I’ve just done really well with this Gucci campaign. Please let me send you groceries. I’d never really even talked to her before. After that, there’s no one who’s more of a fan of Amy than me. Not even because of just that, but because of her lyrics, her performances, and everything. She’s super lovely.

Totally! The industry can be such a terrible place. Music media in this country is all pretty bogus too. Artists have to pay to get featured (we never charge, we only cover artists we love). People reach out to Gimmie and ask us how much it costs to be featured ‘cause they’re used to paying other well-known bigger publications to get coverage. Their numbers are fake and engagement is poor. They’re not doing as well as they pretend that they are.

V: What’s happening? Where are we going? What’s the endpoint of this complete homogenisation of culture?

In Melbourne, you’ll see these bands that have hundreds and thousands of monthly listens on Spotify, but then you go see them and there’s only a few people there.

Fucking house of cards, it’s got to come down at one point. How much can we take? I like doing my own thing, staying in my own lane that I’ve made, supporting the things that I love, and that’s it.

I’ve had the opportunity to play with Civic recently and they’re fucking doing so well. Those guys, they’re going to America, twice this year. They’re going to Europe. They got sponsored by Fender. They could choose anything they wanted. That’s a fucking dream.

We saw them on Friday night. We love those guys. Lewis is a total legend, a really nice, talented dude.

V: I wish I could have made that show. I really like them all as people, they’re exceptional. Normally I have no time for all-male bands, no time whatsoever. They’re just so fucking nice. I feel like they deserve it. I know them all individually from their other projects, and I just know they’ve worked so fucking hard to get that. They did twelve shows in four days at South by Southwest. Insane.

In regards to your creativity, what are the things that are important to you?

V:Creativity is part of my entity. I’m always being creative. Integrity and authenticity. Authenticity is the most important thing to me, no compromise. I like the space to do things in my own time and not be forced to be in a schedule. What’s the point if it’s not real, then it becomes shallow entertainment. I’m more interested in creating this simulacrum of my soul. It should be my unique voice.

My creativity is my life force. That’s my purpose in life. Maybe that will change later, but I don’t really have much else in my life besides my music. I have my friends, and I have nice musical equipment, but I feel like it probably would be healthier for me to get some interests outside of the creative sphere, also because my ego is so linked to it. If something goes wrong with my creativity side, or if I perceive that it’s being rejected or something, then it’s like the end of the world.

Yeah, I’ve felt like that too. I used to put on a lot of punk shows and I’d spend time and effort making cool flyers, like, mini artworks, hand them out at places, and then I’d see them just discarded on the floor, it’d be so sad.

V:Yeah, I used to put on a lot of shows too. But I haven’t since COVID times. In Germany, I used to put on shows all the time to the point where people I’d never heard of would write me and ask me to put up shows. I’d listen to the music first and generally not reply to the ones that I didn’t like. I was living on and off in communes that had guest rooms so you could get crust bands up from the Czech Republic, with six members and shove them in the guest rooms.

I remember once, a band called the Piss Crystals, me and a friend put on a show for them and I put them in this guest room, closed the door, went to bed; Later I went down to collect them, there was a big note on the door that said: Scabies. I don’t think anyone got it. Or maybe I just blanked that out my memory [laughs]. But a lot of stories like that in Germany, those were some really loose times back then. Very different from life here.

Were there any specific emotions or things that you were processing while you were making Faithless?

V: With ‘Faithless’, the song itself, I mean, that song is a eulogy for Bridget [Flack]. The songs all have their own meanings but that one is the one that really has a solid. meta meaning. When I got Hunny Machete involved and she brought in the Faithless Choir, it took on this entirely new meaning—the power of community and community care.

When the choir got involved, it was like they were drowning out my cries of, are you faithless? You almost can’t hear me say that because the choir is so loud behind me. They make it uplifting. It’s a very depressing song without it. She wrote the arrangement, just reminds me the power of collaboration, makes me want to collaborate more.

That song, when I wrote it, it was about being faithless and being hopeless and being so completely faithless in the system for people like Bridget, people like me and that we can’t live and thrive in the system. Bridget was badly failed by the Australian mental healthcare system.

‘Cockroach’ is about the apartment I was living in. I wrote the first half in this sharehouse in Brunswick. And the second half, this is Lockdown rent got really cheap in CBD, so I got my own apartment for the first time ever; one year. It was infested with cockroaches. I like the big ones, that’s no problem. Give me a big one any day. The standard bush cockroaches. But it’s the German cockroaches, the tiny ones, they just make me want to vomit. They’re disgusting. I had to throw them away cassettes because they got in there, They got in all my picture frames. It was intense.

What about the song ‘Toll Keeper?

V: It’s kind of like you’re on the river on that boat thing and you’re going to the Afterworld. I feel like that’s the soundtrack to that, in a way that brings you into that.

That was one of my favourites. I went through so many emotions listening to it. Each time I listened, I got something else from it.

V: So awesome to hear. That makes me so happy. I was not sure how it be received because it’s so different. It’s still my same aesthetics and sensibilities but a different approach to meaning. Initially, when I wrote the album, probably the first one that I deleted, I was like, oh, make an album about land rights. Because written on the Bells, there’s a river there, and there’s so much history for the traditional custodians of the land in that area. I started to try and write it. I was like, this is too much to tackle. I also felt like it wasn’t my place to try and write, like I was just trying to be Midnight Oil or something. It wasn’t right. It’s a hard thing to write about, land rights.

I felt quite insecure while writing, because, you know, if I wasn’t going to write directly, direct lyrics about my emotions or anything, I was like, Is it still illegitimate and is there still meaning in it? That’s part of why I wrote and deleted it four times. I felt so fucking insecure about it, and I just wanted to make sure that it rung the right notes, metaphorically speaking.

I was reading about the drum machine that you used. You got it in France, right?

V: I did, for €2. It was sitting in the grass, I half knew what it was when I walked past because it has all the classic buttons, like waltz, samba, all those drum patterns. I was very much trying not to hide my excitement when I was asking the woman selling it, in broken French, how much does it cost? It’s an amazing machine. I mean, it still works perfectly. And it’s over maybe 50 or 60 years old. It’s definitely the jewel in my collection, because I have collected a few really nice pieces throughout the years. I would never sell it, but it’s worth, maybe a grand and a half. And yeah, the history and the sound you would get from it. I was slyly asking her what it was? (I knew what it was). She told me it’s for accompanying the accordion. I was like, oh, okay, maybe I’ll take it. I actually want to get it retroactively fitted with Midi because it doesn’t have Midi, so that was kind of a nightmare, like fixing it or not fixing it.

I’m not going to lie, it was a nightmare to actually technically make this album. Technically it was such a challenge because it wasn’t on the grid and I really should have thought about that. But I’m happy with how it came out. I could have saved myself 300 hours or something, because I did a lot of hand placing, midi notes and things like that. I’ll never do it again. It was a labour of love.

Have you had a chance to play the album live yet?

V: No.

You were going to do it at Fed Square?

V: We got rained out. It was huge no no, because I’m bringing a lot of electric stuff like a laptop. I’m not bringing the drum machine because it would literally be impossible to get it to sync up with what I’m playing. Even a single drop of sideways rain is not allowed to come near my stuff. It’s going to be rescheduled. It’s impossible to take the show on the road. I’m just going to leave it as that one live performance, just have it as this rare one off thing and then the records. That’s going to be the legacy of it. I’m sure I would like to do, like, a ten year reunion with the choir, because the choir is, full of such awesome people and we really bonded.

So you’ll start focusing on Best Life now?

V: Yeah. I just got to get the plan together. I haven’t tried so hard to get another record label. Once I got dropped from DERO Arcade, I wrote all the labels, nobody really replied to me. I got one rejection, which was cool, even to just see that they’d seen my letter. That was so hard.

Obviously, I’m doing well. I have this album out, but nothing’s good enough for me. Nothing’s ever going to be good enough.

What does your best life look like?

V: Right now? Don’t ask me, because I’ll start crying. I don’t know.

Would you be making music full time?

V: No, I wouldn’t be doing music at all.

What would you want to be doing? Would it be visual art?

V: No. [Cries]. I’d probably like to have a family, I think, but I don’t think I’m going to do that. People often say that their songs are like their kids and that making an album is like giving birth. I definitely view my instruments as, I wouldn’t say my child, but, something that replaces that, in some ways. [Craddles their bass guitar]. This feels very comforting for me to be holding Violetta like this. I always give them names.

Outside of capitalism, yes, I would be doing music, I would be doing art. But it’s just so crushing to be creative.

Part of the reason I caught up in my head is I spend way too much time alone. I need to get out there and hang with the young people and go see those bands. Start looking at placing my focus on, am I happy with what I’ve done? Am I happy with what I’m doing? Stop striving for success and just try and keep focusing on making what I like and what I’m happy with.

