Original photo: Jhonny Russell / handmade collage by B
Following the release of their debut LP Judgement Day in November 2023, Melbourne/Naarm five-piece The Judges have kept the momentum rolling with their Guns 7”—a two-track release that captures the band’s sharp rock‘n’roll. Gimmie caught up with frontman Sam Hill to talk about skate vids, cooking, the crazy world we live in, and of new music on the horizon.
Who or what made you fall in love with music?
SAM: Skate video soundtracks, I guess. That’s where I first heard The Stooges and Bowie and the Velvets and all that. And then “punk rock” – probably largely because of the fashion and the incredibly naive attitude, which is quite appealing when you’re young. But even before that I would tape songs off the radio and stuff, so I guess there was always music around!
Photo: Jhonny Russell
Are you working on new songs or ideas that you’re excited about?
SAM: Yeah! Always working on stuff to some degree. Tinkering. With The Judges, with other groups, solo. The second Judges LP has been recorded for a minute now, we just gotta tweak it and polish it up and everything.
Photo: Jhonny Russell
What’s something you care about deeply that might not necessarily show up in your songs?
SAM: Food. I don’t think any of the songs are about food? I like cooking and you gotta eat. Good meals are important. Especially eating them with friends. Celebrate all occasions. Oh and we gotta save our oceans.
Photo: Jhonny Russell
Which song do you like playing live the most and why?
SAM: I like playing them all. They usually all sound great, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I forget the words and mumble. But it’s not really even about the music. It’s just fun to make noise. It’s a spectacle.
What’s your biggest non-musical obsession right now?
SAM: Aw man, I don’t know. I follow a lot of total psychos on Instagram that are pretty entertaining to keep up with. World War Three is pretty interesting so far. That and the convergence of “artificial intelligence” and religion and all the UFO bullshit. Things are getting weirder every day. Buckle up!
Original photo: Jenna Beasley / handmade collage by B
Whether he’s fronting Institute, drumming in Glue or recording solo as Peace de Résistance, Moses Brown is always chasing the next creative idea. In this conversation the New York-based musician talks to Gimmie about skateboarding, Dada art, the Austin punk scene, writing songs under pressure, the new Institute’s 7-inch release on Anti Fade Records, his solo works, and of another project that’s so new it doesn’t have a name yet.
MOSES BROWN: I just got home from work. It snowed 18 inches two days ago. So it’s been kind of nasty here. I like being outside. Even if you’re in the city, you want to go hang out at the parks and do fun stuff.
Is that your bicycle behind you?
MB: Yeah. I usually ride to work because it’s so much faster, and it’s nice.
What do you do for work?
MB: I work at a gallery, I’m an art handler.
Cool. You do all the art for your band, Institute. Has art always been a big part of your life?
MB: Not really. I’ve never really done visual art, except for bands. I used to do scenic painting and set design stuff in college. Then got into working in galleries through that.
I know your inspired by the Dada movement.
MB: Totally. You go back and look at some of that stuff and it’s obvious when you see the Sex Pistols and early punk culture pulling from it; their attitude on the world. Dada and Fluxus—it’s a very punk attitude. It looks so good too.
For Institute stuff, I would pull from this guy, Kurt Schwitters. Go look at old Kurt Schwitters stuff, it looks like a punk tape, it’s crazy.
We’re big fans of Dada too!
MB: I need to dive back in. Now that I’ve lived here in New York, I’ve been more into Fluxus stuff, which I would argue, is the continuation of Dada.
The anti-authoritarian stance, the challenging of traditional values, the humour and absurdity. And the commentary on what was going on in the world at the time.
MB: Yeah. I’m sure they were kind of going through similar things, right? Fascism.
You’re originally from Texas. What was it like growing up there for you?
MB: All three of us in Institute grew up in Austin. Especially when we were kids, it was much more of a liberal bubble, like a small college town. It kind of insulated us from a lot of the stereotypical Texas. You definitely still had people who were super into football and competitive sports. It definitely had an air of toxic masculine and patriarchy. But Austin was pretty sick, so I can’t complain too much.
What were you into?
MB: Me and Arak [Avakian], and I think everybody in the band, were big into skateboarding. I was probably eight or nine, playing soccer, and then figured out that I could ride a skateboard. I slowly got more skilled at it and would watch all these skate videos.
The Flip Sorry video, was a big one for me. At that time all those guys were rock stars, they were punk. You’d watch and be like, dude, this is I want to do! But I was not good at skateboarding then. But the skateboarding culture that I was exposed to really had a big effect.
One of my favourite skaters was a Flip skater, Geoff Rowley. He co-owned it too.
MB: Yeah. I would like all the music they would skate to. Through skate videos, you would hear The Stooges and Velvet Underground and Sex Pistols and Devo. It was all like a blueprint. This is great.
My dad, he’s a huge music nerd, and I would watch a skate video and be like, Dad, what, what is this? Like, what’s, what is this song? Oh, that’s on the first Stooges record. Okay, can we go get it?
Can you remember one of the first songs you really obsessed over?
MB: As a kid I was obsessed with The Beatles, until I was seven. It was the only thing I listened to. I remember thinking that so many of their songs were about love. I was like, can you write a song that’s not about love? [laughs]. I had a huge poster in my room and would watch the Yellow Submarine movie all the time.
Do you have any brothers or sisters?
MB: I’m an only child. But my dad and my mom were big music heads. So just absorb things from them.
Your dad really loved PiL, right?
MB: Oh yeah. I remember being in fourth grade and bringing a CD player out to my backyard where I had some skate ramps and just blasting Second Edition. I still love it.
But to me now, it’s more adult appreciation of it, and seeing the dub and Can influences in there. Something that I now aspire to do. I’m like, wow, these guys were really doing something.
It’s so funny to think about me being nine and being obsessed with them. Like, what was I getting out of this? [laughs].
I’ve always loved the groove they have, it goes on forever and becomes kind of hypnotic.
MB: Yeah. Obviously with Can, it’s a result of jamming for hours and editing after the fact, which is something that I’ve been trying to do with a new project that I’m working on. It’s been pretty fruitful. You play something for at least 20 to 45 minutes, maybe use three minutes of it.
But you find things after that 20-minute mark that you weren’t expecting to find. I feel like I would grow up and people would be like, “Do you want to jam?” It’s like, no, I don’t want to. I don’t want to just play music to play music. I want to write songs, I want to have something coherent to put forward. And now I’m finding, oh yeah, jamming is extremely productive. You figure out a lot of things.
It’s cool that after being more regimented with song writing you’re now more open to jamming and enjoying it. There’s a lot of different ways to make stuff and it’s good to try new ones, it keeps things interesting.
MB: Yeah, it’s been nice. If I kept trying to write songs the other way, like I have been forever, you start to hit a brick wall and it’s not fun and you’re just going to get angry.
Totally. The new project you’re talking about, is it something other than Peace de Résistance or the Moses Brown stuff?
