punk

Snõõper: Bringing Fun Back To Punk

| gimmiezine
Original photo: Pooneh Ghana. Handmade mixed media collage by B.

Gimmie love Nashville punk band, Snõõper! They’re bringing fun back to punk rock! Their debut full-length Super Snõõper is a heady adrenaline rush. The band breathing life and a freshness back into the genre with their highly entertaining, mighty, live shows that reach a level of sublimity, complete with puppets and props. Their videos are art works full of wonder and humour, made by vocalist Blair Tramel.

We first heard Snõõper when Billy Reily vocalist for RRC/3D & The Holograms sent us a couple of tracks a few years back from a band that he had discovered and really loved. So much so he put out their first seven inch release Music For Spies on his DIY Australian label, Computer Human Records. 

This week sees them in the country to kick off their first ever Australian tour with Gimmie favs Gee Tee. Gimmie caught up with Snõõper co-founders and all-round sweethearts, Blair, and Connor Cummins about a month ago to get an insight into their creative world.


We’re excited that you’re coming to Australia!

BLAIR TRAMEL: Us too! We’re so excited. We feel like we’re visiting friends there, even though we’ve actually never been there. It feels like we’re returning home in a way, because we had Billy and RRC stay over here recently. It’s going to be fun. 

CONNOR CUMMINS: Yeah, we’re really excited!

Billy put out your first seven inch on his label, Computer Human Records.

BT: Yeah. It was over COVID. We were like, sure, let’s do it. We were very thankful for him.

Yeah. I remember we first heard of Snõõper through Billy. He was like, “You have to check out this band, they’re amazing!”

BT: We played with them at Gonerfest recently, and then they played a really fun show with Gee Tee here in Nashville. It was awesome.

CC: Mikey and a bunch of other people all stayed at our house for a couple of days. It was really nice.

Lovely. What’s something that you took them to see or that you did together?

CC: Well, it’s funny because everyone was partying so much at Gonerfest, we just sat around and had pizza. We went for walks around the neighbourhood, but we didn’t really do too much.

BT: My memorable experience was when we took them to Kroger, which is a grocery store close to our house. Have you ever heard of Kroger? It’s a Southern specific general grocery store. They had so much fun there. They were like, “The carrots here are so weird!” because they’re pre-sliced. Everything was just so American at the grocery store and they were so weirded out. Ishka rode the electric shopping cart! They had so much fun, and everyone was like, “You guys are definitely not from here!” The cashiers loved them. 

Nice. It’s so awesome that you get to come here and do it all again with them.

CC: Yeah, we’re really excited.

I still can’t believe you’re coming, it’s so exciting. I never thought I’d get to see you play live.

BT: Yeah, it is great. I feel like RRC, Gee Tee, we’re all kind of part of the same scene, and that’s felt really nice because there’s not a tonne of bands close to us, that are making similar music. Australia just seems to have everything cool going on.

We do! That’s why we started doing Gimmie.

CC: Before I knew about a lot of the garage punk bands in Australia, I was a huge fan of Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Royal Headache and all those bands since I was younger. I’m really excited to come over and see everything.

BT: It seems like you guys have all the cool stuff, like all the bands, but then also there’s this really cool puppet group called, Snuff Puppets. They’re awesome. I think they’re in Melbourne. They make huge giant puppets. They did a lot of stuff over COVID, they made these big noses and ears and all kinds of cool stuff and they were all trapped in houses. It was really fun watching their videos; we reached out to them. We’re like huge nerdy fans of theirs. We’re like, ‘Please hang out with us. We want to see the puppets!’ That’ll be cool too.

I love that Snõõper use puppets live. It reminded me a little of Quintron and Miss Pussycat. I love how Miss Pussycat makes puppets and does shows.

BT: Totally. We are huge Quintron and Miss Pussycat fans. They played Gonerfest a couple of times and they’re in New Orleans, not too far away from us, so we get to see them often. 

New Orleans is really cool, they have tonnes of stuff like Mardi Gras and everything. But the parades and the puppets there, oh my gosh, it’s super cool! New Orleans is a unique place in that way.

What’s it like where you live?

CC: Kind of like the country, I guess. But we’re in the city. 

BT: We live in the city, but if you do go 15 minutes in any direction, not towards the city, you end up being in the country. A lot of farmland and stuff not too far from us.

CC: Nashville is like a big circle, we’re on the west side of the circle. If you go outside of the circle, which is not really that big, it’s just like hills and trees and stuff.

BT: It’s nice. The nature is so pretty, but politically, it’s a little bit crazy. In Tennessee, it’s the South, so it’s funny. You have the prettiest land, but then some of the meanest people living on the prettiest land, a lot of unhappy people. I feel like it can be pretty closed off.

CC: There’s a lot of good people, too.

BT: Yeah, totally. It’s a good place. I think there’s just a lot going on with abortion stuff here, gun rights, very extreme kind of politics. 

It’s really full on. Watching it unfold in the news from over here in Australia, seeing a lot of the stuff that’s happening in the US, things like a lot of books being banned that relate to identity, race, gender…

BT: Especially in Tennessee, that’s a very big thing in the South. But what’s cool about it is that Nashville itself is such a hub of diverse people, and so the community within Nashville is so strong because the surrounding areas can be a little bit..

CC: Yeah, Nashville, I would say, is very blue.

BT: Yeah, totally. So that’s great in a way, you know, when you live in a not so great place, but you have a great community of people.

CC: Yeah. There’s not really much of a punk scene, there’s a lot of young kids who are really excited, but they’re just not starting bands. Kind of unfortunate.

BT: People, I feel right now, want to move away from Tennessee because politics are so crazy here. The people that are staying and trying to really maintain the community, that’s really important right now.

Yeah. Do you think you guys will stay in Tennessee for now?

BT: Yeah. I’m from California originally. My parents moved out here not too long ago, and I’m very close with my mom, so we’ll be here for a while.

CC: I’m from middle Tennessee, so I’ve just been here forever. I would love to move away someday, but we have a pretty good thing going here.

BT: And it’s a small town in a way, everywhere you go you know each other, so that feels nice.

Yeah, that’s like what Brisbane and the Gold Coast is kind of like.. Sydney and Melbourne are a lot bigger and more spread out, but here where we are it’s really nice.

BT: That’s awesome. The only thing that I wish we had is a beach; we do not have a beach.

CC: It’s very hot and humid. Especially like today, it was a very thick heat. It’s nice, though.

BT: The bugs are really loud in Tennessee, there are certain things where it’s like, you know you’re in Tennessee when… 

CC: Yeah. We have chickens and stuff like that. 

BT: People seem to have all kinds of fun nature projects in Australia.

There’s so many cool things happening all the time. I’m glad that I get to be a part of it all. Connor, I know that you’ve played in about a million bands: Body Cam, Chainshot, Brothers, G.U.N., Pissbath, Safety Net, Sex Hotel, Vacant Future, Soft Option, and you’re Spodee Boy.

CC: Yeah, that’s true. Brothers and Vacant Future, those are like deep cuts. That’s cool that you know about them.

What inspired you to start making music?

CC: Growing up, I always liked fast, aggressive music, and would go to shows. I definitely always wanted to start. Where I’m from is like, 30 minutes from Nashville, it’s a college town, and they wouldn’t really be punk shows, but there would just be lots of house shows all the time. When I was 14 and 15, I would tell my parents I was going out and I would go to house shows. Everyone was really supportive of younger people going to shows. It was a really inspiring thing. I wanted to start my own band, and I wasn’t really good at an instrument, so that’s how Pissbath started. It was a noise punk band, and so I was learning how to play guitar, but I had a lot of distortion pedals, so I could hide it a little bit. After that band happened, I just kept trying to learn new instruments and then did Vacant Future on bass and Brothers on drums. After a while, after I learned a little bit on each instrument, that’s when I started doing Spodee Boy and putting them all together.

I’m so glad you have, because with Spodee Boy and Snõõper, I love that it combines so much stuff I love. It’s like there’s no rules with what you do.

CC: Thank you. Sometimes it’s hard because I feel like people can’t really relate, but I guess I don’t really mind because I’m just doing it for me. I like a lot of post-punk, and stuff like the Gun Club; that comes out a lot in the Spodee Boy stuff, which is really fun for me. Sometimes I feel like it’s not hardcore enough for really punk people and then it’s too, I don’t know, sometimes I feel like my friends don’t really understand, but I love it.

I’m so glad that you’ve done it. Even if your friends don’t understand.

CC: Snõõper is the most fun band I’ve ever been in, because it’s just me and Blair.

BT: Connor likes to record his own music, do all the instruments and do specific things, which I understand because I like to do my own visual stuff. I have no experience with music so he can really be creative in that way. I write the lyrics and do the vocals, but mostly I do that so that I have a place to show the puppets and the things that I make. We work really well together because we both really let each other do our own thing within the band, which is nice.

CC: Yeah. I guess what I was saying about Spodee Boy too, it’s not really about my friends minding too much, but sometimes it gets kind of lonely because it’s just you all the time. It’s great because you have complete creative control, and then sometimes in bands I’ve been in where it’s been too many people, there’s too much going on and people can’t make decisions and stuff. Just me and Blair has been the perfect balance because we live together and we’ve been together a long time. We can just be like, “Hey, what do you think of this idea?” And we’ll just be like, “Yeah, let’s do it!” Versus talking to five people about something.

BT: What’s important to him isn’t necessarily important to me. So he’s like, “I made this song.” I’m like, “That sounds awesome! I made this random puppet or prop or whatever…” so we combine them and it works out well.

I love that. Creative couples are my favourite. That’s like me and my husband. It’s just us two that do all the Gimmie stuff.

CC: Yeah. That’s awesome. It’s a beautiful zine. 

BT: So special.

CC: We had a small shop, just kind of like a distro for a little bit, and we carried Gimmie. They were great. They’re beautiful zines.

BT: We were very thrilled when you asked us for an interview. It felt like a big honour. When we were getting your zines in the shop, we were only open for a little bit, but people were like, “I have to get the new one!” whenever we’d post about getting it in. People were so excited.

Awww, that’s awesome to know that there’s people in Tennessee are reading Gimmie!