You’re an amazing, talented, fascinating person V. You should be proud of what you’ve done, it’s so unique, no-one could have done it but you. What is success anyway? I know music doesn’t pay your bills right now but your art really speaks to people, it moves them. We get it. We get you.

V: I am happy with it. I’m going through an emotional time also because another trans friend unfortunately chose to end their life four days ago, the day before this album came out and I was like, oh, god, like, yeah, fucking faithless right there. All that kind of stuff beats you down. When people are actually dying and not just being upset because their record won’t come out, it’s hard to reconcile, but it’ll get there. I’ve got my therapy session tomorrow morning, by the way, so don’t worry about me. I’ve just had a rough, rough few days.

I’m so sorry that you’re having such a rough time right now, our condolences for your friend passing. In situations like this words never suffice. Are you ok?

V: Yeah. I’m sorry for my friend. It’s so sad.

Totally. I was talking to Jackie from band, Optic Nerve, recently. I was talking to them and their new album they’ve just put out is called, Angel Numbers. Thematically, it’s about signs among other things, but it’s also about violence against trans people. It’s such an important record that we feel deserves so much more attention. Jackie was telling me about how they got jumped, multiple times in a few weeks and ended up in the hospital twice.

V: That’s awful. It doesn’t surprise me.

The album is about these things and it’s about community. It’s one of the best hardcore punk records of the year, and it really is for community. It’s incredible. Jackie is an incredible person doing great things.

V: That sounds like an extremely important record and I can’t listen to it. Optic Nerve’s guitar sound is something special.

Anything else you’d like to tell us?

V: We’ve covered A to Z, everything. I have a lot to think about, which I really appreciate. Your questions made me tear up, asking, where is home? And, what would your best life be? I’m always about self-improvement, so I’m going to think about those questions. They really struck chords in me.

Find V at:

vlovescats.bandcamp.com/music

instagram.com/vlovescats

facebook.com/Vlovescats/

soundcloud.com/vlovescats

Gimmie Records new release!!: piss shivers

4th Aug 20239th Aug 2023 | gimmiezine

Original photo: Jacob McCann @blokeyoucantrust. Handmade collage by B.

Today we’re excited to announce Gimmie Records’ second release, the highly anticipated self-titled debut from Meanjin/Brisbane punk duo, Piss Shivers – Caleb Stoddart (guitar/vocals) and Gemma Wyer (drums). Their raucous on stage energy, which you may have witnessed at their shows supporting Amyl and the Sniffers, Civic, The Unknowns, C.O.F.F.I.N, Mini Skirt, and Arse, has been captured in a 16 minute and 30 second towering onslaught of explosion of focused fury and wry self-deprecation, by Pious Faults’ Tom Lipman’s live-in-the-room production style. Piss Shivers’ songs are emotionally charged and undeniably raw, manifested from being in one’s own head too much, driven by anxieties, addiction, a tumultuous homelife, and the premature loss of friends. The album has both depth and humour. Jack Mitchell from Guppy guests on the high tension track ‘Rats’ as well as painted the album cover art. The record was mastered by Mikey Young. Piss Shivers’ record unequivocally earns its spot as one of our top picks for Punk Album of the Year, that’s why we put it out.

We first saw Piss Shivers play in 2021 and were in awe of how full and huge they sounded. And, if you read Gimmie issue 5 you’ll already be familiar with them via the chat we featured with them (despite them never having released a song yet) and know that they met at a Propagandhi show, and of Gemma singing with Jello Biafra at a gig moments before acquiring a black eye!

We’re excited to be putting this record out. We love Piss Shivers and hope you will too!!

Piss Shivers finally have music coming out into the world. I know you were sitting on it for such a long time. When did you record it?

CALEB: We recorded it in November 2021, it’s crazy it’s 2023 now. We recorded it in a National storage shed in Bowen Hills, which is where we currently practise.

GEMMA: Deep underground.

CALEB: It’s really tinny, it’s has the corrugated-iron-kind-of-roller-door-vibe. We tracked all the instruments live.

Who recorded it?

GEMMA: Connor and Tom from Pious Faults. Tom agreed to record us, he’s looking to branch out and focus a little bit more on recording.

CALEB: He wanted to practice recording so he said he’d do it for a couple of hundred bucks.

GEMMA: Connor has done, like, audio engineering stuff before, so he kind of helps out, particularly with setting it up, like mic-ing everything and getting the sound right. You can imagine what it sounds like in a storage shed as opposed to a purpose built room.

Maybe that’s why it sounds the way it does?

GEMMA: It has a pretty massive sound. When we practise there, if we take a recording on our phone, the drums particularly sound massive. That sound translated really well because obviously there’s only two of us, without bass. Having the drums and the cymbals and the big guitar sound fill that and occupy that space. It worked well for our sound. Tom mixed it and Mikey Young mastered.

How long did you take to record it? A few days?

GEMMA: Two nights basically, all live.

CALEB: Then I just overdubbed another guitar. We recorded vocals at Dutch Vinyl…

GEMMA: In, like, a storage room filled with boxes of records.

CALEB: Tom used to work there. After work I’d come up after the shop closed.

GEMMA: That’s where Jack from Guppy came as well, to recorded vocals for ‘Rats’. We know, Guppy. We know she’s amazing. We gave her full control over that, and she came in and smashed it. She had a very specific idea of what she wanted.

It sounds pretty hectic.

CALEB: [Laughs]. Evil or something!

Yeah. What else do you remember from the recording?

CALEB: I got grumpy at Gemma. We had this fight. In one of the songs ‘Hoodie’ when I sing a part it lets me know when I’m going to change, in the recording I thought the bit was going longer. I was like, ‘It’s three times!’ Gemma was like, “It’s four times!” I was like, ‘Bruh, it’s three!’ We were swearing at each other [laughs].

GEMMA: The whole thing was that you kept changing at three but you were counting four. I’d be like, one, two, three, four. You changed on the three. We were having a back and forth. Caleb was like, ‘For fucks sake!’ Tom was just sitting there listening…

CALEB: It was a bit awkward for him.

GEMMA: Tom was like, “It’s actually four Caleb.”

[Laughter]

CALEB: I was like, ‘You’re fucking gaslighting me. I know how it’s supposed to be.’ Then I was like, oh, yeah.

GEMMA: Basically, I’m always right [laughs].

CALEB: Also, we were going to do another bit of tracking and there was a bloke that was sleeping in one of the storage sheds down he was very angry and told us to “Shut the fuck up!” He was bashing on the roller door and we were all like, holy fuck!

GEMMA: Jack was there, we were going to record her vocals for ‘Rats’. We didn’t end up doing it because we didn’t want to piss off this guy again.

CALEB: He went on a five minute rant of ‘Your mum hates you and your grandmother hates you.’ Very psychotic.

GEMMA: It was really trippy. We were like, everybody be quiet, oh shit, hide.

CALEB: He was yelling.

GEMMA: You were just warming up. It was so annoying because bands practise there all the time and nobody’s ever had that issue before. People run business out of there and I reckon there’s a few people that live in them.

CALEB: There was a guy there the other day belting it out singing, he must have been playing electric drums because you could hear him banging on something.

GEMMA: There’s still like a piece of cardboard that I wrote: hi, we’re just recording music, if you want to talk to us, please knock lightly, that we ended up sticking on the outside of the roller door.

Let’s talk about the songs on your self-titled debut. What can you tell me about opener ‘Red Stripe’?

CALEB: We wanted to do like more of a hardcore song, like L.A. hardcore. Lyrically, it’s just about being brain dead [laughs]

GEMMA: It’s a common theme [laughs].

Do you write all the lyrics, Caleb?

CALEB: Songs are about alcoholism, drinking, displeasure. ‘Red Stripe’ is one of my favourites to play.

Do you have a favourite song, Gemma?

GEMMA: Funny, actually, because it’s sometimes my least favourite to play. I really like ‘Onerous’.

Why is it your least favourite to play?

GEMMA: Because there’s this part that fucking every single time…

CALEB: This is the first time I’m hearing this [laughs].

GEMMA: The fill that I do. I don’t know what to call it. Like, the drum roll kind of thing. When we were recording, I feel like we were pretty tight. I felt drum fit. I felt like we had practise so much that we were really ready, but that was the one part that I couldn’t nail in recording. So in the record now, in the first section, I do that fill, I do it properly, and in the second one, I do like a sort of really stunted kind of like half, four notes instead of eight, and it really sticks out to me. It’s so frustrating to listen to. We tried it, like, ten times when recording, and I just couldn’t get it. They were like, “oh, it’s fine, no one will notice.” And now it’s forever on the record. And I’m just like it really gives me, like, a skin crawl. But I think our newest song that we haven’t recorded is probably my favourite to play now. It’s called the ‘New, New, New Song’ [laughs].

CALEB: I’ve got vague lyrics in my head, but it always changes.

What’s song ‘Onerous’ about?