MB: Yeah, something totally new. My friend has a studio. He’s recording a new Peace… record. But then on top of that, me and a handful of friends have been going in there and jamming. Just pressing record and seeing what happens. Nobody’s in a rush. We know we won’t play a show so it’s like, dude, we can take as much time as we want to.
Does it have a name yet?
MB: No, we haven’t figured that out. We’re slowly getting artwork figured out. We don’t know exactly what we’re going to do. It’s too amorphous to really give a solid answer right now.
Photo: courtesy of Anti Fade
I was reading an interview with Arak and he mentioned that when you guys were young, your dad had a little studio and with sick gear that you could use.
MB: He was a songwriter and made a handful of tapes in the ’90s. The house we lived in originally had a laundry room that he used as his studio. I remember being four or five and him closing the laundry room door while I heard him playing music in there.
Eventually, he wanted to build a kind of shed out the back in our backyard. He set it up as a studio for himself, but then he got too busy and developed carpal tunnel in his hands, so he had to stop playing guitar.
I’m sure that, in the back of his mind, he was thinking, If I leave this here, the kids are going to use it. And we certainly did. So many of those Austin bands wouldn’t have started if it wasn’t for him building that.
Wow. Your dad sounds like he’s pretty cool.
MB: Yeah. If you were in a band with me, you had a place that you could practice and didn’t have to worry about paying or having gear. So it was huge.
It’s nice that you a Arak have known each other since you were 10.
MB: We’ve been friends for probably 21 years now, 22 maybe.
Do you remember your first impression of him?
MB: Totally. We were at a skateboard camp and he was trying really hard. I thought he was super cool. I felt like he was a skater, but I could also tell he was a rocker, and I remember thinking, this guy seems very cool.
I had other friends who skated, but they didn’t take it that seriously. He was in a similar skill range to me and took it as seriously as I did. I remember thinking, I want to get to know this guy.
We met at skate camp and then, about a year later, found out we were going to the same middle school. That’s when we really became friends.
I don’t know many people who have friends with decades long history together. That’s really lovely.
MB: Yeah. I got a couple of them. It’s awesome. Dude, so many people I went to school with, from elementary through high school, also ended up moving here and getting involved in music and the arts. It feels like our little corner of Austin produced a lot of like-minded people who stayed in touch.
Arak said that he’d like to go out late and break into abandon buildings and things like that. But then you’d be more of a good kid and be like, I’m going home to get up early tomorrow. You guys seem a bit opposite.
MB: Yeah. He’s a boundary pusher and I’m a respect-the-line guy. He’s more whimsical and careless and I have so much crippling fear. Like, no, we can’t do that. I’ve been working on it and trying to cut myself more slack and being open to not having so much control. That’s a lot of what’s happening there with the fear.
Previously, you’ve talked about not letting yourself have much fun when you were younger. But I noticed that when we started the conversation, you were bummed out because of all the snow and not being able to go outside to have fun. I thought, that’s nice that you’re open to fun now.
MB: Yeah, I am. When I was younger, I used to impose these imaginary rules on myself. I’d do things in such a structured way that, looking back now, I’m like, what was I doing?
I was about thirteen and would wake up at eight in the morning on a Saturday, ride my bike to the skate park, and skate by myself for as long as I could until someone else showed up. Then I’d go back home. Why did I feel like I needed to do that? I could have been doing what everyone else was doing — smoking weed, sleeping over at friends’ houses — and honestly, that probably would have been sick.
The first band you had was called Lemonade Sten Syndicate, and your influences were The Hives and Dead Kennedys. That’s a pretty fun combo.
MB: Yeah, the band was actually pretty good for a middle school band.
In the old photo you used for the cover of your solo Stone Upon Stone album where you’re working on the house you grew up in, I saw that you’re wearing a Distillers shirt!
MB: That’s what I was all about. Skateboarding and Distillers shirts [laughs]. I was like—this is my shit.
Stone Upon Stone was an interesting record. The idea was sparked from a novel [Wiesław Myśliwski’s novel of the same name] that you read? You wanted to soundtrack it?
MB: That was the initial idea. I was working on these songs, and they were quite repetitive but carried a lot of emotional weight. I started thinking that this style of music is often presented as a soundtrack to something (not always, but frequently) and it felt like a good way to frame the project.
Before the writing was finished, I decided to try making more songs and turn it into a soundtrack for something like a book or a movie. That idea was mostly inspired by talking to Owen from Straw Man Army, since they’d done their own score.
At first, I tried doing it for the book, but it didn’t really work. It was too hard to reread a book with the mindset of scoring it. You end up reading while constantly making notes like, oh, this could be a song… this could be a song, and I realised that’s not how I want to read. It felt frustrating.
So I decided it needed to be something from my own life, something more personal. That’s when I came up with the idea of making it a soundtrack to the construction of the house I grew up in, and that ended up fitting really well.
Do each of the musical projects you do fit a different function for you?
MB: Yeah, totally it’s all different parts of my musical brain.
What about Glue?
MB: I don’t know how to write a Glue song. I know how to write a Glue drum part. Glue is just fun. I’m just me, playing. Drumming is a whole other section that definitely is an identity that is doing something for me. It satisfies the drummer thing.
They often say the drummer is the heartbeat of the band, right?
MB: I think so. Bass and drums hold it down.
The engine that drives things. What about Institute?
MB: Institute is great because I grew up doing so much punk music. Institute is the band where I get to create, sing and write music that probably has the most relevance to my 18-year-old self. I don’t think my 18-year-old self would really care about Peace de Résistance or the more recent Moses Brown records. So it’s cool to do something for that guy.
When you started Institute, you were recording on a 4-track. Were you writing all the songs initially?
MB: Me and Adam [Cahoon] wrote all of the songs on the Demo. I was using a 4-track to demo the songs. But then what’s on the Demo, our friend Hans recorded it on quarter-inch or half-inch tape. I never liked using the 4-track, it was hard to use.
The lyrics that you write move between, social critique and more inward-looking stuff. Is songwriting ever a challenge for you?
MB: Totally. I have to write lyrics for this new Peace… record. It’s taking a long time. It’s a little like pulling teeth. I’m not somebody who naturally writes a bunch of stuff. I’m writing words down on paper because I have to.
Institute was the first time I started a band and thought, this is it. I’m going to sing and write the lyrics. For years I was like, I don’t want to do that. That’s crazy. It sounds hard and scary.
What helped you overcome the scariness?
MB: I was not very excited to record and sing, I just did it.
Your live shows, I’ve seen in online vids, look pretty exciting!
MB: Oh, totally. Institute was a punk, kind of post-punk, anarcho rock band, but we were playing in Austin, which at that time was really dominated by hardcore. There were all these hardcore bands from North Texas coming through, so we ended up playing with a lot of hardcore bands. It was really funny.
All these kids in tall tees and Jordans were coming to the shows, and they were totally into it. When you look back now at some of those line-ups, it’s wild. It’d be Institute with Power Trip, Wiccans, Glue. It’s funny that we were so well accepted by that crowd.