BT: Yeah, it’s great. I was going to say, one more thing that makes living together with someone that you’re in a creative thing with so cool is, we just leave everything out, it’s become part of our life having the props out and the music stuff out.

CC: We run a small label together too, called Electric Outlet, so there’s always stuff scattered everywhere around the house..

BT: Then you can just pick stuff up and make something, like, “Let’s make a video!” and it’s right in front of me. That feels nice.

Totally. That’s exactly what we do as well. Jhonny built me my own art space area because I was putting too much glitter over his area, because I use a lot of glitter in my art, the Gimmie collages I make.

CC: That’s awesome.

Yeah. I like using things that people often say is kids’ stuff. They say, “That’s not real art stuff.” I’m like, ‘Well, it is!’

CC: We’re big fans of that. We totally understand. Blair does so much papier-mâché and all kinds of crazy stuff.

BT: I love that stuff. I’m a teacher, so I work with young kids, and the way that they get excited about just stickers or whatever little thing, it’s amazing. So I’m really big into anything that’s fun, it’s awesome.

Totally. How did you guys first meet?

CC: We met when I was playing in Vacant Future, and the guitarist Blair was dating at the time, we have been friends for a really long time…

BT:  Yeah, it was really nice because me and this guy broke up and then Connor was just still my friend after, even though I had been dating one of his friends. And then we were friends first and he dated other people and I dated other people. Then one day we were like, wait, we always end up hanging out with each other, though. And then it just went from there. 

CC: Yeah, we’ve been dating for six years, but we’ve been friends for about nine. 

Just having someone that understands being creative is the best if you’re a creative. Because when you with someone that’s not, they just don’t get it.

CC: Yeah, we’ve talked about that a lot.

BT: It’s hard to even imagine, honestly, because everything for us feels so normal that sometimes I have to take a step back and be like, wow, this is totally not what the majority of people do in their relationships. But to us, we come home and we’re really deeply immersed in our projects that we have going on. It means so much to us, but to anyone else it doesn’t mean anything at all, probably. It’s funny and it’s a nice thing to have with someone. 

Snõõper originally started as a recording project? You didn’t think you’d ever do it live?

CC: We really weren’t sure. It was cool because Blair had been doing animations for a while and she’d done an animation for Spodee Boy and some other friends bands, and did a Liquids one. She was making animations during COVID and I just had the 8-track over here and we were like, “Okay, let’s just try…”

BT: I was trying to learn how to play drums, so I was like, “Play music with me, play music with me!” I never really took drums that seriously. It was like the fourth or fifth time I’ve been trying to learn. Then we were playing music more often together and I was making more videos and we were like, “Let’s just do a song.”

CC: It was good because it was also a break for me with recording. Before Snõõper, I used to be like, if I record it, I want it to sound almost identical live. I don’t want it to sound like a different band or be like worse or something. And so there was like a sense of when we started using the drum machine, I was like, I don’t know, we can never play this live. We’re never going to be able to bring the drum machine and do all this stuff. But then it was good because creatively, I started being like, well, let’s write whatever we want and let’s not worry about playing live, let’s just plan to never play live, then we don’t have limitations on the music.

BT: Totally. We could sound as crazy as we want if we never feel like we’re going to play it live.

CC: We got more and more excited about it. That’s kind of become what the LP [Super Snõõper] is. The way I look at it now is the seven inches are like our demos, because when we recorded them, we were like, wow, these are fast!, and now the way we play them live, it’s like double speed. Cam, our drummer rewrote all the drum machine parts and wrote them his way. So the LP to me feels like a totally different band from just me and Blair on the 8-track.

BT: As soon as we did start playing live, it was a whole different thing because obviously we had live members and everything. We were really nervous to play live at first. I remember the pandemic ending and feeling like now we have to. The pandemic went on for so long, and there was no live music for so long. It was three months, then four months, then a year, and then we kept getting crazier and crazier with the home recording stuff. We’re like, surely it’ll never end, and then it did and we’re like, oh, no.

CC: I remember when we started playing live, our set was like ten minutes because we were nervous to integrate the drum machine songs. I remember being in the practice space and starting to sweat and being like, “Oh, yeah, you just got to play like this.” And they were like, “What do you mean?” And we were kind of all stressed out. Now it’s a breeze. Now we know how to write with everything and it’s great. But I remember at the start of the band, when we were prepping for our first show, we were just like, I don’t know if this is going to sound.

BT: We would record it and be like, ‘We only have eleven minutes worth of music!’ It worked out, ultimately. I’m glad we played live. 

CC: I would also see a lot of the bands, like American bands, that are kind of inspiring to Kel and Ishka, like The Coneheads and stuff like that. And sometimes, specifically the one time I saw the Coneheads, it didn’t sound like the recording and it really bummed me out. I was like, oh, people have this expectation for these 8-track artists and it sounds so good on recording and then you see it live and you’re disappointed. I was always really afraid with Snõõper. I was like, I don’t ever want people to be like, they can’t play that fast. We were really nervous. We were like, if it doesn’t represent the music correctly, then this is a total failure.

BT: Yeah, I remember feeling like a lot of those bands in that early scene. They seemed tired while they were playing their songs or a lot of the recordings were so fast and kind of sped up and then you’d see them and they didn’t have the energy. I remember feeling really stressed about that and coming out of COVID people were so excited to see live music again and everything felt really intense. I would go on runs and try to prepare and was like, we’re not going to be able to keep up!

CC: Yeah, we tried really hard. We would take big breaks from drinking and we would just practise all the time and we really wanted to be as fast live as we are on the recordings.

BT: We felt like we would look like posers if we didn’t because we built up hype a little bit too over COVID.. we were making videos, people were seeing our stuff, and then it was like, either we never play or we have to play really good. It was an interesting transition to playing live, for sure.

CC: The pressure was kind of on too. Well, not on, but it felt like we were coming up with kind of the post-Coneheads American punk scene. Prison Affair was starting. Kel had been doing Gee Tee since Spodee Boy days, but then you could kind of see the change where he started going in a specific direction and it was like Gee Tee, Prison Affair, Research Reactor Corp, Snõõper…  It felt like we were all in this scene together and we all had the same ideas. 

BT: Well, I think also a difference between the American style of this music and the Australian style that Gee Tee and all those bands are doing, is the American egg punk bands were really anti-social, in my opinion. It’s great, but it wasn’t super fun. But all the Australian bands that are doing this style, they’re fun, they party.

CC: Yeah, in America. I felt like, not to name specific names, but there are a couple of people who are doing home recordings who you would meet them in real life and you’d be like, ‘I’m so excited to meet you! You’re kind of like a hero to me.’ And they’d be like, “Oh, cool..”, and kind of like cool-guy you and they had to stay mysterious or something, it was a huge bummer. It was really not fun. It made everyone not really like each other. I feel like in the Australian scene everyone’s really good friends and even if they do their own recordings, like Ishka does Tee Vee Repairmann stuff, it’s still like a community. Here it’s very divided. Like, the Liquids person doesn’t really hang out with the Lumpy and the Dumpers person; Lumpy and the Dumpers person doesn’t really hang out with the Coneheads person. And everyone’s kind of jealous of each other. It’s a very strange thing.

BT: It’s just this thing of like, “I’m weirder than you..”

CC: “I’m weirdest and most anti-social.” It kind of sucks all the fun out of it.

BT: There’s also an element in America where it’s like, “Oh, you took your home recordings and then now people are listening to them? You’ve sold out!” And that’s such a funny thing. For us, we’ve always wanted to just have fun with it and there’s not much thought, and I think that’s the same with what we’ve seen in the Australian scene, it’s great. Everyone has been so welcoming and just down to have a good time together.

CC: I feel like I owe a lot of Snõõper to Billy (Research Reactor Corp) because in the past, any of my bands, I always thought you always do the band thing in a certain way; you do a demo tape, then you do maybe a second demo tape, and you get a seven inch record, then maybe in three years you put out an LP. But, we only had two songs recorded, and Billy was like, “I want to do a seven inch.” And I was like, ‘Wow, he wants to put out a seven inch! We don’t even have that many songs yet.’ It was really cool, and then it was like, ‘Alright, now we’re going to take this really seriously.’ He kind of kicked us into gear. The support from everyone in Sydney really kind of started the band because we didn’t really have much support at home.

BT: That’s why I felt, like I said earlier, it’s like we’re coming home in a way. I know that sounds so weird because we’ve never been to Australia, but everyone has been so nice to us. It’s been awesome. It’s like the origin of Snõõper.

CC: When we were discussing this summer, we were technically offered stuff in Europe first and some other places and we were just like, ‘No, we just want to go to hang out with our friends in Australia.’ That was the number one goal. We were like, ‘We can do all that other stuff later but this is what we need to do now.’

Yeah, I can’t wait to see your live shows! I see all online videos and it just looks like the most fun ever. You look at everyone, you’re having fun, the crowd is having fun.

BT: I always feel like if people are spending their time and money coming to a show, it should be a party.

CC: Growing up and playing in hardcore bands, Chainshot and stuff like that, I really love playing hardcore music, but Blair pointed out it’s not really fun for everyone else because it’s just so mean sometimes. I still think it’s really fun to play really fast and tight, but it’s cool to make it fun for everyone and not just aggressive and angry.

BT: Punk and hardcore sometimes, I like all of that because at least everyone’s really intense in some way. But sometimes I feel like if you put any effort into anything, like the outfits, having any thought goes along way. I feel like the littlest things can make a difference in a live show. It’s like magic to me. When I see people playing music, I’m like, wow! I’m blown away.

CC: Yeah. Blair really changed my whole perspective as a musician in Snõõper, I’d never really thought about having props or anything. At first I was like, ‘Oh, props… we’re a gimmick or something.’ Now I understand. I don’t think I could go back to doing a band that doesn’t have some kind of visual element. I love Kel from Gee Tee wears a mask, or having some kind of outfit, makes it better than just seeing four people be really good at their instruments. The props and visual elements have changed my perspective on performing.

I couldn’t imagine Snõõper without that visual element and all the other fun things like your videos. Every time I watch your videos there’s so much to look at, so much happening, you pick up different things every time you watch it.