CALEB: It’s about being stuck in my own head.

A lot of the album, except for maybe ‘Eyes Off You’, is in that theme.

CALEB: Yeah. It’s all about being stuck in your head. Getting down about yourself, struggles with lifestyle choices.

Is that how you were feeling when you were writing this collection of songs?

CALEB: Yeah. I was definitely in a place when I was writing it, coming up to writing the lyrics I wasn’t very happy.

Was there anything in particular that was contributing to that?

CALEB:I was doing a lot of drinking and drugs. I wasn’t happy in my work. I had a lot of friends falling out or moving away. That all contributed to that.

GEMMA: Big time.

CALEB: Yeah. You just go through the motions. I’m definitely in a way better place now. It’s funny, it’s kind of bittersweet sometimes singing, I want to die! Actually, I don’t want to die now. I have a nice job. I’ve got a cool girlfriend.

Do you think letting all that stuff out through music, though yelling about it, helped?

CALB: Yeah, it did. It was cathartic. I don’t know if it is now. I feel like I’ve tried to change the way I look at them so I can sing them without being so bummed out.

GEMMA: Being detached a little bit.

CALEB: Yeah, maybe it’s like, there’s always someone going through that. For me, even when I’m going through a shit time, certain songs stick out. So I’ve kind of tried to change the thing of like, well, maybe I don’t feel like that anymore but maybe if someone else bought the record and heard the songs they’d be like, fucking hell, this is exactly how I’ll feel!

Some of the saddest fucking things I can think of musically, like, a real harrowing song, can really make me happy. You think it shouldn’t be like that but listening to something that’s just so fucking sad and harrowing it can bring joy.

GEMMA: That human connection, I guess, that you get through knowing that other people experience what you’re experiencing. You feel like, I’m not alone. You’re matching the vibe. Of course. Yeah, I get it.

‘Hoodie’ is a relatable song. Every time over the winter I’ve put my hoodie on I get that line from the song in my head: I want to hide in my hoodie forever.

CALEB: [Laughs] True? When I was a teenager, I would sneak out of home a lot. I just love putting my hoodie on. If I’m walking home late at night I’ll have my hoodie on and it’s like, don’t talk to me. It’s like my safety thing [laughs]. It’s like the headphone trick, no one will want to talk to you.

Tell us about the song ‘Eyes Off You’ that I mentioned earlier.

CALEB: That song was kind of just like a dumb one that we wrote. I kind of came up with the lyrics on the spot. It was at least something different for us.

GEMMA: It’s a slutty club song.

[Laughter]

I guess there’s that feeling for everyone, you’re drunk in a gig and you see someone and you’re like, oh, they’re kind of cool. That’s a universal thing too.

It’s a fun song that definitely provides a lighter moment on a dark album.

GEMMA: Yes, definitely. I guess it’s you’re having a dark day, you have a few drinks and go out and have that moment of…

CALEB: Oh, there’s a really cute person over there.

GEMMA: Then you go home and sleep it off…

CALEB: And a few more beers and you’ll be back to it. To “I’ve cooked it”.

GEMMA: The funniest part about song is that when we first started playing it, I vividly remember a time at The Zoo where we started playing it at completely different tempos. That was quite a big gig. And, like, I cooked it massively!

[Laughter]

CALEB: There’s a bit in the song where I’m like, blah, blah, blah, because I didn’t want to keep singing it [laughs].

What about song ‘Chained’?

CALEB: It’s about [sings] marijuana.

GEMMA: They’re all about marijuana in a way.

CALEB: The first bit is kind of ripped off an Offspring song.

GEMMA: Oh my god, you said you wouldn’t say that.

CALEB: But it is [laughs]. I do this thing where I’m playing and then I’ll sing random words. When playing that song I just had the line in my head: Every day it’s the same… that’s from an Offspring song.

GEMMA: Shut up.

[Laughter]

CALEB: The other part of the song is about losing someone. The songs have different meanings sometimes, there’s different little bits of things.It’s a fun one to play, its fast.

GEMMA: I know. We originally called it ‘Mosh’ because we were like, please, someone mosh at our shows. I feel like that’s the biggest dream of mine, to have a crowd moving. I haven’t really had that before, like, in CNT EVN. You kind of feel like, I guess, it’s not gonna happen. Seeing that movement and that energy in a crowd is the best.

CALEB: The show we played at Mo’s Desert Clubhouse when we played with C.O.F.F.I.N was kind of weird, half the crowd’s these tanned, blonde surfer chicks who were like “raaaaah” “blaaaah” and smacking each other on the walls. It was fun to watch. They were the last people you’d think you’d see going wild in the pit. Such a funny dynamic.

GEMMA: How about those lights? Hectic.

CALEB: They were a bit too much.

GEMMA: It’s really off putting when you’re playing.

CALEB: It was a bit overkill.

Yeah, the lights were almost like a strobe but it’s just they were changing so fast, like every second. Way too much. It’s distracting from the band and it just becomes not fun. What can you tell us about the song ‘Aren’t Ever’’?

CALEB: When I was younger, my mum was pretty depressed and had a lot of episodes. I feel like I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. The line: You aren’t ever going to believe it… crying in the night and screaming or whatever. I often get up really early and watch Rage, from six until I was in high school. I’d focus on that and zone into the TV when all this shit would be going on around me.

Music has been really helpful in your life, an escape?

CALEB: Yeah. I just didn’t think that, well as a young person, I was ten, you couldn’t really talk about what was happening and no one in the family ever really acknowledged it. The second half to it is getting into the mischief. There’s a period, a couple of years ago, I had a friend overdose, and one go to rehab. Then sometimes I’d have to go to work and be like, oh, I have a nice job… like you don’t know what someone is going through.

GEMMA: As a teenager you are totally egocentric. You’re focused on your own identity and working out who you are and your whole being is sort of inward focused. Then you get to the stage where you understand a bit more about yourself, are more confident in yourself, and you can start to look outwards. I guess, start to observe those things in other people and think about it like the iceberg. You see a tip of someone’s experience. Their behaviour is that outward thing, but what’s underneath? You have no fucking idea. It’s better to give people the benefit of the doubt all of the time. No one really wants to be horrible, no-one wants to be mean. I’d like to think that we’re all doing our best, but some people have a lot of shit going on, I guess.

We touched on it earlier; what can you tell us about song ‘Rats’?

CALEB: I had rats in our house for a little. The lyrics speak for themselves. There were some people that I worked with and I was like, yeah, you’re a bit of a rat [laughs], you talk shit behind my back. I was like, what else can I associate with rats? Rats in my work. Rats in the phone. Rats in my house…

Jack has a pretty unique style, like how she screams in Guppy. I was really happy with it.

GEMMA: It makes it more dynamic.

Gemma, would you ever have a go at doing Jack’s vocal live if she couldn’t be there?

GEMMA: Sitting behind a drum kit feels really safe to me, but, like, vocals are such a it’s just you, it’s not you in an instrument, it is all you. It feels so vulnerable and really scary to me. We’ve tried to practise but I’m uncoordinated and it’s hard to sing and drum. Watching Ben from C.O.F.F.I.N, I’m like, fuck! It’s wild. He’s so good.

Or like when Jake Roberston plays at speed in SMARTS and sings.

GEMMA: It’s wild! Maybe is I was a more confident drummer. I used to get sick before we would play. I would feel so nervous, not even consciously. Say if we had a gig on a Saturday, on a Thursday I’d start being like, oh, I don’t feel too great. I’m feeling really jittery, I’m feeling really irritable, whatever, not feeling good. I’d realise on the Saturday when I was sweating bullets and freaking out and be like, fuck. I’ve been really nervous this week about the show. Performing in front of people was really, really big for me. So I think having the drunk, it’s almost like the barrier, I like being behind that. It’s my little fortress [laughs]. The vocal part really freaks me out because we there was a point where we lived together when we made an electronic thing…

CALEB: I was making beats and really wanted to do a Crystal Castles project. I still do. I really wanted a femme voice to scream and be distorted over the top of this track. I got Gemma to try and do it.

GEMMA: I had to make him just go outside. He couldn’t even be in the house when I was doing it. So no vocals for me at this stage.

We super love song ‘Energy’!

CALEB: I met this person who was like a Ritalin child, heavy Ritalin child. He went off the rails and fried his brain. I thought that was an interesting concept. Amphetamines and frying your brain.

Musically, when we first started playing, I really wanted to be a Danzig-style vocalist, cos I love the old Misfits songs. I stopped doing that. I think ‘Energy’ was kind of in that vein. I feel like I just yell everything now [laughs]. In recording there’s more dynamics.

Was that kind of intentional?

CALEB: Yeah, I definitely want to have that in the recording, but when I’m playing live, I get so nervous. It all comes out on stage.

GEMMA: It’s better now. We used to set each other up, freaking out from nervous. I’d say, oh, I feel nervous and he’d be like, “Don’t say that, now I’m nervous.”

