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