CC: That’s awesome. We were looking at an old picture the other day, and we were wearing matching tracksuits, the guitarists do that now; we were looking at one of our first shows and we’re all in t-shirts and jeans. We were like, ‘This seems like a different band.’

BT: ‘This seems wrong! How did we ever play like this?’ [laughs].

CC: It’s been happening for about six months, we kind of accidentally started doing choreography. We would be at practice and one person would kick at a certain time and then everyone else in the band would be like, ‘We’ll do that.’ Then we kept working on it and someone would turn to the left at a certain time. And then we’re like, ‘Oh, let’s all do that.’ Now we’ve got stage moves! [laughs].

Previously you’ve mentioned how you just do whatever you want to do and people have no expectations of you. Now that you’ve signed to Third Man Records for your debut record Super Snõõper that’s coming out soon, and it seems like lots of people are finding out about you; how does it feel that people do care now?

CC: It’s strange. It doesn’t feel really that different yet because when we signed with Third Man, we basically were like, we’re going to be really controlling still about everything. We changed all the art to exactly how we want it. We involved all of our friends from before. Like Ian Teeple, who did the second seven inch cover; he made the insert. Our friends from New York, who do a lot of posters for us, made the inner labels. We had to include everyone that’s been a part of this.

BT: What we care about now is keeping our original vibe the same.

CC: We don’t want it to seem like anything has changed, because nothing has.

BT: I do think it’s gotten more overwhelming. There’s a lot more emails, which is so hard for me personally, but Connor does a great job with all of that. Navigating this new element has been stressful because we really did go into this without any thought at all. So this was never something that we were like, we really want this and we’re prepared for, but it’s been great and we’ve been learning a lot. Connor does most of the booking, he’s basically the manager of the band, which he never wanted to do going into it.

CC: Yeah, I think we really won’t relinquish control because if we ever do, then the band is kind of over. It’s our baby that we made.

BT: My mind is completely not thinking about what people are expecting of us, I’m just more focused on getting things done.

CC: A lot of our friends work at Third Man Records, so it doesn’t feel like there’s any pressure. They all know us, and they know we’re going to do it exactly how we want to, for better or worse.

BT: But Third Man has been so helpful. We have all of the props around everywhere. Let me see if you can see this big phone [pans camera to giant papier-mâché phone in their living room] it’s all gotten bigger and crazier. Third Man has really helped us out because we were having to rent vans and stuff to go to even just local shows. They’ve lent us their van to go to a show. It’s been great.

The craziest part of all of this is that we are here making these crazy puppets and stuff, literally just for fun, and now people are giving us money to help us out with like, ‘Oh, you want a music video?’

How did you first become interested in puppets?

BT: I’ve been doing papier-mâché for a really long time and I used to just make random stuff. Actually, I would make a lot of masks, they would fit on your head, just have a hole on the top, it’s just hollow. I would think it was funny to put them on and take pictures around the house. My friends would come over and we just thought it was so funny. I was doing that for a long time. I really like Bread and Puppet Theatre; they’re a lot like Snuff Puppets. They make these huge puppets. We were looking at a video of theirs online one day and I was like, ‘Wait, I could just make a puppet backpack.’  So now it’s like this big PVC pipe thing and the heads fit on top of that and you wear it like a backpack and it has a big long pole. They’re really tall and you can move around in them.

CC: I was trying to think of how we got to the puppets. I guess one of the first things was actually the video game. [Turns to giant papier-mâché arcade machine sitting behind them].

BT: That was the first prop. We have a papier-mâché weight. It was really funny because the weight was the first thing that we used and people were so responsive. When I would bring out the weight on stage, people were like [does funny actions] and it was just fun. We started wanting more moments like that with the audience.

CC: I used to get in trouble at the beginning of the band because people would be so excited that I would throw the weight out in the crowd and they would go crazy, but then it would just get destroyed.

BT: ..and I’d be like, ‘No, I have to make another one!’

CC: They would tear it apart in like two seconds. 

Is that the same weight that’s in the ‘Fitness’ video clip?

BT: Yeah. I’ve probably made 30 of them now…

Wow!

BT: Someone would get excited and throw it off the stage or someone would grab it, and it was always chaos. Now I’m a little bit more protective over it, and I place it behind the drums when I’m done with it. Everything is so delicate because it’s all just papier-mâché.  In the back of the van, it’s just me constantly being like, ‘Oh, no, what was that?!?’ And then having to get out the hot glue gun or make repairs on the way.

CC: That’s a funny thing that’s kind of been brought up recently, the guitarists all have our pedal bags and stuff, and then Blair now has this big bag that has duct tape, glue gun, paint, all this stuff; that’s her pedal bag [laughs].

BT: Everything is very lightweight. People will come pick up the props, like these big guys, and then they’re like, “Wow, it’s really light.” And I’m like, ‘It is, it’s all paper!’

What’s the story behind the cover image on Super Snõõper?

CC: That image is from outside of a venue here called, Soft Junk. That’s an art space that’s really cool. That’s where we do all of our shows; the sound is good and it’s DIY.

BT: It’s the best space!

CC: Everybody can bring their own beer. It’s a really cool venue. You’ve maybe seen it in pictures; it’s got two stories. It’s really fun. There’s giant hands in the background. There’s a picture of us playing live, well it’s not actually of any of us, but it’s a picture of The Bug, and he’s in the crowd.

BT: We love that picture so much!

CC: We thought that picture was so cool. We were like, we should recreate this for the album…

BT: But with everyone in tracksuits, because we had been wearing tracksuits for a while at that point. We got there and then we started doing all the shots in the exact way we had envisioned them and immediately we were like, ‘Oh no, this looks like a cult photo or something.’ It got real spooky real fast. The photographer was so sweet. She’s like, “Everybody hold hands around The Bug.” She’d be like, “Put the hoods up. Put your hands down.” We were like, ‘This looks so weird.’ So we kind of tried to loosen up and go outside for a couple of shots.

CC: Everyone was taking a break and the photographer was like, “Hey, let’s just try some out here.” It just looked cooler.

BT: You should have seen the first ones, it was cult Bug worship [laughs].

Figure by Miguel Gomez.

All the songs on Super Snõõper are from other releases except for all the ‘Stretching’ kind of sample interludes…

BT: Yeah. The way we do the live set now is that we don’t stop in between songs, but we have to tune, so we started making samples that go in between the songs to give us 30 seconds to tune our guitars, take a sip of our beer and then  get ready for the next song. All the ‘Stretching’ parts are samples that we’ve made at home.

Do you have a favourite sample you’ve used? 

CC: The second one. I actually don’t know the song we took it from, but it’s an old country song. The lyrics are: all the roads lead back to Nashville. It’s really funny because sometimes I think people don’t really know where we’re from, they think we’re from LA or something [laughs]. No, we’re actually from Nashville. People are always really surprised. I like to keep the hometown pride going.

There’s also the Suburban Lawns cover you do!

CC: Yeah. All the other songs are from the seven inches except for the cover of ‘Unable’ by Suburban Lawns. The set is laid out in a specific way where all the songs should flow. There’s the intro sample, then there’s ‘Bed Bugs’ which goes into ‘Pod’ which goes into ‘Fitness’. Then there’s the break and it’s kind of like mini sets. The first three songs should all be listened to kind of back-to-back. The middle four songs should all be listened to back-to-back. Live, it all flows.

BT: We’ve put a lot of thought into our live set, which is what the layout or the track listing on the record reflects, how we play it live. It’s very specific because we want to keep our stamina and energy up and we’ve calculated what’s feasible in this first set.

CC: It’s almost more of a theatrical play or performance. We can’t really switch up the songs. When people come to multiple Snõõper shows, it’s usually like the same set. We might switch the first and middle song, but the set has to flow the right way to give you the full experience of how it’s supposed to be.

You re-recorded the songs for the album?

CC: Yes. On all the seven inches, it’s me on all the instruments and Blair singing and doing some of the samples. On the LP is the full band. Our bassist Happy and our drummer Cam, have added little parts and stuff…

BT: The songs are faster and have more energy because we feel more confident playing them now. I personally have had such a hard time listening to this record. There was a night where Connor and I came home, we put it off for a really long time listening to it, and we would send it to the rest of the band and be like, what do you guys think? And let them make edits. It’s kind of embarrassing to say, but it was so hard for us because it sounds so different than the way we first recorded them. We put off listening to it forever, and the rest of the band would be like, “Have you guys listened to the record?” And we just wouldn’t text back. So we had to listen and we didn’t even make it through the whole thing. As soon as it sounded a little bit funny to us, we were like, oh, we can’t do it.

CC: The demos were hastily recorded, I would record the song and then Blair would be like, I’m stoked, I’m going to do vocals right now. She would do vocals and then we would just upload it and not mix it or master it. We would rush it so fast because we were just so excited, and now….

BT: …now we’re thinking about it! So back to your question earlier, now we’re thinking about things and it’s just so hard. When we were doing it the first time, we weren’t thinking about it at all and it sounded perfect to us because there was no thought or expectation. It was great. Listening to this record we’re like, I wonder if people are going to like it.

CC: These songs now on the LP are like how they should be. Sometimes when I listen to the demos, I still really love the way they sound, but I’ll be like, that was a terrible drum take. I was just excited. So I was like, I don’t want to redo it, I just want to move on to the next thing.

BT: I’m confident in the way that the new record sounds and confident enough to not really overthink it.

CC: We did the LP recording in four days. We didn’t spend too much time on it. We only did one day of overdubs and we were like, let’s just do it like we do live and not think about it too much.

Did you record it yourself?

CC: The entire band recorded it.

BT: At our friend’s studio.

CC: Erik Nervous came down and mic’ed everything and produced a little bit.

Nice. I’ve seen lots of people online call Snõõper, nerd punk. I also saw a person had commented: This band is about to blow the fuck up.

BT: [Laughs] That’s so funny. It’s really nice. The internet community has been so nice. I’m always looking at comments being like, are they going to say something mean? And then people say such nice stuff. I’m shocked that everyone’s been as nice as they have. The internet has gotten nicer lately. Something is up [laughs]. There was a time where people were being so mean on the internet, lately we’ve experienced everyone being pretty nice on there.