[Laughter]

We wouldn’t talk all afternoon so we didn’t freak each other out.

CALEB: That’s when we first started playing. We haven’t played much together.

GEMMA: It’s started to feel good. Playing is something that I’m actually starting to look forward to. It feels like a bit of a build up and a release. I never really understood when people said that before. People would be like, “I love getting up there. It’s so much fun.” I’d be like, you’re fucking crazy! That is a crazy thing to say. But now I kind of get that. It’s that adrenaline rush. You go for it and then afterwards you’re riding that adrenaline wave.

The last song on the album we haven’t talked about yet is ‘Gold Chains’.

CALEB: ‘Gold Chains’ is a song that we wrote together.

GEMMA: With a bottle of wine in COVID, sitting on the backstairs.

CALEB: Let’s write a song about this guy who’s…

GEMMA: Selling drugs [laughs].

CALEB: He just quit his job and dropped out of school and he’s got a gold chain and is still doing it, but it’s like nothing’s going right. There’s a slight narrative there.

GEMMA: It’s the cheesiest song. The only song I’ve had any lyrics put on is of course rubbish lyrics.

[Laughter]

It’s like, what rhymes with chain? Good direction!

CALEB: Co-writing lyrics is a fun thing to do!

Piss Shivers launch their album next Saturday August 12 at The Bearded Lady, West End. Get tickets HERE.

Get Piss Shivers’ debut self-titled album from Gimmie Records HERE.

Ed Kuepper: “There’s a big, wide world out there and an awful lot of things that you can be doing”

1st Aug 20231st Aug 2023 | gimmiezine

Original photo: Judi Dransfield. Handmade collage by B.

Ed Kuepper stands as a living testament to the enduring power of expression through art. With a career that spans almost 50 years and an impressive discography to his name, Kuepper has become a legendary figure. He’s influence on Australian music cannot be overlooked, his music has transcended time and inspired generations. Gimmie sat down with the iconic musician to discuss his journey, inspirations, and the ever-changing landscape of his craft.

As we dive into conversation we find Ed Kuepper at a vibrant moment in his life. 47 years on from the original Fatal label release of the single (often regarded as one of the first punk songs but really more a precursor) that kicked off his career, The Saints’ ‘(I’m) Stranded’ is being reissued, along with Kuepper’s back catalogue of solo records, starting with Electrical Storm and Honey Steel’s Gold. Through September he’ll embark on The Exploding Universe of Ed Kuepper Australia-wide tour to support the releases. There’s new music in the works too. Lots to celebrate!

Kuepper’s love affair with music began at a young age when his parents bought him his first guitar, adding fuel to his passion for music that still burns bright. It became a gateway to both escape and engage with the world. He tells us of how he wrote ‘(I’m) Stranded’ on that guitar. Kuepper also gives insight into his creative process, how it has evolved and his need for experimentation. Throughout the conversation, we gain insight into the enigmatic Kuepper as he earnestly shares glimpses of his personal journey, including facing moments of depression, loss, and wanting to quit music.

This is the best chat with Ed you’ll find out there.

What’s life been like lately for you, Ed?

ED KUEPPER: Very good. There’s lots of things happening. The reissue programme is in full swing. We’re looking at starting rehearsals for the tour coming up. There are some new recordings coming out. I did one with Jim White, which will probably not come out till early next year.

It’s so wonderful to hear that you’re in a really good place right now.

EK: Yes, indeed. It’s all going well. Not that you take this stuff for granted, of course, and I don’t want to jinx it.

You’ve played the guitar for most of your life; what’s your favourite thing about playing it?

EK: Oh, gee. I like it very much. Most of the time I like it really much and if I don’t, I don’t do it. It’s an expressive tool. Especially when you get a little bit tripped up with words and it can communicate. That’s a nice thing to be able to do because I’m sometimes at a loss for words. Though you wouldn’t always know that. Especially when I was younger, I found it a way to both get out into the world and also escape from the world when necessary.

The guitar was the instrument that I fell in love with when I was about nine years old. It could be any instrument, really. It could be, for instance, like people write poetry or whatever. It fulfils a large part of that function for me.

I understand that your parents bought your first guitar for you when you were nine? A Hofner Club 40.

EK: Yeah, that’s absolutely correct. And I still have it. I’d even get it out, except it’s under some stuff at the moment.

That was the guitar that you wrote ‘(I’m) Stranded’ on in your bedroom at your parents’ place, right?

EK: Yeah. I wrote on that up until about 1974, and then I bought myself a guitar that kind of took over that. Up until then a lot of things were written on my little three quarter size Hofner guitar [laughs].

You’ve been writing for a long time, even before The Saints, when you were a kid you used to write songs; what were those about?

EK: Well, I don’t remember this one particularly well, but when dad was still alive and mum still had her faculties about, they said that I wrote a song about a green steam engine that turned into a rocket ship. That was written in my sandbox [laughs]. That was my earliest song, after that, the subject matters became a little less interesting, less free form for a little while, when I thought I had to write proper songs.

I think I’ll go back to my first lot of ideas. All my songs are going to about steam engines that turn into rocket ships soon. I might do an album. A concept album [laughs].

[Laughter]. I would listen to that! I especially love things to do with space. I’m always fascinated by that kind of stuff.

EK: Yeah, well, it’s pretty intriguing, not just for children, but everybody.

There’s another guitar that you have that’s really special to you, your dad’s guitar.

EK: Yeah, a classical guitar. He bought that for himself at the same time or maybe slightly before he bought the one for me. When I visited my parents, I mean, even when I was still living at home with them, I would often use their guitar because setting up an electric is kind of more work and there’s something quite nice about playing acoustic. This was a nylon-stringed acoustic guitar and it felt quite different from the electrics. It inspired slightly different things. I wrote the music for ‘This Perfect Day’ The Saints’ second single on that guitar… well, third single, but it was the second one that we actually wanted out.

The Aints’ album, The Church of Simultaneous Existence, would have been written on all of those guitars at various times. That’s what I had access to. I have a strong sentimental and emotional attachment to these objects, even though that’s all they are, just objects.

After your father’s passing, you wrote a song on it that was dedicated to him.

EK: Yeah, which we performed with my band, Asteroid Ekosystem, and recorded. That’ll be coming out sometime this year. I hope Alister Spence, who’s kind of the band leader, I guess, is looking after that, so I’m not getting too involved. I’ll let him do his thing.

What is the song called?

EK: It’s called ‘For Herman’.

Beautiful. Was it a hard to write?

EK: Not really. I didn’t want to do a straightforward kind of ode sort of thing. It touches on a whole range of things that I recall about my dad in a way that isn’t very obvious. It’s hard to talk about it at this point.

When Asteroid Ekosystem performed it, everybody that had heard it and had heard that we were going to be doing it, came up and said, wow, that was great, but totally not what I expected. It’s successful in that regard.

You always seem to do that with your music, do the unexpected. You’ve released a lot of albums and every album isn’t quite the same as the last and you’re always evolving and doing something different.

EK: Well, thanks. Yeah, I do try not to repeat myself. Even though going through all the back catalogue at the moment and remastering to reissue this stuff, I sort of think I thought I was making a five kilometre jump in the air there from the previous record, but it really wasn’t. It was just a couple of steps around the corner.

I have quite a respect for people that can repeat themselves all the time. It doesn’t hold my interest all that much, but the fact that they’re able to do it and that they hold their audience in that process. Somebody like the Ramones. The first four albums or so are much of a muchness, but good stuff. There’s no musical or lyrical development but they explore it in such a thorough way that they’re not leaving any glimmer, any little crumb of an idea left unexploited. Whereas I guess I’ve always thought I’ve done something different.

One way or the other isn’t a better way. It just depends on what you feel like doing yourself. I don’t think there’s any right way or wrong way. I’m saying all of this because I’ve read interviews with myself where I’ve said that kind of thing and I thought, you know, it sort of sound like you’re saying that this is the only way to work. It’s the way that I work. It’s not anything that I recommend. I like doing it because there’s a big, wide world out there and an awful lot of things that you can be doing. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach [laughs]. That’s paraphrasing some old saying that my parents used to say.

[Laughter]. You mentioned the reissues that are coming out, one of the first is a 7 inch of ‘(I’m) Stranded’ getting a rerelease 47 years after it initially came out. Was the original box of records delivered to your house in the 1970s? Were you the first member of The Saints to open the box and hold it in your hands?

EK: They were sent to Astor Records in Brisbane City. I picked them up from there. I’d worked there a couple of years earlier, and knew that they did pressings. The other thing that was important was that they were quite possibly the best vinyl pressings in Australia at the time. Anything that has the old black and gold Astor label on it from the early 70s, those records, even if they look a bit beat up, they’re really well done and they sound still really good, for the most part. It felt like quality. Even though Astor was a really cheap and petty and miserable little place in a lot of ways [laughs]. The record was manufactured at the Astor Pressing plant in Melbourne.