Obviously a lot of us had played in hardcore bands before, so people were like, “Oh, those guys are doing this preachy band now.” But when Giddy Boys started happening, people were kind of like, “Okay… this is interesting.” And honestly, I’m here for it.
Cody and Harris from Glue, are more well-versed in hardcore. I feel like I absorbed some things about it from playing in Glue. But I did not grow up going to hardcore shows. I didn’t know who integrity or SSD or Antidote or anybody was until meeting those guys. I was doing my own thing.
Institute have an Australian only release on Anti Fade for your tour here. What inspired that collection of songs? The songs seems connected in a way.
MB: We were coming over and planning to just bring copies of the last record with us. Christina, who is helping book the shows, and Billy from Anti Fade were like, “It would be sick if you guys had a physical release to coincide with the tour.”
And I was like, okay… you’re kind of asking me to move mountains here [laughs]. Getting even one song out of this band is hard because everyone’s in different places. We can’t practice together and writing music from a distance is difficult. So I was like, I don’t know.
But that weekend I thought, okay, let me try to write a song. I wrote ‘The Shooter’ and texted it to Adam. Me and him are kind of the two guys who bring in the skeletons of songs, so I asked him, “Do you have any skeletons lying around?”
He sent me what became ‘Privilege’, and I was like, dude, this is great. Suddenly we had two songs and I liked them. Then I remembered this other funky jam I’d done in a practice space with Owen [D4MT Labs], and I thought, I’m pretty sure this could be an Institute song too. So we just smashed that in there.
We basically had these skeletons of songs, and then we showed up to record them. Nobody knew any parts. We had to learn them and record them on the same day, and write a bunch of parts as we went.
It was this burst of madness. The guys flew in, we had one day to write and record a 7-inch, and we also had to practice the set we were playing the next day.
Lyrically it was the same thing. Total pressure cooker. I was like, dude, I need to write some lyrics right now. I needed them yesterday.
And honestly, we’re just so consumed with political madness here that I thought, you know what, I’m sorry if everyone’s already bombarded with this stuff every day, but that’s what I’ve got. That’s what I’m thinking about. That’s what’s on my mind.
When you write lyrics, do you hand write them or do you type them on your phone or computer?
MB: I’m doing it in a Word document on my computer. I’ve handwritten other ones.
You mentioned you were working on a new Peace record right now; what themes are you exploring lyrically?
MB: I’m trying to get more okay with things being a bit vague, with them making sense to me but maybe not to other people. I feel like the past couple of records have been all about very clear, concise message delivery. Right now I’m just like, dude, I don’t have it in me.
Peace de Résistance started during the pandemic.
MB: It started because I had this idea to do a band that was a combo of Templars and Chrissy Zebby Tembo. I felt like there was some crossover there that needed to be explored. That was the first idea.
But then people were like, “This kind of sounds like The Velvet Underground.” And I thought, okay, I want to try that now. That’s basically what led to the first LP.
For Peace you usually play all the instruments on the recording…
MB: On the new one that I’m working on that’s not the case but traditionally, yeah.
Is there an instrument that you feel particularly at home with?
MB: Playing bass is pretty comfortable. Guitar is fun, but my hands just… I don’t know. They don’t really know how to do things the right way, and I run into a lot of problems because of that.
With bass, you don’t have to worry about what your hands are doing as much. You’re mostly just using a finger or two.
And then drums were the first instrument I learned how to play, so I feel pretty at home with that. But I need to work on expanding my boundaries with the drums because, at this point, it’s become a pretty mundane instrument for me to play.
I’m like, dude, I don’t even know how long I’ve been doing this for. Maybe I need to make some kind of avant-jazz drum album or something just to get excited about it again.
That’d be cool. I read that Madonna’s ‘Ray Of Light’ was an inspiration.
MB: Oh god, I love that song, yeah.
I love it too. It’s one of my fav Madonna records. Have you heard the original song from where ‘Ray Of Light’ comes from?
MB: No.
Curtiss Maldoon, an English folk duo released the song ‘Sepheryn’ in, maybe, 1971.
MB: Interesting. I’ll check it out.
Why doesn’t Peace do shows?
MB: Being in Institute and Glue is enough for me. That scratches the itch of playing live. And honestly, half the fun of doing Peace songs is that I don’t have to figure out how to play them live.
The madness of trying to translate them into a live band just doesn’t sound like fun. I feel like I’d be pulling my hair out, and who knows if they’d even sound good with a full band.
I imagine it would just be me in a room with five people who’ve dedicated a lot of time to it, trying things out. We’d spend two hours learning a song, and at the end I’d be like, “You know what? Sorry, we’re not going to play this one. It doesn’t sound good.”
It’s just not a record that was written with live performance in mind. I mean, maybe at some point it could be fun to try, but I don’t really need that to happen right now.
What are the things that matter to you creatively?
MB: Doing new things. There’s a song on the new Peace thing I’m working on that sounds exactly like what you’d expect a Peace song to sound like. And I’m like, dude, I should probably cut this one. Why do another song that just sounds like the band already sounds? Let me try something new. Otherwise it’s boring. I’m always trying to push the boundaries.
Is there anything that you haven’t done yet that you would just love to try?
MB: Musically or anything?
Anything, it doesn’t have to be music-related.
MB: Oh my god, so much stuff. I like to play this game where I ask people: if you had to work 40 hours a week, but you could spend those 40 hours doing anything you wanted, what would it be?
People usually say things like gardening, or something quiet like that. But for me, I just want to try new activities. I want to go mountain biking. I want to do oil painting. I want to jump off a skyscraper with a parachute.
Honestly, I think everything is valid.
Photo: courtesy of Anti Fade
Yep. Have you been reading anything interesting lately?
MB: Right now I’m reading Sergio De La Pava. The book’s called A Naked Singularity. It’s good. It’s this kind of weird postmodern novel.
De La Pava was a public defender in New York City, and the book really throws you into that world. Sometimes it’s conversations between characters, but a lot of it reads almost like raw court transcripts. You’re just dropped straight into the madness of being a public defender in New York City.
That sounds fascinating. What’s a book that’s had a real big impact on you?
MB: My partner wanted to read a fiction book because she’d mostly been reading nonfiction. She asked me, “What should I read?”
And I was like, you have to read The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai. When I read that book I just thought, this is it. This is what I want a novel to do.
People in the literary world always call him the master of the apocalypse, and honestly I kind of agree. His books always feel like something terrible is about to happen, and everyone is scrambling to take stock of their lives. They’re interacting with each other in the middle of this vague crisis, and nobody really knows what’s going on.
In that book, a travelling circus brings a giant taxidermied whale into town, and somehow that triggers what feels like the end of the world. It sounds crazy, but it’s incredible.
You’ve totally sold me. I’m gonna go find a copy of it.
MB: You should definitely read it. It’s awesome.
What pushed you towards living in New York?
MB: I’d visited here when I was a teenager and thought it was cool. Then I came back again as more of an adult and started meeting people. I realised, oh, I could actually live here.
From a work perspective it made sense too. In Austin I was working at galleries and museums, but there were maybe three places you could really work. Here there are hundreds.