That’s because you’ve made something amazing! 

CC: Aw, thank you.

It sounds so cool. I had to get used to the album though, because I’m used to hearing the seven inches and then also seeing the live videos. The album seems more polished.

CC: It’s just because it wasn’t on the 8-track in our living room. I feel like in some ways it’s a little bit of a curse because we didn’t really mean for it to sound that lo-fi. I learn more about recording every time I record. We just put out the single ‘Waste’ right before the album and I was like, ‘Okay, only sounds like how I think the 8-track should sound.’

BT: We’re going to continue recording in the way that we always have, that’s the plan for Snõõper. Something we don’t want, is for people to listen to this and be like, ‘Oh, they’re doing something different now’—we’re not. The way we look at it is, this is for some people and then our 8-track or original recordings might be better, more geared for other people.

CC: We would show early recordings to people who didn’t get it and they would be like, “This sounds like shit recorded with your cell phone. This is terrible.” We were like, maybe we should make the record where it’s the same songs but just digestible for other people.

BT: There was a reddit thread that was so funny, our friend sent it to us and was like, ha ha; did you see this?

CC: It was like, “Would this band sound good if it didn’t sound like shit?” And they continued “It sounds like shit, but it works for them.” We were like, ‘Okay, that’s kind of a compliment, I guess.’

BT: We live pretty close to a music school called, Belmont. They do a lot of audio engineering. The thread on there was popping off. People were like, if it was really polished, it just wouldn’t be the same. 

CC: We were aware of that, that’s why we were nervous about the LP. It was actually really scary. We were like, ‘Are we going to alienate everyone?’ And they’re going to be like, “Oh, they did big production. It’s not good anymore.” The response has been so good that I don’t care anymore. It is what it is. Can’t do anything about it now.

I read another comment online and they said that you sound like Ween.

BT: That’s the highest compliment. I love Ween. And Connor loves Ween now, too. 

CC: We were listening to a lot of Ween when we made the second EP. Like ‘Fruit Fly’ is kind of a Ween song. And our covers that we do, I feel like, not ‘Unable’, but the ‘Come Together’ cover and ‘Bring Me Down’ are very Ween inspired.

Do you have a song on the LP that you really love?

BT: Let’s see, so ‘Fruit Fly’ is my favourite Snõõper song, but it’s not my favourite re-recorded song.

CC: I think ‘Powerball’ is my favourite off the album. I think it sounds way better in the demo. 

BT: I mean, ‘Pod’ now sounds like a real song to me. I like ‘Pod’. It was our first single, I’m going to go with ‘Pod’.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with me?

BT: I think we’ve covered everything. Thank you so much for listening to us. We’ll be meeting you soon! We’re so excited. 

Snõõper’s album Super Snõõper out now on Third Man Records. Follow @snooper_7. Find Snõõper on bandcamp. On tour in Australia now: GET tickets.

Lothario: “I don’t want to hide anymore”

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Original photo: Jacob McCann. Handmade collage by B.

Lothario is here! And we couldn’t be more stoked. A new solo punk project from Naarm/Melbourne-based creative Annaliese Redlich, who is also the host of 3RRR radio show Neon Sunset; producer of podcast All Ears – exploring the ways music challenges, comforts and connects us; she’s also a DJ; AND she’s so much more as you’ll find out reading this conversation. 

Lothario debuts with 7” single ‘Drunk Fuck / Black Hair’ – a vulnerable and agitated, raw expression of wildness. We’ve been lucky enough to also hear a sneak peek of her up coming full-length album, which we can attest, is filled with sharp-edged raucous expressions of love and personal power. Heavy underground hitters – Ishka aka Tee Vee Repairmann and Rob Craig aka Buck Biloxi feature on tracks. There’s all kinds of legends in her current live band too.

Annaliese recently stopped by Gimmie HQ for a long yarn about her world. There were tears, joy and laughter, as she shared her story of how she got to where she’s at and where she’s going next. 

What’s life been like for you lately? 

ANNALIESE: It’s a really wonderful place to start. I feel like life has been at warp speed for me lately. I’ve been finally feeling like so much stuff in my life has been opening up and calling for action from me, in ways and places that will just keep growing. My biggest desire as an energetic person, is to follow through on all of those things. I’m also finally learning a bit of rhythm with my creativity, I’m getting to understand the libido of my creativity. Before, it used to be this thing that kind of jumped through the window and surprised me or affected me at certain times in my life heartbreak and loss. Now it’s its own existing creature that is very active. So, life lately has felt very fast but good, not out of control. 

Isn’t it great when creativity comes, almost like a calling, you get this feeling, and you just feel compelled to do it. You have to!

A: That situation has allowed me to be my truest self. I’ve often questioned it, but I’ve just done it anyway, and it’s kind of alarming. But it’s also really good to know that this little thing is stirring inside of you like a magnet, pulling you through all of your own layers of bullshit or self-understanding or terrible narrative towards the thing that is most important for you to do, even if it’s kind of scary or ugly or concerning, or doesn’t often look like it’s going to be the most amazing thing you’ve done. But then a while later you’re like, oh yeah, my compass was working. That was good. 

Yeah, previously you’ve mentioned about how you sometimes might have an opportunity, but you realise that it’s not the right time.


A: Yeah. You could say that with relationships too. Timing is everything. If you’re talking about getting something in your life from A to B, if a journey or an experience has got to be linear like, that, cool, I started here and I ended up there; I don’t think life really works like that. 

I know in my creative life, in my journey of self-understanding, it’s like it’s all about creating new neural pathways. Maybe it won’t be by the time that I reach that endpoint or reach that next phase that I wanted to, but something else really fucking cool or interesting will happen on the way that will inform me about a whole other landscape that I need to be a part of. You got to be philosophical like that.

You’re originally from Meeanjin/Brisbane? 

A: Yeah. Born in Brisbane, moved to Melbourne to finish uni and to just feel a closer connection with music at my fingertips. I hung out in various punk scenes there. I’d go to The Art House all the time, seeing every possible show, and DIY shows across Melbourne. 

The first kind of biggest unconscious pull for me, well, other than going to Melbourne, was starting to volunteer at Triple R radio. I loved listening to the radio but I had zero interest in being on it. In terms of having any kind of on air engagement, I was terrified actually. Even going in and volunteering to help out on phones, because I was like, oh, there’s going to be all these cool music people there, and everyone’s going to be probably a wanker, just too cool for me. whatever, let alone any thought about doing on air stuff. The second that I got there, not only did I feel completely comfortable, but in the most sort of surprising way. I was around so many different kinds of people, all with this common pull to this great place that allowed a diversity of being and expression. They were just like, do a read on air and do a graveyard slot. And I was like, no, okay, they kept harassing me. I felt very lucky to be asked to do that stuff, but had zero self confidence with it. Then I was like, wait a minute, I’ve always collected records, I’ve always played music. I did some DJ nights in Brisbane with my rock and roll records. I thought, oh, wait, why can’t I do it? Why not me? Yeah, sure. Not many people get that chance. Not many people get that level of egging on. That turned into a year of a radio show, then two years of a radio show. Now I’m up to nine years, through a few different time slots, which is wild.

Now I’m a podcast producer, it’s shape me now as an audio producer. I have just learned how to multi-track through that and produce the 7” single for Lothario.  I’ll be putting out a full record at the end of year, too. It all comes from that, so it’s wild.


We’re really excited for it. I was listening to the Lothario tracks you sent through and I’ve seen some live vids online stuff. It feels like it’s a really powerful project for you. It seems like you’re really stepping into yourself and your own power. Lothario has a real hypersexual-vibe that’s coming from a place of empowerment and self-definition…

A: And, hyper-aggression and hyper-vulnerability. It’s great to hear you say that. It really feels like that for me and that’s not something that I actually anticipated or thought about. The fact that anyone else would pick up on that or care about it means a lot. That was a really beautiful insight. 

When I first started this, I had a flood of music ideas at the end of the year last year. I always had this dream to do it. I love playing in bands. I love the energy of other people in the way that, an idea that I might have, when I play it with a group of people or someone brings in a part or mishears it and it changes; it turns into this beautiful other thing. Collaboration, has always been so important to me. But I’ve also just always wondered what it would be like to take something 100% on my shoulders. How maybe that process could happen in myself; what would it feel like to be actually in control of the tool that you’re using and create what it was that was in your mind. I never thought I could do that. 

I always wanted to do this kind of multi-tracked, very organic, not kind of clean or clinical in a production sense, but create something with samples or live guitar and vocals. I just always reach this point of I can’t figure it out; I can’t finish the song. Or I finish the composition, but I can’t fucking make it how I want it. I’ve done one guitar track. I’d managed to do some bass in there, but I can’t do the drums – it was this gaffer tape and rubber band situation that did my head in and I gave up. My creative process got totally stifled and the libido got crushed out of it. 

When I sat down to have another crack at it, and I wasn’t even consciously doing it, I was like, I’ve got this riff. Cool. Oh, well, I can use Pro Tools now, and I know how to do that because I’ve created podcast series. I thought surely I can give it a go. I don’t know drums, so I’ll just like, bang on the table to do a metronome for it. Wait, I got an idea for a vocal line plugged in. And it’s like, oh, cool. That feels good.

I got talking to my friend Rob Craig in Louisiana, who’s a musician called Buck Biloxi, he’s sort of a (I will say this in kind of hilarious inverted quotes) “elder statesman” of New Orleans punk. He’s a kind of one man band situation himself, but has had a lot of groups Buck Biloxi and the Fucks and Giorgio Murderer. He was like, ‘I’d love to hear your music.’ And I was like, oh, I can’t. No one’s hearing it. It’s very private. I can’t play drums. He’s like, ‘You can figure it out.’ 

I sent him the tracks, and I was just like, oh, my gosh. Because while he’s a mate, I really hold him in very high esteem. And I was just going through this point in my life where my inner narrative was like, everything you do sucks. Don’t hide your vulnerable self from the world. Do you know how that works? How about you try the other thing? I was actively going through this thing of, yes, but maybe I’ll do the opposite. I thought he was probably going to hate them. Oh, my god. 