How did you feel when you picked it up? After loving music and buying records for ages; how did it feel to finally have your own?

EK: Well, it was great doing it, but it was even better when I got home and put it on. My girlfriend had driven me to get it, I didn’t have a car. We put them in the back of her Renault. When we got back to the unit I put it on. And, without doubt, it was the best thing that I’d ever heard in my life—it was a very thrilling event.

We didn’t have a phone. No one in the band had a phone. We must have just driven around to everybody’s place. I don’t remember how we even got to give them their copies. Maybe they came around and got them? Everyone had the same response though. There was no ambiguity, no cynicism just—this is fucking fantastic.

I had a similar reaction when I first put it on and heard it as a teen two decades after it was released. I thought it was so cool that this came from my hometown! It’s a powerful song.

EK: Fantastic. It’s lasted longer than I thought it would have. And I stress to emphasise I wasn’t humble about it. I thought, this is a really great record!

But the thing that was sort of happening in the environment in which I grew up in, which everyone in the band did, all the bands that we really liked, who were really fantastic, nobody knew about them. And so there wasn’t any expectation on our part, that we would suddenly become the new Beatles or something.

It was before the punk thing kind of drew attention back to groups like The Stooges or The Velvet Underground, the MC5, the New York Dolls, those 70s or late 60s rock and roll bands that we really liked. No one knew them at that time. Everyone knows now. You probably see an interview with Iggy on the 7:30 Report or on Good Morning Australia now, but back in those days, it was a different scenario.

We had no expectation of what we were doing, operating out of a small place in Brisbane; banned from every venue in town, and any agent would refuse to work with us. There was no reason for us to think that we’ve made a great record other than to think we’ve made a great record, and hopefully it’ll get through to a few people.That sums it up. Everything was just taken a step at a time.

Our first review that I read, was an Australian review in Juke magazine, which was a Melbourne paper in those days. It was a real slag off. Everyone laughed about it. We held the reviewer in even more contempt than we did before he’d reviewed the record, but it didn’t make us think, oh, well, we’re still going to become the biggest band in the world.

When the reviews started coming in from the UK, we were really over the moon, they were really positive. Within a matter of weeks, it was October, we had top reviews in Sounds magazine three times out of four, finishing with Single of the Year! That made us think, wow, this is good!

Then telegrams started coming to my parents’ place because that was the address that I’d put on for correspondence. I asked for people to send cash and we’d send them a record. That took a few weeks, as you would imagine, because it would take time for the mail to get over there, then to get back here. Much slower process than it is now.

But, yeah, hearing the record for the first time was a great moment. It’s hard to ever top, regardless of what you do after that. That first moment is still special.

What kind of guitar player would you say you were back then?

EK: Not all that different to the type of guitar player that I am today. I can do more because I’ve been playing longer, because I’ve been experiencing more things. I’ve learned some things. There are some things that I don’t think that I do as well anymore, that are definitely something that you have to be fairly young and fairly focused to do.

There’s not much live footage of The Saints, but there is some from Paddington Town Hall. I look at that and I think, well, I might be a bit more sophisticated than that now, but there’s still something about what I’m doing there that I totally stand by. As a guitarist, I’ve always never really felt myself to be part of the bigger world of guitarists. I don’t immediately start talking to people about pickups and strings. I feel that I’ve maintained my own course, without too much interference from what other people are doing.

I’ve never considered myself a particularly proficient guitarist. Being able to play anything, hasn’t really interested me. When I was in high school, I had at least one friend who certainly considered himself vastly superior guitarist to me. I couldn’t, but he was definitely able to, do Deep Purple covers in a much more competent way than I was able to. Not that I tried very hard.

But could he write his own unique songs? I know so many technically brilliant guitarists that can play other people’s stuff, but they can’t write their own song.

EK:I guess I had a sense of that in the first place. I don’t think I ever really saw myself playing the guitar to become a guitarist. It was more to do everything to the band. The guitar was a tool. It was It was the one instrument, outside of a keyboard, that could come close to representing everything that I was hearing on the radio or on a record.

The way that I developed my playing, which is maybe a bit busy, was just a way of becoming the orchestra in a lot of ways. That was the intention. It was that slightly naive way of looking at a record, that informed the way that I actually ended up playing guitar.

A normal way of looking at a recording would be to process what you’re hearing and to separate everything. I did the opposite, and it all became one thing, which then became the guitar.

I know that the first albums you bought were: Paranoid by Black Sabbath, Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! by The Rolling Stones and Live At Leeds by The Who. I noticed that two of them were live records. I was wondering if that raw live sound helped inform what you do early on?

EK: The Who’s Live at Leeds, certainly, I think that is a phenomenal live record. The funny thing with that was I got that when I was about 14, and because I only had a mono record player, the way that that album is actually mixed is that you have the bass on one side and the guitar on the other side, but in mono, they all come together. So it was often hard to tell when John Entwistle was doing some of his lead like, chunky things. It sounded like the guitar and the bass became one thing. So that is an accurate observation. Not so much that it was live. It was just the way that I heard it at first.

Paranoid, well [Tony] Iommi for me was one of the greats and still is in that era. Those first six Black Sabbath records, I could have used them as an example instead of the Ramones before. They basically had one idea, they saw it through six albums, and I like them all. That sort of minimalist approach can be really strong.

Yeah, I guess it’s true to say that anything that I really liked had some sort of an influence. It may not be obvious, it may not even be audible, but something somewhere along the line. But it’s also important to say that at a certain point, and I think I got there fairly young, that you have to hit upon your own thing, and that became it.

Developing your own approach on an instrument or when you’re writing, you have to be a little conscious of it. I helps to steer yourself in that way initially, but after that it actually comes really naturally these days. I don’t think I could come close to impressing anybody as anyone else other than myself. I don’t do impersonations very well [laughs].

[Laughter]. How do you go about writing your songs?

EK: I try not to sort of have a set formula, but it helps if I sit down with an instrument. Usually guitar, because they’re easy to have laying around the place, but sometimes I might have a toy piano. Or something, which can kind of spark an idea. I find that if I set time aside (I wish I did it more often if), I say, well, I’m going to get up earlier and I’m going to write songs between 7AM and midday. Usually I’ll have something at the end of that. It may not be all that great, but I’ll have something. Whereas if I don’t do that, it doesn’t happen.

Do you have any regular daily routines?

EK: Yeah, from time to time, so they’re not really that regular [laughs]. I aspire to that kind of approach and sometimes I do manage it and other times it’s quite easy to get distracted.

I know as a musician and songwriter you’re constantly learning and that you like to find and try new things that keep your interest when making music; what have you discovered lately?

EK: When COVID was on, I thought I was making great leaps forward in terms of what I was doing on guitar, trying to work out a different harmonic response to things. I thought, well, this is getting really interesting. Then for some reason, well, it happened in the lead up to my father dying and then doing some shows, touring and stuff, I got out of that habit. I’ll know the next time I look into that aspect of it, whether those months of hard work and of thinking about it and doing little bits have had any lasting impact.

My condolences for your father’s passing. I’ve lost both my parents. It’s a pretty big thing to happen.

EK: It is a big thing. But dad was 93. It wasn’t unexpected. It happened very suddenly, which is probably a good thing. It does something to you in terms of the way you have to sort of reappraise your entire life and all the difficulties that you may have had with your parents and you, everything that they went through. It does cause you quite a bit of time for reflection. But as I say, he lived a long life and it was really only a matter of time. I think once you get into your 90s, you must be counting your blessings.

Yeah. Did his passing make you think about your own mortality?

EK: Oh yeah.

Is that why you’re full steam ahead into all the things you’re doing?

EK: Well, yeah, I guess there is a feeling that there is limited time but also there were many years, going over a decade, where a lot of my things had just fallen totally out of sight. It took us a long time to get everything together to be able to do the reissues. It wasn’t as if I had all the tapes. I didn’t. They were all over the place and there were all manner of things (that I won’t go into) on this that had to be addressed. It was a long term project.

The fact that Remote Control, who are manufacturing and distributing them, were really keen; we needed somebody like that. I didn’t think that I could go through the process of having all these records done and then be also sitting there every afternoon, mailing out LPs to people that had bought them in the way that I did with the ‘(I’m) Stranded’ single. I feel a little too old to be doing that [laughs].

Is writing lyrics something that comes easy for you?

EK: It depends on the song. It depends on the state of mind that I’m in. A lot of my lyric writing takes the form of writing a few paragraphs of prose, if I feel like making some sort of an observation. Just jotting down ideas, and then I’ll refer to those notes when it comes to actually writing lyrics. Sometimes there’ll be lines that I really like or themes that I really like and then I apply those because to me, the music comes first usually in terms of what I hold in importance.