So I thought, I could move here and actually make a living doing the same kind of work. It suddenly felt feasible.
If I’d been like, “I’m going to move to Portland and figure it out,” I probably wouldn’t have done it, because I’d have no idea what I’d do there. But here it felt like, okay, boom, you’re good to go.
Do you like your work that you do?
MB: I do like it, yeah. A lot of music people I know do it too. It’s actually great for creative people who need something semi-interesting to do that isn’t, coding or something. You’re working with your hands, you have to do a bit of math, and you’re constantly figuring things out.
A lot of the job is like, “Okay, how do we build a box for this sculpture that’s a giant snail?” You’re just solving problems like that all day.
That sounds so fun. Last question. What’s something lately that’s made you genuinely really happy?
MB: We had two snowstorms back-to-back, about three weeks apart. The first one happened while my partner was out of town, so I had to deal with it by myself. I was basically stuck in the house for a day.
But when the second storm came through she was back, and I was like, “Oh my God, you’re going to be my snow buddy.” We were going to play Overcooked!, read books and take baths. I was really excited to have her home to hunker down in the snow with.
Original photo: Jack Cress / handmade collage by B
Brendan Wells, bassist-vocalist for The Uranium Club, is sitting inside his car outside of the library around the corner from his home, using their Wi-Fi to Zoom chat with Gimmie. It’s October 2023, and it’s exciting times! His band is putting out a new record, Infants Under the Bulb, in 2024, and they’re headed Down Under for the first time ever. We’re chatting with Brendan for a punk book we’ve been working on that will be out soon. He kindly spent two and a half hours chatting; we were nerding out so hard on creativity, punk, and all kinds of stuff that we didn’t even realise the time passing. We started when the sky was light and finished when it was dark. They’re the kind of conversations we love. To celebrate the album, tour, and how much we LOVE Uranium Club, we thought we’d share a little of the chat with you guys early.
BRENDAN WELLS: I had a really cool first experience with punk. I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa. Me and my friend were getting into punk and interested in it; we had gone to the Vans Warped tour. But then we found out that they held local punk shows at the city botanical gardens in the conference rooms. You could rent out a room for the evening.
Looking back, I’m so impressed by that because it was all just high schoolers: the people taking money at the door, running the show, running the PA, being in attendance, and playing in the bands. That felt so close to where I was or who I was. I was in 8th grade at the time, so probably 13 years old. And these people were between 15 and 18.
The next week at school, I remember seeing somebody who had played in a band and thinking, ‘Oh my God, there are rock stars that go to my school’ [laughs]. I had never had never felt so close to something like that.
I read a thing from Golnar Nikpour, who was a coordinator at Maximum Rocknroll and who has done bands and zines. It was a conversation about punk. She was talking about being from the suburbs of New York City. She had said, ‘It was two hours away from New York City,’ which to us might have well been a million miles. I never even saw New York City until I was 20-something. When it came to music or punk or anything that I was interested in, it felt a million miles away.
I loved skateboarding. In the skateboarding magazines I would read, everything was coming from San Diego and Los Angeles; California doesn’t look like Iowa. The architecture doesn’t look like Iowa. The weather doesn’t look like Iowa. Finding those local shows was just the first time that it felt like anything close to my reality.
At that local show I went to, the guy that put it on made a CD-R compilation of bands from Iowa. That night I listened to it and it completely blew my mind. It definitely changed my life entirely.
Photo: courtesy of Anti Fade
It’s inspiring when you find your local scene and see people your age or slightly older doing all these cool things. I remember when I found my local scene, all ages shows, and local zines covering our scene. It was life-changing. It makes you feel like maybe you can do it too!
BW: In a sense, yeah. Also, in another sense, looking back, I never realised that we were doing those things. Now, listening to stuff where you can hear an interview with somebody from a punk band, they can talk about, ‘Oh, the first bands that I saw were these bands in high school, and we started our band.’ These are bands that we all know about because they have involvement and a legacy or we know of where they’re from. But me and my friends, playing music in our basements, nobody has ever or will ever hear of those bands.
At the time, I had no thought that we were doing the same thing as other people. It was just what we were doing for fun, like skateboarding, writing graffiti, drawing, or making music. I didn’t feel like there was any connection between that and the rest of the world—that was my mindset at the time.
Now, looking back on it and thinking, ‘Oh, man, of course,’ I grew up to want to be making music and art because that’s what we were doing, even though there was no audience for it, nobody’s watching. We were just like making each other laugh.
Sometimes when there is no expectations or pressure from outside, I often find with a lot of bands, they have some really great records, and then people start caring about them and something happens and their output isn’t as great. Maybe it’s me, maybe my tastes change? Maybe I want something more or fresh. I don’t know. I always wondered why that’s often the case with bands.
BW: Yeah, I’ve wondered that as well. There definitely is a pressure to perform, and even though it goes against sense to say, ‘Okay, people are interested in what we’re doing, so we should…’, you try to figure out what they want and give it to them instead of understanding that they already like what we’re doing. That’s come up in my mind a lot for sure.
A place that’s brought me to, is to think a lot about limitations. A lot of us have the idea of perfection and we want perfection, but what we end up doing or what we end up having is our version of trying to do that.
Or like people get into vintage drum machines, so they can look up and find out what drum machines were used on what songs by Suicide and then if they have enough money, they can look on the internet and buy that exact thing. Then you make a song wth it, and great, your song sounds like Suicide. Buy what if you want to sound like Suicide but all your have is a Casio keyboard or something inexpensive, just what you have available and within your mean? Then you’re going to get something that’s going to be a unique thing based on what you’re lacking, basically; it starts to sound different, though. The things that your limited by is where the voice comes from. That kind of thing has been on my mind a lot lately.
I’m always thinking deeply about stuff and why stuff is the way it is. I always have a million questions.
BW: Absolutely. II feel that same way as well. Recently, I’ve tried to pinpoint that as the idea of curiosity and not losing your curiosity. As I get older, I think because I’ve experienced something like this before, that I know everything or that I’ve got it all figured out, but it’s always good to keep learning. Curiosity always surprises me. I hold on to, and I’m incredibly grateful for, curiosity.
I’m endlessly interested in the process of creation.
BW: I’m interested in the creation, inspirations, and motivations, even more so than the physical product that comes at the end, like the process. I think you can learn so much about yourself in the process of making things, and a lot about the world and how you wear your place in the world. And in interacting with other people, especially being in a band, that’s definitely where my connections with other people come from. Relationships that are based on, we both like the same sound of music, that’s a great thing to be able to connect on. Especially when before you didn’t have that.
My favourite kind of creators are ones that are truly original, like DEVO. We’ll be seeing them soon. Last time I had the chance to see them, I was having a little bit too much of a good time and didn’t really appreciate them.
BW: Oh man. So this time you finally get to see them! I got to see them in 2012. It was in Des Moines, the city where I grew up, which is an hour and a half drive from Iowa City; a college town with a history of hippie academics and that kind of culture. Then in Des Moines, the show was outdoors on a bridge in the middle of downtown. A lot of people showed up with their own lawn chairs and sat to watch! It was one of those situations where you could just walk up to the front guardrail in front of the stage, there was no fighting to get there. It was an experience. They were amazing.