He wrote back straight away and was really into it.He said, ‘Can I record some drums for you? Would you like that?’ I was like, yeah! He did, and it just worked. Then I was getting flooded with these ideas and had this set up in my living room.

Lothario is a character. I’m not just hypersexual. I’m not just hyper-angry. I’m also vulnerable. I’m all of these things. I’m not hiding, I don’t want to hide anymore. I don’t have like an instrument to hide behind either [laughs]. 

I’ve done lots of musical projects, mostly in the punk, garage, rock and roll realms, but also, at the same time as doing that, I was the front woman for a late 50s to mid 60s soul and R&B-style band, singing like Etta James. We were called Anna-Lee & the Double Lovers. I did that from 2000 – kind of a foundational Jamaican ska and rocksteady classics thing, not so much Motown. I started it with a bunch of guys that I knew who were all professional players. But we’re all these record nerds because I love collecting 45s. I love that music! There’s all of these amazing tracks, like B-side tracks that nobody knows and they’re the most heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, incredible songs. And we all had these records and I was like, oh, let’s get together.!

I love that idea of putting on a glitter gown and creating a show. I would do my hair in a beehive. And the guys had the right gear, the right amps, and we really worked on the sound. I love performing a show and playing a character. Having nowhere to hide because I was just out the front was really challenging. It was about becoming a better singer. It’s hard work. I love getting physical and being present. I feel I do struggle with the guitar, so I feel a little bit hogtied. So doing this is kind of a bit more freeing. All these Lothario songs, it’s the most exciting, most validating or satisfying thing I’ve ever done.

The live band is Billiam and Locke, who plays with Billiam a lot. Moose from The Uglies is going to play bass and Sarah Hardiman wants to join on guitar for a couple of shows. And, Steph Crase (Skid City, Fair Maiden, Batrider) from Summer Flake. I’ve looked up to them for so long. While I really want to build a relationship, I love these people and I love having people want to be involved in making music with me, particularly this music; I love the idea of it not being the way I started this. Why do we have to be wedded to the same players? It’s important to get the right mix of people. I might even get to play love with my mate Rob from Rob New Orleans that I mentioned. What an honour. How exciting. We’ll see how Lothario evolves.

It must be really liberating to have project that’s so fluid!

A: Yeah. I am going to the States for a couple of months at the end of the year and I already have an American touring band. We’re going to do some dates there, probably in the southern parts. I have mates in LA and New York that could do some shows or I could do some shows, just me, OG Lothario.

Once I realised that the worst demons are the ones that you carry yourself and nobody probably says things bad about you as you bad  as you say about yourself… once you can fucking sit down and take a good hard look at that stuff in you, that’s haunting you and holding you back, or can reframe that in good directions for you, then the rest, is pretty easy.

Yeah, you have to do the work. if you look at yourself and you do it honestly (I’ve done that myself in the last few years) and you work on that doubting self-talk and things that haunt you and a finally live your life in the truth, all the best things start to happen for you. There’s a confidence that comes with truth, there’s no my truth, only the truth.

A: It really does. It’s so true. I see a counsellor. I thought I was living in my truth. I was always looking for that truth. There’s a level of confusing shit that you have to go through sometimes to figure out which way your compass points.

I’m always in awe of many of the musicians that we know and love through Gimme that you highlight that are in great bands that really resonate, especially younger people. It’s not about popularity, it’s about, these people are in their skin. You can tell that they’re in their creative skin really early.

Photo: Jacob McCann.

I’m always impressed by passionate people, especially those that find what they love young, dedicate themselves to it, and stay the course. A lot of people in life don’t even know what they’re passionate about, if anything. What made you choose the name, Lothario? 

A: It’s kind of a joke! I’m aware that “Lothario” is an attractive man who swindles women out of whatever they have that they want, ruthlessly and in cold blood. I’m interested to know why there’s the double standard of women in music, of the way that our sexuality is presented (I can’t believe we still have to fucking talk about this, by the way) but the fact that if you’re up on stage and performing publicly you’re in the gaze, but you’re not doing it for the gaze. So many things are asked, and are expected, of women and people presenting as women that aren’t even questioned with men. I guess I’m taking stock of my own sexuality and sexual drive. Sometimes people are well-meaning but other times dickheads come up to me, and ask me, ‘Oh, did you write all of that?’

That’s just gross. People would never go up to a male musician and ask if he writes all the songs.

A: Yeah. It’s like thanks for the compliment, you’re essentially saying that you like the riffs, you like the song, you like the chorus. That’s cool, but would you say that to a dude? You fucking wouldn’t.

You’ve told me in previous bands you’d mostly write about love and heartache; is that still the case with Lothario?


A:Yeah. I was going through a tremendous amount of heartache and writing about it. Processing soul crushing heartbreak stuff, and also the potential spark of love again. 

I may call my LP this, Loser Songs For Lovers or Love Songs For Losers. It’s not an entirely original idea, but the record is like a trajectory of heartbreak from, like, holy fuck, I don’t even know who you are in a relationship anymore, and where did you go? Then the crushing devastating loneliness and sadness, grief. And, I’m going to go out hook up and crush a beer can against my head. I was kind of leaning into that character of the stupid bloke that you see out in the street on countless strip malls, in countless capital cities every Friday/Saturday night, just charging around, fucking and fighting. I found I have a fair bit of that in me [laughs]. I’ve never fought people, but in my own level of intensity and energy, gone out and destroyed myself. It’s like, oh, gosh, here I am in this incredibly emotionally vulnerable state, and I go out with my couple of my mates, just out all night doing naughty things, but kind of hurting ourselves. What if I made that into a character and it’s just even questioning in myself, am I questioning that because I’m a woman and I shouldn’t be doing that? What if I was a lad, a bloke? I’d be fucking celebrating it. I’m going to fucking fight tonight. Yeah, all right! You just need that no nonsense anthem to charge to, which is a bit of what this is about.

What was the first song that you totally followed through on and finished?

I finished ‘Black Hair’ and ‘Drunk Fuck’ pretty much at the same time. Those songs will be a 7”. It was important to me to pair those because it was a prolific period.

‘Drunk Fuck’ is: Six ft-something with nothing to say / But Saturday night it’ll be okay / Bored and horny, getting dumber by the day / It’s Saturday night in the USA / It’ll be okay / You look all right in the blacklight / Come on and touch me up and give me that drunk fuck. Just fucking take, take, smash, smash!

‘Black Hair’ is about being shut down and shut off, and then seeing that very unexpected spark with someone. Like, whoa! What was that? Do I trust this? No, I don’t trust this. I’ve been here before. Fuck. I don’t want to, but could this be it? Could this be it? It’s a sign. That door is starting to open. And maybe you’re letting that light in a little bit. It was funny to me that I wrote those both at the same time because they were both things that were happening and they’re still both happening. 

So you’re still working on tracks for the full-length album;  the ones I’ve heard  are demo versions? 

A: They might not even be. I’ve got another six, so I don’t know. There’s offers to put out 7”’s on other labels, then I’ve got Under The Gun I’ve just confirmed for an LP for around the end of the year.

That’s so exciting. You put a snippet up on your instagram of song ‘Doggy’, which we love.

A: Originally I was going to call it ‘Good Dog’. Ishka from Tee Vee Repairmann plays drums on that one. 

Awesome! Ishka is the loveliest and so talented. Do you have a favourite song you’ve written?

A: One of my favourites on the album is labelled as ‘OD’  or ‘Overdrawn’. ‘Overdrawn’ is: Headed out tonight, won’t stop till the daylight / Pretend that you are dead, wish we’d never met / Overdrawn and I’m outta my head an dI feel like shit.It’s really about self-punishing. There’s no libido in that, actually.

A lot of the narrative of the album is about self-loathing and punishing yourself; is there a moment where things change for the positive? 

A: Yeah. Kind of stuff with ‘Black Hair’. It’s a bit sweet, but there’s still a whole lot of jdark.

Song ‘Hogtied’ is musically quite dark, it’s all about breaking up with the self. It’s looking inwards. Although, it’s named because my best friend and I sing the Hog’s Breath Cafe theme song to each other a lot, and we were talking about Hogs Breath Cafe. But really, it’s looking inwards and asking; what do I have to do to be enough? What do I have to do to if I do this? If I do that? If I break the crown and kill the king will that wipe the doubt that lies within? 

It’s about a dream that I had ten years ago where it was actually, this whole aesthetic of Lothario. I went to sleep one night and I woke up differently the next day. This huge thing in my consciousness had shifted with it, and I wrote it out. It was about the most gruesome gory battle that I had to face of killing the king, who was like my beloved father. I was small and not the same grandeur as him. I pulled out this little tiny knife and I just ended it. There was a lot going on for me at that time, but it’s the insight that I’ve gotten at different points in my life. My dreams are very important to me, and very powerful.

Very much like the dreamer! Proud of you and this project, Lothario, Annaliese. Oh, and FYI just in case you’re still wondering—you’re totally enough, now and always.

A: Awww thank you. I love you.

Lothario’s ‘Drunk Fuck / Black Hair’ 7” available to preorder digitally HERE and coming soon on 7” via Italian label Goodbye Boozy Records. Follow @xlothariox.

ITCHY AND THE NITS: “Fast, happy, silly, outrageous and contagious.”

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Original photo courtesy of Itchy and the Nits / Handmade mixed media collage by B.

Garage punk weirdo trio from Gadigal Country/Sydney, Itchy And The Nits released their debut EP last week and we’re totally vibing on it! They’re super fun and super cool – read our interview with Beth, Cin and Eva, give their songs a listen, and find out for yourself.

Who or what first made you want to be in a band?

BETH (drums/vox): I think probably going to gigs and seeing all different kinds of bands I just thought it seemed like it would be fun! Cin and I always planned to be in a band together growing up.

CIN (bass/vox): I played bass in the school band and me and two of my friends who played baritone saxophone and trombone tried to form a band and obviously it was terrible. I guess it always seemed like fun! I thought the girl who played bass in school of rock was super cool.