Lyrics are really important, but they don’t necessarily steer the song for me, in the way that they do with a lot of people. I tend to be more of a, well, this is the song, this is the melody that I want to sing. That’s got too many words, so I’ll chop those; I use the William Burrows technique. Anything that makes the process something that I think is exciting, that keeps the momentum going.

I was a very poor student in high school because I would never do my home work, I would never do any assignments just because I was bored with it. I couldn’t focus. It’s kind of like that. So the lyrics sort of tend to get a little bit moulded into where I think they need to fit and that. It works for me, not for everybody.

I noticed you seem to write about love a fair bit.

EK: I guess so, yeah. Got to have those chances for pop radio [laughs].

Does your wife inspire you?

EK: Yeah, she does.

She does a lot of your album art, right?

EK: I met her when Laughing Clowns started and she started doing art. She did all the really good covers for Laughing Clowns’ records. The other ones weren’t quite as good. I did one which is a very controversial cover. I think it’s great. Other people think it’s the worst thing they’ve ever seen [laughs]. But when Jude took over doing the covers, that degree of controversy wasn’t there. Everyone agreed, oh, that’s a beautiful. So she’s been working with me quite a lot.

She’s done the bulk of album covers for my solo projects. She’s done the covers for the Aints and she’s done a few other bits and pieces that I’ve been involved in, as well as a few covers for other people. That’s been a very long, ongoing relationship, which has brought out some really good results.

Do you ever run your songs by her to get her input?

EK: Not so much. We collaborated on an album called Jean Lee and the Yellow Dog, where she wrote most of the lyrics. That was interesting because I hadn’t worked with many lyricists.

I’d worked with Chris Bailey, of course, in The Saints. But working with Jude was a different sort of interaction due to the writing of the lyrics in a more sort of traditional lyricist kind of way, which in some ways, sort of clashed a little bit with the way that I worked.

With Chris, it was a really straightforward kind of scenario. The way that we would normally work would be that I’d write a verse and a chorus and then give it to him to write more. The more amusing lyrics that he took into it for the verses, that was great.

With Jude, I approached her lyrics as if they were something that I’d written. I would alter them to make it fit in what I thought the song should be. I actually made quite a lot of compromises on that and I didn’t always do that. Sometimes I think that was absolutely the right decision. Other times I think the song doesn’t work quite as well as it could have, but it’s no big deal.

Are many of the lyrics that you write very personal?

EK: Everything that I write is personal. Whether that is personal in a way that’s going to be revealing to people or something, I don’t know. I try these days not to do too much heartfelt stuff with my lyrics. I prefer to be a little bit objective and sort of observational, I suppose.

Your album, Electrical Storm, which was your first solo album that was reissued, I really love the song ‘Master of Two Servants’. There’s a line in it that says: Hate was just behind me / Love directly in front of me. What’s that about?

EK: Those songs were written in a burst, most of them, after Laughing Clowns split up. I was definitely channelling a lot of things. But I think ‘Master of Two Servants’, I would call that an observational song, a song that has some sort of a moral in there, but it’s largely a watch-what-you-wish-for-thing.

I know that there’s been a few points where you’ve wanted to quit music. One was when you came back from London after being over there with The Saints. Another was at the end of Laughing Clowns. What made you want to give up? And, what was it that brought you back to music?

EK: The music industry made me want to stop. I really hate the music industry, and I still do. Apart from the people at Remote Control and my agent [laughs].

I get it. I hate the music industry, too. That’s why we make our own publication, and do things our own way. Music is more than a product.

EK: I get depressed, get sort of overwhelmed. The Saints had been together five years. We worked hard in the early days. Then we quickly tried to process what was happening in those last couple of years once the records started coming out and dealing with all that without having any idea, any business sense, and not having any really good advice. At the end of that, it was sort like, I don’t know. It was a combination of relief that it was sort of over and also a sadness. I thought, well, isn’t it fucking great? We’ve done three LPs in the last 18 months and I really like them all— that was enough for me in a way.

When I’ve talked about quitting music, they seem like significant moments to me at the time, but in reality they probably last two or three weeks. I’m definitely in a state for a while where I think I’m just not going to bother with this. I’ll do something that I’m less sort of emotionally or personally invested in. I’ll just get a job where I get a paycheck and I don’t actually care about when I knock off. Whereas doing this you don’t really ever knock off. Which is great too. I’m not complaining about that. It’s a good thing too that you also have that ability to kind of just shut off from.

Did you have other jobs other than being a musician?

EK: I worked as a storeman at Astor Records. I was making my way up the ranks very quickly. I was the only one in the Brisbane office that knew anything about music, and they offered me the chief salesman’s rep position in North Queensland, which would have been very humorous if I had got that. One of the jobs that I had was to send out what they called rack orders, a shop would say, send me $250 worth of records (this is back in the days when $250 could buy you quite a lot of records) and I got to pick what they were. A few weeks later they’d all come back saying, we don’t want this, we want this other stuff, which I thought was rubbish. I don’t think I would have made a very good salesman because Astor didn’t have that much that I liked. They had John Lee Hooker, which is fantastic. Lightnin’ Hopkins, Nina Simone, The Kinks and Status Quo; I liked all of that. And that would have been the only artists that I probably would have been promoting as a salesman [laughs]. My commissions probably wouldn’t have kept me going for long.

[Laughter]. Another thing that I’ve noticed about your music is there’s humour in it. guess people often see you as a very serious artist. But then I think here’s also a lot of play.

EK: Yeah. Okay. I have a very serious, earnest way of singing sometimes, which I’ve noticed going back through all my stuff for reissues. I think, Gee, talk about deadpan delivery [laughs]. I guess that’s just the way that I am. I don’t go out of my way to write something funny unless I’m doing my stand up routine [laughs].

[Laughter]. Another album that’s been reissued is Honey Steel’s Gold, your fifth solo album. When you think of it, what kind of comes to mind?

EK: They’re all important records. Honey Steel’s Gold was noteworthy because it was the first of my solo albums to get into the Top 40. That was a surprise. It was the first record that I had that received national airplay. It coincided with Triple J going national, so we’re lucky on that. It meant that people around the country got to hear the record at the same time and it meant people bought it at the same time, which actually got it charted, which was quite a thing.

I don’t care that much about charts, but it was still nice. It lifted things up. To put it in the speak of the managers, shows went from being in front of 200 people a night to 1000.

You’ve put out so many albums. There’s like five or so years, I think, where you didn’t put anything out since you started. There was a period where you were churning out two or three records a year. What was kind of driving you to do so much?

EK: The fact that I could, the fact that people were releasing it. It was an interesting sort of thing to do.

When I was a kid, when I first got into music, it was commonplace for groups to be churning out singles. The Beatles did two albums in a year. And all those 60s pop bands were doing that. That changed in the 70s, but I still had that impression of that was a reasonable pace to aim for. So I did it while I could. After a while, that sort of dried up, and a number of other things happened. Life changes. I pulled back from that quite a lot.

I was probably doing more in a year for a couple of years in the 90s than I do in a decade these days. But anyway, that’s the way it is.

What do you feel was your most experimental album so far?

EK: I don’t go into the process thinking, I’m going to make this experimental. Whenever I’m in the studio, if the recording budget allows, I muck around with things, try things out which aren’t planned. It’s not like everything is worked out beforehand. I use the same amount of openness to experiment on anything that I do and always have done.

You mentioned before that there’s been times in your life where you felt really depressed. What helped you get through those times?

EK: A lot of wrong turns initially. I will give one piece of advice, and that is alcohol is not a good aid to dealing with depression, that’s for sure. Even though you think it is, but it isn’t. I can’t really talk about it. It’s one of those things that you either are lucky enough to deal with or you’re not, which a lot of people aren’t. But the jury is still out whether my way of dealing with things has been totally successful. I suppose I’m still around at the moment [laughs].

I’m glad. Have you ever tried anything like meditation?

EK: Look, it’s been recommended. I haven’t really. But I can get into a meditative state with listening to music or playing guitar, or sitting in the park, or just sitting in the garden, patting the dog.

That’s all really good stuff. I was sitting in my garden, patting my dog this morning. And listening to music usually always helps me too.

EK: That’s a great thing. I don’t often listen to music in the garden. If the neighbourhood is quiet enough, which it sometimes is, I actually like to hear the sounds of nature. It’s a great thing to do. If you’re lucky enough to have a garden.

Have you ever been inspired by any sounds in nature when you’re writing?

EK: Yeah, sounds of insects and things like that. I hear music in that sometimes. The wind. The sound of our rusty old air vents when they’re being buffeted by the Westerlies, that’s a fairly beautiful and haunting sound.

You’ve written songs about the rain and storms!

EK: Yeah, they’re things that everything sort of changes in the build up to a storm. The ions change your whole way, your body, your moods change. They’re important aspect of what we are, how we live. The heat, the cold; they all have an impact on me.

Yes! And are you still working on your book about your life?