They’re playing at a theatre, near my work. I work in a library.
BW: Cool!
I know you used to work in libraries as well!
BW: I did!
I love working in libraries because it’s a community-based place and people come there to get knowledge about all kinds of things. It means a lot to me to work in a community space rather than for a big soulless corporation.
BW: Oh yeah, absolutely. Working there was like a way to experience and learn about community outside of punk, which was very eye-opening for me. In my early 20s, and to have decided the only place in society that’s worth anything is in the punk community and being in the punk community, but then I met people who I identified with outside of punk. Working at the library and seeing how it serves people and helps people, and they weren’t even punk! [laughs]. Libraries are amazing institutions. I worked at the library between two and three years, shelving books, sitting at the front desk, helping people print.
I was at the main downtown branch of our library last week to pick up some books of record covers, specifically this book about the design group Hipgnosis, who did Pink Floyd and stuff, looking for inspiration for the new Uranium Club album cover. This little section, these books, made me so excited and interested to wanna get back to library work. Being somebody who shelved books, I could check them out and saw so many exciting interesting things. Being in that environment is very inspiring.
I’m excited Uranium Club have a new album coming out!
BW: I feel like it’s incredibly lucky, and I’m so happy that Uranium Club has been a band for almost 10 years now! I feel like bands can break up at any time. I feel incredibly lucky for being a DIY effort the whole time. I’m very, very excited for a new record. Yeah, it’ll be out in February. We’re playing Australia! I’ve been trying to get the band to go to Australia almost the entire time that we’ve been a band. That’s been my goal as a musician for the longest time.
When we had one record out, we played with Ausmuteants here in Minneapolis. That was when I first started trying to make it happen, talking to Jake Robertson about it. It really seemed like it would happen but then the pandemic got in the way. Now, Jack from Vintage Crop reached out to us. We thought it’d be great to have a record out on an Australian label for the tour. It’s great working with Billy from Anti Fade.
We love Billy! All the cool stuff his label has been putting out forever was a big inspiration for starting Gimmie.
That’s cool. I’m very excited for Australia! For the longest time, a lot of my favourite bands have been from Australia—so feels like a magical place.
We have the some of the best bands in the world! It’s so great that we’re here in the middle of it all, on the ground, and get to really document it—it’s our community. We value being a part of it so much. The world is so inserted in what’s happening here.
I hope the record store’s not closed, I’m going straight over there to get a copy of Gimmie. I can’t wait for Australia! See you soon.
The Uranium Club’s new album Infants Under the Bulb is out through Anti Fade Records – pre-order it HERE. Check out all the other cool stuff Brendan does HERE. Don’t miss the Australian shows!
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.
Album art: painting by Oscar Sulich
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.
Photo: Jhonny Russell.
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.
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’.
Photo: Jamie Wdziekonski.
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!
Original photo: Matt Shaw. Handmade mixed media collage by B.
Naarm/Melbourne band The Toads’ jittery post-punk hums with both a nervous energy and a groundedness with a mordant sharpness lyrically they dissect the mundanities, grind and absurdity of life. The band features members of The Shifters, The Living Eyes and Parsnip. Gimmie is excited to premiere The Toads’ first single ‘Nationalsville’ from their forthcoming debut album, In The Wilderness (which features many indelible moments). We were excited to learn more about the band, their coming album, new single and its accompanying video, from members Stella Rennex, Elsie Retter, Miles Jansen and Billy Gardner.
We saw The Toads play your first show last year at Jerkfest; how did you feel in the lead up to the show and what do you remember about the show?
STELLA [bass]: I remember that I was wearing a t-shirt that said “Chicken Every Sunday” and we couldn’t find Jake’s snare and cymbals before we played.
BILLY [guitar]: We rocked up super late and were playing first, I was stressed on the drive down but the show went sweet and we all had fun.
ELSIE: [drums] It was my first show ever so I was pretty nervous and had a tequila sunrise to calm my nerves. I remember my friend Bec (Delivery, Blonde Revolver) rocked up in some home made Toads merch, which I think we should replicate and sell.
MILES [vocals]: First shows are always a touch nervy, I think.
We did ok? I had to play twice so I was trying not to drink too much.
I remember the show and the evening being a bit stressful as I was going overseas the next day and I was paranoid about getting Covid. Somehow I avoided it and got to Belgium, all good.
What initially brought The Toads together?
STELLA: Billy and I have played in other bands together and with each other’s bands for a long time. So we jammed a few songs with my dear friend Elsie who wasn’t playing in any other bands and had learned drums earlier in life! We were just having fun with friends really. Then when it sounded good we tried hard to think of the perfect singer. After several options that didn’t quite make sense Billy suggested Miles who is a great friend of ours and was the perfect match! ❤
Photo: Matt Shaw
How did you find your sound?
STELLA: We all have relatively similar taste in music so it’s not difficult to agree on things.
BILLY: We tried a few different ideas at first and discussed which direction to go in. We all agreed that we should make more songs in minor keys, so we did, but recently realised the album is five minor and five major songs – so it ended up an even mix anyway.
Does The Toads have a preferred way to write songs?
STELLA: Mostly Billy makes the tunes and Miles makes the words. And I doodle around on bass and Els plays the drums.
BILLY: The songs are extremely simple even at the finished point but they start off so, so basic. Usually just some chords and a melody that work over each other. Stella plays the melody on bass over my chords for the verse and then I’ll play the melody as a solo or lead over her rhythm as some sort of break. Elsie makes a cool beat and Miles usually has words before the night’s over. It’s a very basic and fun process.
MILES: Chuck-Billy and Stella write the music and I just add my words. It’s cool to see them working stuff out together.
We’re premiering your first single ‘Nationalsville’ for The Toads’ debut album; what’s the song about?
MILES: It’s about a cotton farmer/ National party donor, water farming in the northern sector of the Murray Darling. He removes the water gauge and lies about how much water they are stealing, while diverting a huge amount of it into his catchment. A charming situation.
BILLY: The working title for this one “Country Song”. When we first jammed it, it felt real ’65 era Stones song or something – with some country I guess. Miles’ vocals’ gave it its own vibe.
Album cover art: Ian Teeple
The clip for it is fun! It was made by Leland Buckle. What can you tell us about making it? Where was it filmed? How did the audience seated in the chairs watching the band come into being?
BILLY: We referenced “Stranded” and “What Do I Get?” video clips and then passed the baton over to Leland….
LELAND: The old folks in the chair is a homage to the ‘Underwater Moonlight’ album cover, was listening to that one a fair bit when we started talking about the video.
ELSIE: It was a great day, pretty funny playing in some hall in Preston on a Saturday morning, surrounded by references to catholicism whilst staring down the eyes of Leland’s creepy (but amazing) paper mache people.
How long did the album take to record? Who recorded it? Where did you record? What was the most fun you had during recording?