EVA (guitar/vox): When I was 15 I saved up my dog walking money to buy my guitar and I guess from there it made sense to wanna jam with other people! My friend Charlotte and I were always into punk in school and used to jam together, and I guess I wanted to be like girls I thought were awesome like Kim Deal or Poly Styrene!

Growing up, how did you discover music?

BETH: Me and Cin’s Dad played in bands when we were kids and still does, he played a lot of 60s garage and punk records at home  so we always loved that stuff and got really into it as we got older

EVA: Mostly my Dad, when I was five he gave me a Madness CD that I was obsessed with and took to school for show and tell to play ‘One Step Beyond’ hahaha. From there I just grew up into all the same music as him, and then as a teenager kept looking for more.

CIN:: Family who liked cool music! Our parents were always playing punk tapes in the car and me and Beth would get hooked on particular songs and they’d have to spend the whole car ride rewinding the tape manually for us.

How’d you all meet?

BETH: I met Charlotte (who used to play in the band) at work and she introduced me to Eva, We all had similar taste in music and when Eva started working with us we starting jamming together at my house. Cin my sister started playing bass with us about a year later!

EVA: Me and Charlotte have been best friends since we started high school. Charlotte got a job working with Bethany at the ice cream shop, and then I got a job there where I met Bethany and the rest is history… I met Cin through Bethany as they’re sisters hehe.

CIN:: Yeah!

What influences the Itchy & The Nits sound?

At the moment probably Nikki and the Corvettes, The Donnas and The Gizmos!

What’s the story behind the band name?

We had our first gig coming up but we didn’t have a name yet so we had to come up with one quick. We had a song called Charlotte’s Got Nits, so we thought The Nits but then Charlotte and Beth came up with Itchy And The Nits and we thought that was just lovely.

In exciting news, you’re releasing music! Seven songs recorded with Ishka (Tee Vee Repairmann, RRC…) and mixed by Owen (Straight Arrows); what’s five words you’d use to describe it?

Yeah! They’re out now! Maybe fast, happy, silly, outrageous and contagious.

How long have you been working on this release?

We’ve had a lot of the songs for like a year or two and just recorded our favourites with Ishka last June, and we’ve been taking our sweet time putting them out cause we weren’t really sure what we were meant to do with it or how to do any of that kinda stuff! But it’s finally out!

What’s one of your fondest memories from recording with Ishka?

It was relaxed and fun! It wasn’t about getting everything perfect. We recorded on an 8 track and played our parts all at once so it was like doing a mini show. Hanging out with Jen, Ishka and their cat Egg McMuffin is always lovely!

What’s one of your favourites in this collection of songs? Tell us a little bit about it.

Maybe ‘Dreamboat’! We actually wrote it about our shared celebrity crush haha. Also when we play it live now we do a dance in unison during the verses which we accidentally spent almost three hours of band practice perfecting instead of rehearsing the songs.

What would we find each band member doing when you’re not making music?

Cin’s always off on adventures driving around and camping hehe. Eva’s usually going for a swim or bushwalk with her special bird binoculars and Beth is probably watching telly and playing tricks on people

Has anyone in the band got a secret talent or hobby?

BETH: Eva is good at identifying Australian Birds so whenever a bird flies past she can usually say what kind of bird it is and a few interesting facts about it. Cin makes her own ice cream at home and is always making delicious new flavours!

EVA: Beth does amazing paintings and drawings and comic strips. She did the drawings on the album cover, and has made a lyric/comic strip for ‘Crabs’!

What’s been the best and worst show you’ve played? What made it so?

The worst was probably when we played on New Year’s Eve in 2021 I think it was, and the headliner band couldn’t make it and lockdown had just ended. There were about 10 people there including the seccies, the bartenders and the people playing pool up the back. It was probably also the best because we played better than ever since no one was there to see it.

Any pre-show or after-show rituals?

Right after every show just as we’re taking our things off stage we have someone off to the side who has a big hook that catches us and drags us away.

What have you been listening to lately? What’s something you recommend we listen to right now?

EVA: These aren’t so much new discoveries as albums that I am just obsessed with constantly, but I reckon for the last couple years I have listened to the albums Pinky Blue by Altered Images and True Love Stories by Jilted John at least twice a week.

BETH: There’s these YouTube channels- bolt24 hot sounds and Glendoras they upload heaps of different cool 60s stuff so I like checking what’s new on there. Also been listening to The Go Gos and the Delmonas heaps lately!

CIN:: I’ve been listening to the album ‘las canciones de conchita velasco’ a lot lately!

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

Hopefully doing some more recordings with Ishka! Playing some more gigs and working on some new songs too!

Itchy And The Nits’ self-titled EP out now – get it HERE via Warttmann Inc. Find them on Facebook and Insta @itchyandthenits.

Sex Drive’s Shopping Blitz: “Pure, raw energy.”

| gimmiezine

Original photos by Jhonny Russell. Handmade collage by B.

Yugambeh Country/Gold Coast punks Sex Drive have released one of THE best Australian punk albums of the year, Shopping Blitz. The songs are bursts of intensity filled with anger, empathy, humour and power. In our latest print issue you’ll find an in-depth chat with vocalist Beau Kearsley (get it here), and below we spoke to guitarist Benaiah Fiu about the album.

Sex Drive’s Shopping Blitz album is finally out! It’s been a long time coming; how do you feel now that it’s out in the world?

BENAIAH: It’s surreal actually, because I’d just forgotten about it. We recorded it five years ago. All the hard work was done so long ago. It being out feels so amazing. I was a bit heartbroken when it didn’t come out back then. I guess I could have done something about it, but my head wasn’t in the right place.

When we spoke to Beau, he said that when the initial album release plans fell through he was really depressed too.

B: Yeah, it was a hard time.

What do you remember about Sex Drive’s beginnings?

B: Pure, raw energy. The demo was written without Jake on drums. The structure was all there but not working with our old drummer. I met Jake the first time we all had a jam and that jam we knew straight away, this is the guy. He’s amazing and he’s an amazing human. He was a perfect fit. It felt really exciting. At that point in our lives we had a lot of angst, we were young and it felt so good to let it out through the music.

Have you always lived on the Gold Coast?

B: Yeah, pretty much. Since I was fourteen. I used to live on Fiji’s most remote island – it’s where my dad is from. I lived there for three years. 

What was it like living out there?

B: The first year was a complete culture shock. I was twelve. Some of the guys in my village happened to be amazing musicians and I thought they were the coolest dudes. They taught me to play guitar, and smoke and drink [laughs]. They played reggae and a bit of blues.

Is that the first music that you started to really get into?

B: No. While I was living there it was definitely all reggae for sure. When I was younger I was obsessed with The Offspring as well as System Of A Down and Eminem. My older sister still lived here in Australia and she’d send me CDs while I was there. There wasn’t anything like a local music shop to get anything, it was just all the boys playing guitar.

Photo by Jhonny Russell.

Beau told us that when he first started hanging out with you and heard you playing Slayer songs on the guitar he was like, ‘Whoa! He likes stuff I do. We’re going to get along.’

B: [Laughs]. I got into Slayer as soon as I got back to Australia. My sister had a cool older boyfriend, he got me into bodyboarding and gave me all these VHS tapes. All the music on them were amazing, it was all 90s punk. 

Was Sex Drive your first band?

B: No. I had a band called Jim’s Radio with a couple of friends. We’d jam in one of their bedrooms and there was this 90-year-old neighbour guy called, Jim, that would put his radio up at the window and blast it back at us for revenge [laughs]. We made songs about KFC and stuff. It was a little fun project. I never imagined that I’d end up being in band playing shows at that point early on. 

The drummer for that project got invited to be in a psychedelic rock band and I was like, ‘Damn it! I thought we were going to make it to the top!’ [laughs]. They kicked out their guitarist and asked me to join. I was like, ‘No way! Whoa. These guys are so cool.’ We played some shows around the Goldie. 

You met Beau out in the water? You both bodyboard.

B: Yeah. It was so long ago. He had no idea who I was and I really looked up to him, he was an amazing waterman. I was getting into it a bit late. He was the coolest kid. He came to a party at mine and he was being so drunk and funny. He shaved his head and eyebrows in my backyard [laughs]. We were still in high school. I played him some Doors songs I had been listening to like ‘Five To One’. He loved it. We started talking on MySpace and we organised to go surfing together. It was pure fun. 

Beau said early Sex Drive rehearsals was at Jake’s mum’s place.

B: Yeah, we played songs that would become the Demo. When we played with Jake everything made sense. It was like, YES! We’re on! We had a sense that it might actually turn into something. 

Photo by Jhonny Russell.

Beau also said that a lot of Sex Drive is because of you, that you help him with so much, including how to sing things.

B: I’ll come in with a guitar riff or I’ll have a whole structure for a song or we do it together. It’s cool we’re a collaborative band. Beau’s approach to singing, I love how it works with my guitar playing and Jake’s drumming. 

We jammed heaps in a factory that we lived in. Our friend Floyd would play drums, it was his “house”. Beau and I moved in. 

Beau showed me the Cosmic Psychos documentary and it was incredibly inspiring. It was like, we live in a shed too [laughs]. It was really fun.

The band also used to work together in a fedora factory?

B: Yeah! [laughs]. It was down the road and around the corner from where we lived. We had a real dipshit rock n roll little lifestyle. We were young. 

How old?

B: We’re pretty immature for our ages [laughs]. I was 23 and Beau is a year younger. 

Tell us about recording your Demo.

B: Dangerz, who was the drummer in that first project I was telling you about, ended up studying sound engineering at Byron SAE. He recorded us for his assignment. He’s naturally talented at it all and did a good job.

Next came the self-titled Sex Drive 7”.

B: That was recorded in a blokes house in Ocean Shores, in his home studio. 

What about the new one, your first full-length, Shopping Blitz? Micky Grossman did it?

B: Yeah, he had a cool little set up. 

You recorded a couple of times, right? The first time didn’t work out quite how you wanted so you recorded again.

B: We went down there [Gadigal Country/Sydney] a few times. The first time we had a bunch of people in there watching Beau do his vocal takes and partying—we were kind of ruining it.  I wish I could go back and record again because I was so drunk and anxious at the time of recording. I’ve grown to love the recording now; it always takes me a while to come around.