EK: Well. This still is a stretch,,because I haven’t really… you could say yes. I’m still thinking about it, I haven’t done very much yet. To be honest, I’m just not enthused enough about writing about myself at this point, which is why I’m so slow. It feels too much like homework. Like, what did you do on your holidays? [laughs].

There’s a lot of people that would be interested in your story. I hope you finish writing it one day. Stories are how we connect and learn, and feel not so alone, all that good stuff. Just like there’s stories in music.

EK: Where would we be without music? It’s very important. It’s been the saviour of many poor soul.

Find more Ed Kuepper at:

edkuepper.com

facebook.com/EdKueppermusic

@edkuepper

Falling in Love with The Prize’s new release: ‘First Sight’ and ‘Say You’re Mine

1st Aug 20231st Aug 2023 | gimmiezine

Original photo: Jamie Wdziekonski – @sub_lation. Handmade collage by B.

Gimmie love power pop rock ‘n’ roll band, The Prize. We premiered their first EP, ‘Wrong Side Of Town,’ this time last year, and it sold out within the first day. Today, we’re thrilled to premiere their latest single, ‘First Sight,’ from their highly-anticipated second release, set to launch on August 18th through Anti Fade Records and Drunken Sailor.

The Prize has been making waves, gaining attention and acclaim not just locally but worldwide. As we approach August/September, The Prize eagerly awaits their first international tour, joining forces with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and The Murlocs, while also headlining their own dates across Europe and the UK. With their magnetic live shows, fueled by a three-guitar onslaught and dynamic rhythm section, The Prize is undoubtedly a band to know.

Gimmie had the privilege of getting an early glimpse into the upcoming release’s songs. The Prize drummer-vocalist Nadine answered a couple of quick questions about the ‘First Sight/Say You’re Mine’.

What inspired the new single ‘First Sight’?

NADINE: Aussie came up with the main riff and he, Joe and Carey workshopped the parts together. It had been kicking around for almost a year but we only managed to finish it the day we recorded.

I’d recently discovered a Blondie song that I’d never heard before called ‘Scenery’ which I think had some influence on my writing.

It’s a classic theme about being out and meeting someone or even just seeing them from across the room and feeling some sort of connection or attraction but in those moments things don’t always play out the way you hope.

Tell us about writing the B-side ‘Say You’re Mine’.

N: Our bass player Jack wrote the riff for ‘Say You’re Mine’ and Carey came up with the catchy bridge. I wish I could put a more interesting spin on it but it’s just another stupid love song!

Pre-order ‘First Sight’ at Anti Fade Records (AU) and Drunken Sailor (UK).

FYI, Nadine contributed to our print zine Gimmie issue 7, she made selections for our DJ playlist & gave us insight into why she loves each song!

The Sonic Adventures of Owen Penglis

28th Jul 202328th Jul 2023 | gimmiezine

Seasoned musician and skilled producer Owen Penglis is a massive music fan and has carved a remarkable path for himself in the world of sound. Hailing from a musical family (his father played in legendary 60s Australian surf band, The Atlantics) Penglis immersed himself in digging for records at a quaint secondhand shop nestled in the Sydney suburbs, seeking the weird and wonderful.

Penglis went on to be in many bands, starting out as a drummer before moving to guitar. He spent time exploring music at university but wasn’t vibing on it, and in a bold move, bid farewell to the classroom and became a Vespa mechanic. He eventually started one of the coolest Australian garage rock bands, Straight Arrows, in 2007.

Music’s magnetic allure beckoned him to pursue his sonic dreams. Armed with a borrowed 4-track recorder, Penglis took on the role of a musical alchemist, teaching himself the art of recording through his own and friends’ musical endeavours. He started his own studio recording bands Circle Pit, The Frowning Clouds, Bloods, The Living Eyes, Mini Skirt, Display Homes and many more.

In our insightful conversation, Penglis unveils details about a new Straight Arrows album, and recording a new Mini Skirt record. Delving into his memories, he tells us stories of mentoring a teenage Ishka from Tee Vee Repairmann, and collaborating on intriguing ventures like a sitar project with Lawrence from Royal Headache. We talk touring with The Oh Sees and Eddy Current Suppression Ring. And we discover the depths of Penglis’ creativity, including the fun project where he donned a gorilla suit and sang a dance anthem that went out for an ARIA Award.

Gimmie chatted to Penglis in a shipping container converted into a backstage area at Miami Marketta on Yugambeh Country/Gold Coast before they played the Cargo Stage at the night market, opening for The Oh Sees.

You’re on tour right now with The Oh Sees!

OWNEN PENGLIS: Yeah. The highlight so far was probably when we went to Sunshine Coast yesterday, but the show was cancelled because of the venue shutdown. So we went anyway, we had a hotel up there. We went bowling. We got up today and went for a swim. And then we played mini golf.

Nice! Who won?

OP: Al won mini golf. Will won bowling.

The first time you toured with The Oh Sees was with Eddy Current Suppression Ring in 2009.

OP: That was really cool, and funny because the shows weren’t very well attended. Eddy Current didn’t really click with people until maybe, Rush to Relax. I mean people who were into that stuff knew about it, but it gained a wider audience, maybe up to that record, as they were kind of starting to wind down a bit. Us and The Oh Sees played in Wollongong, we played to 30 people. Then we did Newcastle with Eddy Current, too, and there were 80 people in a big room at the Cambridge. But Sydney was really good.

What a lineup! We love all the bands.

OP: It was really cool. We’re very lucky just to randomly get on it because this band called Witch Hats, they pulled out, and I said, we’ll do it. They said, “Ok. Cool!” And then we made friends.

The Oh Sees, at the time were doing all the vocals through a Space Echo, a proper tape machine box one and that shit itself. And so I was like, take mine on the road and bring it back at the end. We became friendly and chatted a lot. And then the next time they came, we played with them again, and then next time after that.

I understand that there was a conversation that you and John Dwyer had about potentially doing an Oh Sees/Straight Arrows split release?

OP: Yeah, we were doing the merch together in Newcastle and they’d just written this cool song called ‘I Was Denied’ that ended up being on album, Warm Slime. I think they had just started playing it. They played that song every night. I thought, this is mad. I was like, you’ve got a record label, do you want to do a 7 inch? And he’s like, “Let’s do a split 7 inch!” I was like, okay, cool. And then I just never really pulled my finger out and followed it up. Stupid mistake.

You should remind John of the convo while on tour now, and finally do it! I’d buy that.

OP: I was like, hey, do you remember we were going to do a Split like, four years ago. He was like, “I don’t really do it anymore.” And I was like, I guess I learned my lesson.

Has there ever been other opportunities that you’ve had that didn’t eventuate?

OP: I got one, but I can’t tell ya. I got asked to tour with a band. It’s not a big regret.

How did you get into music?

OP: I grew up in a musical house. My my old man played in a 60s band called, The Atlantics. An instrumental surf band with a hit song called ‘Bombora’. The Beatles hit, like, six months later and you had to have a vocalist, now certain music is not cool anymore. They got a vocalist who was an older dude who’s a bit of a rockabilly guy from the 50s who tried to do 60s rock and roll, it didn’t go well. They put out singles for years. They didn’t sell. But now some of them are really cool, and they’re really valuable. So I grew up with that. Although he hated that and wouldn’t talk about the band or anything. He just thought it was crap and old.

You initially started playing drums?

OP: Yeah, I started as a drummer, played in a few bands when I was a teenager.

What kind of bands?

OP: I played in a band that’s still going called The Holy Soul, when I was 17. I met them when I went to university in Penrith, West Sydney.

What were you studying at uni?

OP: I was doing music. I hated it so much, I quit and became a mechanic.

Why a mechanic?

OP: I got offered a job as an apprentice at a shop that fixed old Vespas and Libras. The guy there said, “Come work for me and stop delivering pizzas.”

During that time you were still making music, though?

OP: Yeah, I was still making music, but when I was doing uni stuff… rather than a strict this-is-how-you-plug-in-a-microphone-thing, and this is how you get a drum sound, it was on the creative side, which is cool. But it was early digital equipment. I thought it all sounded crappy. I hated it. I hated the academic side of it and the people that it attracted.

For you, is music more of a feeling kind of thing then?

OP: I’d say so. Yeah. I’d much rather pick up a guitar then write it down. I couldn’t write it down [laughs]. Not very well.

So I became a mechanic and then I borrowed a 4-track cassette deck off someone, and started again from scratch.

Teaching yourself?

OP: Yes, teaching myself. I was a drummer and I thought no-one wants to see a drummer write songs [laughs], or sit behind a kit and sing.

I do. I love watching drummers sing. Ben from C.O.F.F.I.N, Nadine from The Prize, Buz from R.M.F.C.

OP: [Laughs] Maybe I should have stuck with that.

Does being a drummer help you write songs?

OP: Yeah, probably. I’m sure it does. Just thinking about a song rhythmically is something I do first and then it goes from there.