STELLA: We recorded the album in two batches because we initially were planning on an EP. But once that was too long for a 7” and we made some more songs we decided to make it an album. Recorded it at Billy’s place in Preston. Took two full days, three months apart, with many overdubs after the fact. We had lots of fun and always do.
BILLY: Yeah, what Stella said – initially it was just five songs for a 7”. And then we went for eight songs to be a 12” EP. But along the process we fleshed out two tracks (Two Dozen… and Tale of a Town…) into their own new interlude/reprise things with new words and melodies. I like those ones. Miles’ vocals on The Wandering Soul are terrifying. The funnest part of recording was definitely – and pretty much always is – the overdubs.
ELSIE: It was definitely a lot of fun. I think we lost our minds a little at the end of each session but just made the overdubs a lot more fun and out there. I think it took Stella and I a few extra takes to get some harmonies done without cracking up laughing. We are also really lucky that we have Billy in the band who can record everything himself, so it made the whole process seem a lot more comfortable.
MILES: We always have fun together. Lots of beers/seltzer’s and dexies. It was really cold on the first day and I slept all rugged up in my coat while the others were busy laying down the tunes. You gotta respect it.
Which track from the forthcoming album do you like to play live the most? What do you appreciate about it?
STELLA: I like Gimme Little More to play on bass because it feels tough.
BILLY: Probably just Nationalsville or something. Tale of a Town is fun when we hit the quiet part.
ELSIE: Agree with Bill, seeing him rip his solo in Nationalsville is always sick to watch. For me, I like playing in the ‘In The Wilderness’ because the song has grown so much from what it was once. I think it has a lot of quirkiness and sort of goes against the structure of a ‘normal song’, like the extended outro. I also love the bass in this and Miles’s vocals do a few twists and turns which just sound so good.
MILES: I think I like playing “In the Wilderness” I like the end part , it’s a bit Eno / Bryan Ferry or something.
What have you been listening to, watching and/or reading lately?
BILLY: Michael Rother. Fair bit of krautrock in general.
STELLA: Been listening to lots of Rosalia, watching Atlanta and rewatching Extras.
ELSIE: I’ve been listening to this album Fantastic Planet by Lealani which is kinda moody synth pop which is a big vibe. I’ve been watching The Last of Us like the rest of society at the moment. And reading Politics of Public Space.
MILES: I have not been listening or reading much at all lately. I’ve been watching Will Ferrell movies, The Mandalorian and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
What do you get up to when not making music?
BILLY: I’ve been cooking heaps. Lots of salsa verde’s.
STELLA: Going to Tafe and working mostly!
ELSIE: I work full time at a local Council so mostly that, but outside of work, I’ll either be walking my dog, going for a run down the creek or in a Youtube hole. I also have just picked up Spanish classes!
MILES: Work, watch people play Dayz on Twitch, play Total war games, visit the same pub every weekend and hang out with my partner.
What’s the rest of the year look like for The Toads? Also, are members working on any other projects?
BILLY: Just hope to work on some more songs. Also hope to do a split record with Modal Melodies at some stage, but where all members play on all the songs like a collab. There’s a Toadal Melodies joke in there somewhere.
MILES: I have been very lazy with The Shifters, so I would like to get back into that, soon.
Original photo by Oscar Perry. Handmade collage by B.
One of Gimmie’s favourite bands Terry are releasing a new album Call Me Terry in April, which thematically scrutinies our country’s corrupt, colonial history and shines a spotlight on greed, privilege and entitlement of white, wealthy so-called Australia. We’re excited to be premiering a new single and video for track ‘Gronks’. We caught up with Terry to get a little insight into the song, vid, what they’ve been up to, what they’ve been listening to and what they have in the works with other projects.
What’s life been like lately for everyone in Terry? Congratulations Xanthe and Zephyr on your new little addition to the fam!
TERRY: Thank you! Life has been good lately. Lots of swimming and nappy changing. Amy and Al’s visit when our baby was three weeks old was a highlight of recent months! We cooked, went for a day trip to the upper mountains, and played bananagrams.
We’re super excited about the new album, Call Me Terry! What’s something that you’d like us to know about it?
T: It was nearly called Terry Gold.
We’re premiering one of our favourite album songs ‘Gronks’; what initially inspired it?
T: ’Gronks’ was written at the start of 2020. Was a bit paranoid about the world flipped upside down and how the powerful would further their own interests (white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy) and the war machine. “Meet me from the banks you gronks” is spoken from a Robocop-style Twiggy Forrest character sailing up the Parramatta River in another wave of imperialism.
Photo by Oscar Perry.
What do you remember most from making the ‘Gronks’ video?
T: I (Xanthe) made the video just recently late at night after the baby was asleep. It was nice to listen to the song loads of times and play around with images. I wanted to see what I could make using just the text and image of the Redmond Barry statue from our album cover but broadened the scope, after my cousin Solomon sent me some footage of a Terry doll he and my Aunty had made for an upcoming video. And then again after finding loads of footage of Amy, Al, Zeph and I on a ferry that Dan shot on my iPhone in an inspired moment a few years ago. I remember all those things.
The demos for the album were recorded in 2019; what can you remember from recording them? They were recorded apart, right?
T: We kinda tried to record a whole album before X and Z moved to the blue mountains. But I think we were dreaming, or at least I (Al) was. The songs were undercooked. It was great to record days before they left cos it made us feel we still had something to work on together.
How did it all feel when you finally got together in 2021 to record the album’s tracks? Did the songs change much from the demo versions?
T: It was great being together to record the songs. I think Terry had been going pretty hard on the creative Bathurst circuit for a few years. We’d write a lot intensively, record then tour. It’s really productive and I think we were stoked about the output. We got to see the world. But you can only do that for so long I think. X and Z moving interstate and the lockdowns forced us to have a breather. Abscess makes the heart grow fonder.
Besides making music what’s something you love to do when you all get together?
T: Eat, prey, laugh.
Were there any challenges making the album?
T: At first I thought the space apart would be tricky but in the end it gave us time to slow down and consider the compositions/mixes a bit more.
Which is your favourite track from Call Me Terry? What do you love about it?
T: I love ‘Market’ and ‘Golden Head’. Can’t pinpoint what I love about them. Different instrumentation. They feel pretty dynamic. Golden head is such an anthem.
We love the album cover that features song lyrics; how did you come to decide to incorporate them like that? Who took the photos?
T: The artwork was influenced by an old poster that Xan and Zeph saw about the the action to save the demolition of the finger wharf in Woolloomolloo. We all took the photos separately. We drove around the city and found structures that had a relationship to the songs. I think words and actions are pretty important so you might as well put yourself out there.
Where do you find you have your best ideas?
T: In transit.
We’re always on the lookout for new music; what have you been listening to lately?
T: Mixture of recorded and live:
Vampire from Melbourne have just recorded an album, five years on from their demo. Jacked to hear that. One of the best bands in Melbourne.
Glass Picturehave been playing some new material live. Really excited to hear it when they record.
Eternal Dust new LP on LSD club. Incredible.