What were you nervous about?

B: My personal life was spiralling. My idea of my musical trajectory wasn’t going as planned. I felt like I was getting old and that my dreams were slipping through my fingers. 

Has your dream of what you want to do with music changed?

B: Definitely. 

What’s important to you now?

B: It’s just going back to basics and having fun with it and not caring about anything other than trying to write cool songs, not caring about the outcomes. And, playing shows to people that enjoy coming to watch. 

We’re so stoked on the album. It’s a classic Australian punk record. 

B: Awesome! All of the songs for the album and the EP were written around the same time in a storage shed in Burleigh. 

One of our favourite songs on the album is ‘Strange Motel’. Beau said you had a solo project called Strange Motel?

B: I started project Strange Motel before we recorded the album. When we were writing that song, before we started jamming it, Beau would say in the funniest voice, ‘A man walked into a strange motel.’ He’s so funny. That would be the song intro at the time. It didn’t have a name but we decided to call it that for that reason. 

For Strange Motel, I just felt like I had to write more songs. I’d figured out how to use GarageBand and do drums and bass, so I stole the name for the project [laughs]. 

Do you have a favourite song on Shopping Blitz?

B: ‘American Muscle’. I love Beau’s vocals and delivery – in the verse it feels really powerful for me. 

He was telling me what that song about…

B: He hasn’t even told me!

He said it was about when he was in America and he got beat up at a show for dancing. 

B: Shit.

‘Shopping Blitz’ is a funny one. My friend Kale, our first bass player – he was a massive part of the song ‘Hate Home’. I loved playing with him on bass, we’d sit in my bedroom and figure out new riffs for tracks. He really hated ‘Shopping Blitz’ because that riff – I wrote it lifetimes ago in 2013 – we’d always jam it. Jake and Beau would force us to play it and he hated it [laughs]. It’s gone through different phases of how it’s played. It’s amazing that it made it on to the album. It’s my favourite. 

‘Shopping Blitz’ is about shopping centre Pacific Fair?

B: Yeah, I guess. The lines. It can be the lines at the shops or the white lines on the road going by on a road trip. 

‘Military Boy’ was really exciting. I brought in a riff and asked the boys to help craft it into a song and there was so much energy in the room when we first jammed it. It was getting away from the Australian sound (that we love playing). Now we’re trying to blend hardcore and that Aussie pub rock sound.

What hardcore bands do you love?

B: There’s a band called White Pigs, they’re an endless source of inspiration, with their self-titled EP on YouTube. I really love hardcore and metal crossover bands. I feel like a bit of an outsider in the hardcore scene. I admire and respect hardcore, especially guys like Primitive Blast and Nerve Damage. I love going to their shows and standing at the back and watching because I love the music but I don’t know the moves [laughs]. 

Anything else to tell us?

B: We have a bunch of exciting ideas for new songs for Sex Drive. I’m just getting back into things. I lost my license, so it’s just me at home in the garage with my guitar. I’m thankful for the time, I can’t go for a drive somewhere and distract myself. 

It’s so great that you’re sober and have clarity and time to create again. You might come up with things you’ve never even imagined before because you have a clear head. We’re so excited for you.

B: Yeah. Thank you. I thought drinking was enhancing it. Now I can see that it was definitely just numbing me and I was wasting my time. I’m so excited for everything too. Can’t wait to get out there and play shows with my best friends. 

Sex Drive Shopping Blitz is out now get via Scarlet Records or on SD’s bandcamp + via Lulu’s in Naarm and Repressed Records on Gadigal Country. Follow: Sex Drive Facebook and @sexdrive.aus.

Imperial Leather’s Inspiration for new 7”: “Breakups! …sex or anger…”

| gimmiezine

Original photo: Pierre Baroni / Handmade mixed-media collage by B.

Naarm/Melbourne-based band Imperial Leather deliver punk heat with big emotions, sharp edges, and new wave sass on their self-titled 7” that’s out today on Rack Off Records! Gimmie got an insight into the EP and the creatives behind it – Annaliese Redlich, Emma Peel, Ginger Light and Alice Edgeley.

We understand that Imperial Leather started after a dream and wanting an excuse to spend more time together; what was the dream? What brought you together and what did you initially bond over?

ANNALIESE (guitar, vox): I literally had a dream about Emma when I first met her properly playing footy that we were going to do some cool shit together!

GINGER (bass): To have fun & laugh.

I first met Emma at a Soul A Go Go in 2010. We bonded over her 60s style, music & her incredible thigh high Italian boots. I met Annaliese as a client of mine in 2013. We bonded over music also & got to know each other after dancing at a Slow Grind a fever night. She started dating my boyfriend’s friend. We all went to many gigs together. I met Alice in 2016 when I opened up my salon Ginger Hair in Collingwood. She made an appointment and said she wanted red hair like a Scottish person. I thought that was cool. I’d seen Alice around town with her husband William & their gorgeous dog Rupert. We bonded over small dogs & fashion. Alice has a clothing boutique Edgeley & makes the most beautiful outfits I’ve ever worn. Thanks Alice!

ALICE (drums): Annaliese was putting on a night and asked me if I wanted to come dressed as Poison Ivy. So a mutual love of The Cramps!

How did you first discover music?

GINGER: I discovered music on the radio. Mum use to listen to Gold 104.3 in the car. We use to do lots of long drives. They played 60’s & 70’s music.

EMMA (keys): The classic mum and dad’s record collection. Dad, in particular, had cool stuff like Electric Prunes and other garage artists from the 60s. 

ANNALIESE: I’ve never had a time in my life where music wasn’t everything. My Dad really into classical, Mum really into 60s girl groups and The Stones. As a teenager that classical pressure got me into the immediacy of punk.

ALICE: the first record I remember wanting to put on was Bob Marley and the Wailers.That was when I was reeeeally young. I’ve aways been quite obsessed with music. I had a yellow Sony portable tape player and I used to take it around with me and play cassettes over and over until they shredded.

Who or what inspired you to start playing music yourself?

EMMA: Ok, this is really ridiculous, but when I was a tween I was really into…Glenn Miller (LOL – i know) and used to imagine myself playing trombone in a big band. Instead my mother enrolled me in piano lessons….

ANNALIESE: I could never imagine not playing, but for so long it was in my bedroom and just trying to get out stuff that was eating away at me. I grew up with the whole “10,000 hours of practice” mantra and so I kept it to myself. That’s definitely why I found punk so liberating when I discovered it, cause the idea you had to be a musical “genius” to play in front of others just always felt so wrong to me. Plus there’s as much beauty in mistakes, as there is cold and boring clinicism in “perfection”.

GINGER: The Leathers inspired me to start. 

When did you start?

GINGER: 2019

ALICE: 2019 at the age of 39 I started learning the drums so that I could be in the band. I had to message them all then to say “Hi I’ve started lessons. Are we going to get together and jam?”

EMMA: 1986, baby!

ANNALIESE: At age 10 with an acoustic guitar in my bedroom, first tunes were Nirvana and Deep Purple lol!

Is there an album or band that has had a big impact on you and what do you appreciate about it/them?

GINGER: So many bands & genres. The Beatles are probably my fave. I love the diversity over their 10 years together. The Beatles always make me happy when I listen to them.

Emma: I have musical epiphanies on the regular, so I can’t narrow it down.

ANNALIESE: Quite literally impossible to answer but Tina Turner, Ronnie Spector and other 60s girl group vibes was my earliest obsession at 6 years old. Discovering Bad Brains and Bikini Kill when I was 12 made me wanna play music. Dean Blunt’s Black Metal and Mike Rep and Tommy Jay marked a landscape of music I’d been previously unable to articulate and it felt so liberating to hear it actualised. Bona Dish, Carambolage, Delta 5 were part of the stomach bacteria that formed my vibes for Imperial Leather. Just to name a few out of the 1000s of key moments for me!

ALICE: I love the Cure, Three Imaginary Boys. Also Kate Bush blew my mind when i heard her on the radio late one night. 

We’d love to know more about each of the tracks on your new self-titled EP we’re premiering. What sparked the writing of ‘Heavy Breathing’?

GINGER: We jammed Heavy Breathing at Bakehouse one day. I really like it it ‘cause it was simple & fun. Annaliese always makes it fun, she changes the lyrics & makes me laugh. It’s a hot song.

How did ‘Lewis Lee’ come together?

ANNALIESE: I record demos on my phone and for a period of time everything was getting auto labeled as “Lewis Lee Associates”. At the time I was going through a particularly bad break up and at that point where you wonder if you ever really knew that person you were so intimate with at all. The lyrics of that song are all about the physical and digital objects in our lives that are evidence of our existence and relationships; the pixels that form a message on a phone, sheets of paper etc. And so it’s a break up song to a person I never knew and it felt apt to call him Lewis Lee. 

GINGER: ‘Lewis Lee’ came together from Annaliese’s wifi connection at her home. Cool song.

EP artwork courtesy of Rack Off Records.

What inspired ‘Smile Now, Cry Later’? Can you share with us a time where you’ve experienced this?

ANNALIESE: Again with the break ups! I kinda mostly feel motivated to write in these headspaces, or about sex or anger, all strong experiences. I’m trying to work on love songs but I find these tricky.

‘Smile Now, Cry Later’ is wondering if what you went through with someone close ever really meant anything at all when it’s all said and done. Asking what the point of all the good times are when they’re only gonna end in tears. Also doing the dirty on yourself by grinning and bearing it, when you really should just get the hell outta there! 

GINGER: This one’s Annaliese. It’s fun to play i really like it.

What’s the story behind ‘Creep Stain’?

EMMA: Band practice is always a very cathartic time whereby we all bring our gripes and grievances and have a big old whinge just to get it out of our systems. Quite often we talk about creeps that lurk around our lives. Mostly ex lovers and insincere people. I was so cross one night that I channelled my rage into the riff and then i took it to the band and we worked it up into a song together.

ANNALIESE: A definite catharsis! A rack off rant dedicated to all the vampires!

GINGER: Hahaha, Emma came up with the riff on this number. Annaliese threw in the words, most of what we all use in our daily vocabulary.