Do your lyrics come after the music?

OP: It depends. Me and Al in the band always talk about it and are like, if you’re writing a song and your lyrics kind of come with the melody it’s really nice, but if you write cool sounding music and then write the lyrics after, it can be really difficult. It’s like trying to fill out a crossword with no questions on it.

You have a new album that you’re going to put out?

OP:Yeah.

We’ve heard six songs. They’re really awesome. Is there going to be more?

OP: Thanks. There’s heaps more. They’re the only ones I wasn’t embarrassed about [laughs].

How long of a period were you writing over for the new record?

OP: During COVID so it all melts together. In Sydney it was all locked down. There was a while where we couldn’t go more than 5kms from your house. When they finally let you do that, I could go to my studio and I’d go in two or three days, sit down and write some music. If today is good, it’s good, and if it’s shit I had to do better. At the moment, there’s no work for me. I can’t mix anyone’s record because no one’s recording because no-one knew what was happening.

Your studio is called Goliath?

OP: Yeah. So I actually had to move studios, at the start of January. I got a new one which is close to my house but haven’t got a name for it yet. It’s a five minute walk or I just get on my pushy and ride over.

Do you know what the new album will be called?

OP: I have no idea.

When do you think it’ll come out?

OP: I was supposed to finish it off in December but I moved studios, which pushed everything back. I’m hoping towards end of the year, maybe September/October. It kind of depends on the record plants because everything takes so long now. Major labels have discovered that they’ve got a physical piece that they can sell again. And it’s like maybe 60 bucks retail for them now, for a single record. People seem to think that’s normal. You get big artists, like Adele clogging up the plants.

Yep. And Taylor Swift. All the Record Store Day things too. Reissues of everything.

OP: It’s all bullshit, likeTop Gun 2 soundtrack. Whatever. [Laughs] I need that on vinyl! It’s funny because they’re almost, like, keepsakes rather than playable things to a lot of people buying.

I remember reading that when you were younger you used to find bands, new music and you used to love getting records, looking at record covers and then choosing them that way.

OP: Totally. I was really lucky when I was a teenager, there was a secondary record store. I grew up in an outer suburb of Sydney called Asquith, which is like 45-50 minutes on the train from the city. The next suburb was Hornsby and there was one secondhand record shop and it was great and really cheap. They had a listening station. I’d go in all the time. They didn’t care if I just took a pile of records and sat there and listened to them all and maybe didn’t buy anything. It was that it was a great education. And then I had to figure out what I liked. All the dudes running it was, “There’s a $2 copy of this Pretty Things record. Think you might like it, listen to it, it’s cool.” I just dig through and find weird records with strange covers and be like, who is this? Sam The Sham. Cool. Chuck that on. Digging through boxes and seeing cool names.

I do that. I also look for fun song titles. I especially like songs that mention dogs or space.

OP: [Laughs]. Space is always good.

[Shows the screen of his phone] This could maybe be the new album cover. A friend took this amazing photo of a building in Bundaberg. He still lives up there. His name is Brad and he used to play the band Chinese Burns. Think he works for for the ABC taking photos.

Is recording other artists your full time job or do you do that on the side of something else?

OP: It’s my full time job, weirdly. I can finally feel confident saying that’s my full time job.

You were just recording Mini Skirt?

OP: Yes, I was just up in Byron recording Mini Skirt, which was cool. They got a really nice studio up in the hills, in Coorabell. It used to be a studio in the 70s and maybe like Cold Chisel and that school of bands would use it. It went to disrepair and a very rich lady bought the land it’s on and restored the studio to how it was back then, including finding all the old equipment. Mini Skirt flew me up to work on the record.

Have you been working on anything else as well?

OP: I’ve been doing a lot of mastering, which is nice to do. I mastered the Wiggles covers album, which is pretty funny [laughs]. That made my mum understand and respect what I do. I’ve been mastering all sorts of weird stuff, cool local bands and also country artists .All sorts of stuff comes through.

Do you find that when you’re working on something and you might not totally be into it or what the artist is doing, do you find something in there that makes it okay and you can get through it?

OP: Oh, yeah. Mastering I try to be kind of totally objective. It’s a technical thing. There’s joy in any of it. I’m fairly uncontactable, I don’t advertise or try and actively get something, I’m lucky enough tI don’t have to actively try and push to get work from bands. People come to me, and I’m able to leave it like that. If people have made the effort to find me, then they probably know what I’m doing. And we’re probably going to understand each other. I’ve had a couple of weird ones [laughs].

I get that. I was speaking with Ishka from Tee Vee Repairmann recently, and he was saying he likes likes recording, but he doesn’t want to advertise either.

OP: Ishka was my intern.

I know. He told me you were the one who got him into Back to the Grave and all these cool compilations.

OP: That’s cool. When he was in high school, year 11 or 12 he came and worked with me for his work experience, I was recording that band The Grates. They came in for a couple of weeks, so come in and hang out. He’d come in and everybody loved him. He was a quiet, tall kid that wanted to learn lots. Ishka is such a lovely guy. We played New Year’s eve the one before last and Al was away and I caught up with Ishka and asked if he’d like to play guitar for a show. He said, “Yeah, cool, ok.” He came to one practise and learnt everything really fast. He was so good at it I had to ask him, can you play it a bit bit shittier [laughs]. I told him he had to make it bad.

We love Ishka, he’s the best, one of the nicest people we know. With, like, the new album did you have an idea of what you wanted it to sound like?

OP: I’m so caught up in listening to shit all the time that I’ll hear record be like, yeah, I love that I should record something like that, and then the week it’s something else. Each song is probably like a weird snapshot of what I was loving that day or week.

Is there a song on the album that’s significant for you?

OP: There’s some darker stuff in there, but I don’t want to talk about it.

Not a problem. I guess that’s why we write songs sometimes. We can communicate things that are sometimes hard to talk about and it can also help us process what we’re going through.

OP: Oh, totally. I mean, that’s what it’s all about, right? Getting up and yelling on stage.

Yeah, it’s a release. It can also just be total fun and bring immense joy.

OP: It’s so great to do this stuff. I’m so thankful that I get to travel with some ofmy best friends and see some great friends from overseas.

Are you working on anything else musically besides Straight Arrows?

OP: Not really at the moment. I went through a weird patch in, maybe, 2015 or something. I did a bunch of weird records. I did a sitar record. I lived with a guy Lawrence who played that band Royal Headache. We hanging out and I found a sitar on the side of the road that had a hole in it. I fixed it. We were just hanging out and with it, Royal Headache’s High had just come out, and I was listening to these great double 60s records. There was like a band playing a track but with sitar as the vocals. I was like, let’s do that with Royal Headache. We started this dumb band called The Royal Sitars. We put out a 7 inch and played few shows. Then Royal Headache got quite busy. He was off doing festival, running around, and that was the end of that. But there’s a Sitar record out with me and him [laughs].

There’s another one I did around the same time which is called. The Green Bananas, which was like me dressed as a gorilla singing a song about a dance song called ‘Do Ape’.

Amazing!

OP: [Laughs] And that ended up getting picked up by the ABC and it was a 7 inch. The guy from the ABC called up, he said, “Don’t be offended, but would you consider making a kids release?”

You did it, right?

OP: Yeah. I ended up doing an EP. The main reason we did the EP was, “Okay, so the ARIA Awards are coming up and we get to submit like three albums or mini-albums to the nominations in the children’s section. And we have some space. So if you can write and record this in two weeks, we can try and nominate it for an ARIA Award.” I sat down and did it, and then I think the Wiggles put out two albums and I got left behind [laughs].

And now you’re working with The Wiggles! A full circle moment.

OP: [Laughs].

What kind of things are you enjoying music-wise lately?

OP:I spend so much time digging through the past. My other job is DJing, I do that heaps. Touring doing that is much easy than touring a band. I really like The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, their records are amazing. Their story is really strange. A rich older guy was an orphan who was adopted by an oil baron, he decided that he wanted to start a popular rock group and recruited these 18 year olds to start a band with him. He paid for everything. The recordings, the light show. He got them on Reprise, Frank Sinatra’s label. He had them touring around America and kind of slowly started to appear more on stage, playing tambourine and singing. I love the records.

Is there anything musically you haven’t done yet that you’d like to?

OP: I just sit down and play and see what comes out. I guess Straight Arrows is within some sort of confines but I can kind of put out almost anything that’s guitar-related in that band. The new single ‘Fast Product’ we just did, I feel like it’s a weirder one for us. It’s almost like egg punk.

Was there anything you were listening to then when you made it to influence that sound?

OP: The newer wave of egg stuff, I suppose. Like Coneheads. Uranium Club. Even R.M.F.C., those guys are awesome!

Find Straight Arrows here:

straightarrows.bandcamp.com/music

instagram.com/straightarrows/

facebook.com/straightarrows

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