Phantasm – a new super group.
Punter – new LP probably out by the time interview is printed.
Reaksi – the 7” on hardcore victim is great but there is a whole set of great punk.
Maxine Funke live in Melbourne recently was phenomenal. Can’t wait for the new tunes.
The Clash – ‘Long Time Jerk’, great outtake from Combat Rock.
Are there any other projects you’re working on at the moment?
T: There is a Primo album nearly finished. A Truffle Pigs LP is getting close and a Lower Plenty album is ready for a master. Theres an old Russell Street Bombings LP that needs a master. Zeph did some great recordings over the last two years with percussion, harmonium and guitar.
What’s the rest of the year look like for Terry?
T: Nappies, bouncers, swaddles overturn the ruling class.
Original photo: Elysia Stasi, Jodie Farrugia & Estella Paltos. Handmade collage by B.
We’ve been excited about Naarm six-piece, Phil and The Tiles, since we saw live footage of their debut show late last year at a DIY punk gig held in drains in Moone Ponds supporting Gimmie favs, Enzyme and Alien Nosejob.
Phil & The Tiles play exhilarating punk that borrows from garage-rock and new wave. Today we’re premiering their first single ‘Nun’s Dream’ from a forthcoming EP S/T 7” release on Anti Fade Records. Guitarists Hattie and Reilly tell us about the band, their music, fun shows they’ve played, and about what they’re listening to.
What first ignited your passion for music?
HATTIE: School of Rock.
REILLY: My mum bought my sister some guitar lessons and she didn’t want to go, so I did them instead!
What’s an album that really had a big impact on you and what do you appreciate about it?
HATTIE: Unknown Pleasures [Joy Division]. It made me realise I didn’t have to be that good at an instrument to make good songs.
REILLY: There’s heaps, but probably listening to Primary Colours after I saw Eddy Current at Big Day Out when I was like 14, put me on the right track music-wise I think!
Which bands, albums or songs have you been listening to most lately?
HATTIE: ‘Boys’ by U.S. Girls, Snow on the Sahara by Anggun, and ‘I’m on Fire’ Electrelane cover.
REILLY: Been pumping Combat Rock by The Clash. CIRCUS ST from Cloud Ice 9. Rock and Roll by Charlie Feathers. The second Durutti Column album all been on heavy rotation.
How did you first meet each other?
HATTIE: Met Reilly and Powelly at parties, they introduced me to Andre, we were all playing together for a bit. I met Reef through Reilly at Meredith. Reef, Reilly and I made some darkwave stuff. Met Charlotte through Reef at the Northcote Bowls Club.
REILLY: Me, Powelly and Andre used to play in a fuzz band in high school, that we still have phone recordings of somewhere. Hattie and I met at parties. The first two times I met Reef he was on acid, we started hanging after I saw him try to stage dive at a UV Race show with Powelly and nobody caught him. I met Charlotte at Reef’s house.
Phil & The Tiles got together in 2019; what brought the band together?
HATTIE: Phil the house cat.
REILLY: We were jamming before then at my old house in Mordialloc doing minimal-synth post-punk stuff, but that sort of fizzed out. We moved it to Hattie’s garage, got our mate Eli to drum and it caught a second wind. We’ve had a few different lineups and reshuffles since then.
EP art by Reilly Gaynor.
Who’s the funniest person in the band and what’s the last funny thing they said or did?
HATTIE: Reef thought it was his birthday next weekend, but it’s actually two months away.
REILLY: Andre’s just suggested we do socks on cocks for our launch like the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
What was the first song you wrote together? How do Phil & The Tiles’ songs usually come together?
HATTIE: ‘Health/Body’. Someone usually comes in with one or two parts already written, then we play it a bunch and write each part over the top.
REILLY: Yeah, ‘Health/Body’. We did a cover of ‘Stuck On You’ by Sardine V as well. Usually, someone comes to the group with a riff and we go from there.
What’s your favourite song from the EP and what’s it about?
HATTIE: ‘Nun’s Dream’; sex.
REILLY: ‘Nun’s Dream’ is actually about going to a Catholic school.
What did you love about the process making the EP?
HATTIE: Adding the backup vocals and vibraslap.
REILLY: Cheers to King Gizzard for letting us use their egg shaker thingo while they were away! Also, massive cheers to Lewis for bringing the other slab!
Phil & The Tiles have played a few shows this year including gigs with Civic, Research Reactor Corp, Ouzo!, Future Suck, Shove and The Shifters; what’s been the best or worst show you’ve played and what made it so?
HATTIE: Playing with Civic is always fun, they bring a big and rowdy crowd.
REILLY: Our first show in the drains supporting Enzyme was psycho. We played before Alien Nosejob, four hours later than we were meant to, because they couldn’t start the generator. We’ll probably never have that many studded leather jackets at one of our shows ever again. Cheers to Reis from happytapes for filming it!
Have you ever stuffed up anything when playing live?
HATTIE: No comment.
REILLY: Every single time.
When not making music what could we find you doing? What’s your day job?
HATTIE: Studying and teaching kids about dinosaurs, but Centrelink is where I make the real money.
REILLY: I build mini golf courses and laser tag arenas.
What are you looking forward to at the moment?
HATTIE: Seeing Reilly’s art in the flesh on our 7” cover.
REILLY: Extra public holiday for the dead Queen is alright, they should kill a royal every year!
Original photo: James Morris. Handmade collage by B.
We have a rousing new song for you! ‘Baader Meinhof’ from Naarm band, Delivery. Their ever-evolving garage rock style with a post-punk wildness shining on this track, has us anticipating the November release of their debut full-length. We caught up with the band to ask about it, what they’re listening to, their recent tour with Tropical Fuck Storm and Party Dozen, go-to karaoke songs, and what makes them laugh.
We love knowing about what other people are listening to; what’s been on your radar of late?
DANIEL (drummer): Very excited for the new Alex G and Jockstrap records coming out this month. Locally I’ve been loving the new Garage Sale record and the latest Teether album MACHONA.
JAMES (guitar-vocals-keys): Been on a bit of an EXEK tear lately. The new Workhorse album is really great too. I’d also be lying if I didn’t say The Davinci Code by Blakey Bone – if you know, you know.
LISA (guitar-vocals): I’ve been listening a lot to The Comet is Coming in prep for Meredith and I’m hotly anticipating having my mind blown by their live set. More locally though I’ve been thrashing Cool Sounds who probably make the best music in the world?
BEC (bass-vocals): So much good music is coming out at the moment! Recently, Cool Sounds (agree with the statement made above ^ too good), Eggy, Michael Beach, Vintage Crop, Wireheads, and Ty Segall have been on heavy rotation for me.
SAM (guitar-vocals): My sister Lil and has recently put me on to Harry Nilson’s The Point, so I’ve been in a bit of an early 70’s zone lately (Emitt Rhodes is another). Also been playing a lot of NO ZU’s Afterlife and lots of Possible Humans. I’m really excited about all of the releases that our friend’s labels have been putting out this year too, as well as other people’s projects in Delivery (Blonde Revolver, Heir Traffic).
Delivery recently toured the East Coast of Australia with Tropical Fuck Storm and Party Dozen. We were stoked to finally meet you all in person when you came through Meeanjin; tell us about being on the road with such incredible bands?
LISA: It was lovely meeting you! Touring with TFS and Party Dozen was such a wild ride. We had a few very early mornings and close calls with flights but we managed to come away mostly unscathed. It was such a genuine privilege to be able to witness these incredible bands do their thing each night and we still can’t believe we got asked to join them! Everyone was so welcoming and lovely, but a definite highlight was joining TFS on stage at The Croxton for a rendition of ‘Saturday Night’ by Cold Chisel. Honourable mention to James for ungraciously yanking out Kirsty’s saxophone lead right before her solo, and to Gaz and Fi’s literal rockdogs Ralf and Foxy who definitely stole the show.
Photo: Jhonny Russell.
‘Baader Meinhof’ is the first single off your upcoming debut album, Forever Giving Handshakes. Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, which the song is named after, is kind of an increase in your awareness of something that leads you to believe it’s happening more; have you experienced this yourself?
BEC: Yeah for sure, I feel like this happens all the time. You meet someone new and see them everywhere or learn about a new thing then it pops up all the time. I found the term Baader Meinhof when I was actually searching for how to describe something else online, but that feeling is always quite weird and the term is kind of interesting… so why not write a song about it haha I guess.
The song is also about putting mental time into reading into the universe about things and overthinking about stuff; is this something you feel you do?
BEC: Haha ahh kinda, I try not to do that though which is kinda the point of the song. I think wondering about the deeper reasoning of why things happen in life and what it all means is something that can be easy to do, but kinda just prefer to enjoy the ride and not overthink things too much because ultimately most of the time it is just what it is … For example with the Baader Meinhof phenomenon in reality, there’s no increase in occurrence of anything, it’s just that you’ve started to notice something more haha.
What’s your personal point of view on the song or its making?
JAMES: I think ‘Baader Meinhof’ was one of the most collaborative songs to come early in the process of making this album, and I think it ties together a lot of the things we do well as a band with everyone’s own little personality too. Bec is charging from the get-go and when Lisa joins in they both do their classic slightly sassy/extra cool vocal thing, we gave Sam a fair bit of leeway of the guitar solos and Danny is hitting everything as hard as he can as per usual. And I got to play a keyboard solo, cop that.
Was there any specific sonic references points for the new collection of songs?
JAMES: This song started with a bunch of sonic reference points that we sorta tried to disguise. I think Bec and Lisa’s original idea for the song was fairly inspired by ‘Boys In The Better Land’ by Fontaines DC, and the song’s main riff was actually this guitar idea I had that sounded a lot like AC/DC haha. Had to pull out a few tricks to Delivery-ify everything though. Overall, the new record does a pretty similar thing – we’re pulling references from some favourites like The Intelligence, Yummy Fur, Lithics, Parquet Courts, and then doing our very best to make it sound like Delivery.
The single was recorded live in your rehearsal space in Brunswick, as is the majority of the new album; why did you choose to record this way?
JAMES: The first 7” was a real lockdown project, and sounded nothing like the live band with its drum machines, DI’ed guitars and synths. The next 7” was more of a group effort, but was still recorded in our garage one at a time, so still didn’t really capture the band at full force. After a year of playing together, it seemed like a good time to show people the real deal.
SAM: The space in Brunswick is covered in sound treating foam, wall to wall. It’s a really good room to record something in if you want it to sound close and in your face, which is probably the type of energy that these songs were going for. I like recording live because you’re able to get people’s communication in the room on the recording. The performance always has something a little extra, whether it be imperfections or just a great vibe.
Photo: Jhonny Russell.
Whose idea was it to shoot the video in a karaoke bar? What’s your go to karaoke song?
BEC: That was my idea, inspired by good friend and karaoke fiend Isobel Buckley. One morning I was watching IG stories from everyone’s weekends as you do! And saw a bunch of videos of her and a few friends at the karaoke bar and though damn this shit is so funny and entertaining, why not make it into a whole three and a half minute film clip? So a few weekends later, Delivery + Sam (Spoilsport) and James Devlin went for our very own karaoke night out and the rest is history. My go-to karaoke song always changes depending on my mood. I think me and James duetting at the Boogie club house to Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Take Me Out’, ending in both of us crowd surfing, is a pretty massive karaoke highlight for me so maybe let’s just say that.
DANIEL: ‘Wuthering Heights’ (singstar duet) – Kate Bush
JAMES: A little song called ‘Knights of Cydonia’ by Muse.
LISA: I like to think that I’m actually quite a good crooner, so I reckon ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ by Frank Sinatra.
SAM: Anything from Maroon 5’s Songs About Jane.
The album art work featuring the band on a roller coaster rules! What’s the story behind it?
BEC: It was all a bit of a rush getting the album together as these things usually go… haha and one of the things we left to the very last minute was the name and artwork. A few names were being thrown around and one was ‘Trying to Enjoy the Ride’, and the idea of the artwork was inspired by that name when me and Sam (Spoilsport) were joking around once. Even though the name turned out to be totally different we still backed the idea enough to roll with it.
Getting the photo was real funny actually. Luna Park is not as whimsical as you’d recall from being a kid – it is actually a bit of a hell-ish nightmare, especially if you have a fear of birds and are very hungover… both of which I may have been. We got there in the end though and I’m super stoked with it. A massive shout out to James Morris for taking the picture and waiting in the carpark for over an hour while we lined up for the Scenic Railway, and also for James Devlin for his amazing design work on Delivery’s alway tight timelines.
How did you come up with the name for the album, Forever Giving Handshakes?
JAMES: There’s a song on the album called ‘Born Second’, which features the line “forever giving handshakes”. In the context of that song, I was thinking about how whenever I have to give a handshake I’m always concerned about whether I’m shaking firmly enough or not – for some weird reason, someone once decided that was an adequate way of measuring up a person.
As an album title it seemed to nicely round out a few recurring themes – some tracks are about feeling stuck in a rut, some tracks are about the workplace, some tracks are about winning big and/or losing hard. All in all, it’s because Delivery are hustlers.
What are you most nervous about getting ready to release your debut album?
JAMES: The inevitable fame and fortune.
BEC: Selling out of the records too quickly.
DANIEL: Not winning an ARIA.
SAM: The maddening power going to everyone in Delivery’s heads.
LISA: People at work finding out about it.
What’s the last thing that made you laugh really hard?
DANIEL: Sam Lyons, Billiam and Meaghan Weiley filling in on RRR together last week had me cackling
LISA: The last thing that made me really belly laugh was playing a game of catch in the pool with my sister and friend Iso on holiday recently.
SAM: James Morris on the phone
BEC: Watching ‘Nathan for You’… Also tour antics with Crop and Stroppies, funny crew.
JAMES: Playing Truth or Dare with Vintage Crop on the weekend. Jack Cherry can handstand.
Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie Zine 