What aspect did you enjoy most creating your EP?

GINGER: I actually really enjoyed the recording. I was nervous of course. But Billy Gardener was a dream, so kind and cool.

EMMA: The last few years of lockdowns stopped us from rehearsing and recording, so to finally be in the same room together doing this thing was incredibly joyful.

ANNALIESE: Recording with Billy Gardner and the process of mixing with Dave Forcier was so great! But just having it out feels really satisfying after the past few years of fuckery tbh. Also working with the Rack Off Records women has been amazing, their enthusiasm and support of what we do is unreal!

We understand that members of the IL are DJs; what’s your go to song for instant happiness?

GINGER: At our first gig supporting Davey Lane at The Espy in December 2020. We were all a little nervous I think. Well I certainly was. I can’t remember if it was Emma or Annaliese but they played Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer.’ It was hilarious, we all danced around & shook the nerves loose.

EMMA: Anything by Jorge Ben.

ANNALIESE: Such a hard question to answer. Everything from Adolescents – ‘Kids Of The Blackhole’, Satan’s Rats – ‘Louise’, GG King – ‘Remain Intact’, Thin Lizzy – ‘Wild One’, Rockin Ramrods – ‘Bright Lit Blue Skies’. BUT If I were a pro wrestler, my entry song would be Triplett Twins – ‘Pretty Please’. It’s such an amp up!

ALICE: Kid Creole and the Coconuts- ‘Lifeboat Party’ or ‘Marcia Baile’ by Les Rita Mitsouko.

Earlier in the year you supported Shannon & The Clams; what do you remember most from that show?

ANNALIESE: That was such a rad night. I’d met Shannon several times before interviewing her on my radio show, she is a gorgeous person, so it was amazing to be asked to support them. I was also DJing that night so was mostly running around all night. Shannon is one of the great voices of the last decade imo, and the whole band are extraordinary musicians and people. It was such an honour to be on a line up with them!

GINGER: I remember the sound check thinking…. Wow Shannon’s voice is phenomenal. I love her bass, singing & big hair.

What would be your dream collaboration?

GINGER: I would love if The Leathers could do a video with Nick McKinlay or Izzie Austin.

EMMA: I’d love to collab with Our Carlson. 

ANNALIESE: We do a cover of Bona Dish’s track 8am. When we put it up online Steven Chandler of the band wrote to us to say how much he dug it, so that would be pretty amazing! Or I know I’m speaking for Alice our drummer too when I say a clothing collab with Seth Bogart Wacky Wacko, or the incredible Wha-Wha and Kaylene would be a DREAM.

ALICE: A collab with Koffee would be ace.

 

What do you get up to when not making music?

GINGER: Cutting hair, making people look beautiful & hopefully getting some rest in.

EMMA: Doing a weekly radio show, DJing, running a music festival, parenting and wondering why I’m bloody tired all the time.

ANNALIESE: I’m a full time podcast producer and also do a weekly Saturday music show on 3RRR Fm called Neon Sunset. I’m also always DJing and noodling around with music stuff, and like Emma wondering why I have over committed to everything!

ALICE: I’m a fashion and costume designer and I have a shop so I’m either chained to the sewing machine or computer or doing some shop stuff. We use the shop to rehearse in which is useful. 

What’s next for Imperial Leather?

GINGER: Our EP launch at The Old Bar March 25th.

Imperial Leather’s self-titled EP is available digitally and on 7” vinyl via Rack Off Records HERE. Follow @imperial.leather

Boorloo Punk Band Sooks: “My hope for the immediate future is that we finally establish a treaty and begin, genuinely, to decolonise.”

| gimmiezine

Original photo courtesy of Sooks. Handmade collage by B.

Sooks are a punk band from Boorloo/Perth, Western Australia via Brazil, that we discovered this year when they released debut songs ‘The Bends’ and ‘Bushfire’. The members also play in other bands, Asbestos Face, Lounge Tourist and Wound Honey. Their DEMO 22 cassette rules! Check them out, they may become one of your new favourite bands. Gimmie caught up with the four-piece for a chat.

What makes Sooks, Boorloo via Brasil? What are the music communities like in both places?

KYLE [guitars & composition]: Our beautiful drummer Rudah is originally from Sao Paulo. 

RUDAH [drums]: It is impossible to answer this question without talking about politics, which would make this answer too long, but basically there are a lot of similar things between the punk/hardcore scene in Perth and in São Paulo (where I came from). At the same time, I think in Australia people play punk music because they like it, other bands play punk to express their feelings and to protest for improvements in people’s lives, while in Brazil we make punk music as way to fight for our basic rights that are not respected or they were stolen from us and to protest against corruption and political decisions that affect everyone. A hypothetical situation, Australia is worried about fixing the roof of the house, in Brazil we don’t even have the land to build our house yet. 

Like Australia, Brazil was invaded, colonized, indigenous peoples were enslaved and many people brought from different parts of Africa were used as slaves. There was no historic repair. There is no regret or intention to fix this dirty past. Femicide is something that shames us too. Brazil is the seventh country that kills most women in the world. Since President Bolsonaro (alt-right) took office four years ago, Brazil has returned to the world hunger map and the number of people living in extreme poverty has increased too much. Punk in Brazil fights against all this. Nowadays, unfortunately, Brazil is a country that flirts with fascism. That’s the main enemy, but I hope this is going to change in the future. 

About music, I reckon in Perth there are many places for bands to perform. In Brazil bands are struggling to find a place to play. The media hardly gives space to punk and hardcore bands. They always prefer other musical genres that are more traditional in Brazilian culture, so that’s one thing hard to explain and people in Australia will never understand it… and honestly, they don’t need to understand that, but many friends have asked me about politics, culture, punk scene and why I decided to move to Australia. Anyway, I love my friends and my bands (Sooks, Nervous and Asbestos Fence).

ANGE [words, vocals & guitars]: We love having Rudah in the band, he’s so passionate about social justice in both Australia and Brasil – thanks for your answer Rudah we love you.

Boorloo is the Noongar (Indigenous) name for Perth where we live and make music. We want to highlight that sovereignty of this land has never been ceded and First Nation peoples are custodians of the longest continuing culture in the world, which is why we use this traditional name. Rudah has put it eloquently, we are a lucky country here in Australia but we have a ways to go, especially in our journey to reconciliation. My hope for the immediate future is that we finally establish a treaty and begin, genuinely, to decolonise.

Sooks had their first jam in January 2022; what do you remember about it?

KYLE: Ahh well, I remember booking the first rehearsal before I even had any fully formed songs ha-ha! It gave me a deadline to consolidate my ideas such that I had something to pitch to the “band”, so we weren’t just staring at each other in the room. From memory I wrote the first 4 tracks in less than a week. 

ANGE: I remember having a lot of fun with wonderful humans and having a sore throat the next day – that jam was the first time I’ve ever tried yell-y vocals! I am an average singer so learning how far I could push my voice was a challenging and fun experience.  


MORGIN [bass and vocals]: I remember being very nervous and worried that I wouldn’t be able to play fast punk riffs with a pick (I’d always gotten frustrated using a pick in the past and given up), but I was super excited to start a new music project with my close friends. I couldn’t wait to see what Ange was going to come up with lyrically and how she was going to sound as a punk vocalist (I had high expectations and she only exceeded them)

RUDAH: That summer, Kyle and Angie invited me to start a new project. They said it was just to record some songs and release them online. I think things started to happen in such a natural way that we kept rehearsing and playing in gigs. It’s really good when the energy is good. Kyle, Angie and Morgin are amazing people.

You were set to play your first show a few months later in April with Sweat, but one of you got Covid; what was your first show like when you finally got to play it?

ANGE: This was a bummer to miss but I guess the reality of playing shows right now. We were lucky enough to be approached by Sweat again in June and played their EP launch at The Bird (a bit of a live music institution) which was a blast!

KYLE: Yeah and we actually go an opportunity to fill in for our sister band Nervous for a hardcore show at North Perth Bowlo in May. That ended up being our first show and it was good to get the ball rolling. I remember there being lots of crossed arms and blank looks across the room. There’s footage on Youtube of Ange trying to jump around and make up for the lack of crowd movement.

MORGIN: On the drive to the North Perth Bowlo gig I just remember feeling like I was going to vomit. I had only memorised my bass lines the week prior so was veeeeery worried I would make lots of mistakes (which I kind of did haha)

RUDAH: I remember that night it was really hot and there was a sink and a fridge behind the drums. I was literally playing drums in a kitchen. It was a special night. I really like playing gigs that don’t have a stage. I don’t like big stages. I think this goes against the essence of punk.

All live photos by Tom Tufnell.

Members are in other bands and/or have been in many bands previously, can you tell us a little about them and of how Sooks came together? Why did you start making music together?

KYLE: Rudah and myself have played in Asbestos Fence for a number of years now. I responded to an ad online of his and we bonded over a mutual appreciation of Fugazi. Half of Asbestos Fence are in Nervous . Morgin and I have been friends for ages, and she plays bass in Lounge Tourist, an excellent local post-punk outfit . Ange plays solo and also in Wound Honey and I figured her lyrics would work wonderfully in a punk setting. Oh, and she’s my partner. I guess I cherry picked the members for the band and wrote songs knowing what everyone would appreciate and enjoy playing as a unit. 

How did you discover music? Is there an album or band that had a really big impact on you? What do you appreciate about it?

KYLE: Great question! I had to think about this – hearing Eddy Current definitely spurred the ‘aha moment’ when I realised I could potentially write songs and be a member of a band. My introduction to the world of this kind of music was through the discovery of post punk, listening to bands like Wipers, Gang of Four, This Heat (to name a few) for the first time and then going down the rabbit hole.  

These days I discover most of my music through Bandcamp – trying to listen to everything that comes out on labels like Iron Lung, Static Shock, La Vida Es Un Mus etc.  

ANGE:  Seminal albums for me would be Bjork’s entire body of work, In Rainbows by Radiohead. More recently, releases from Perfume Genius, Wet Leg, Mitski, Angel Olsen, The Beths, Big Thief & Parquet Courts

MORGIN: I owe all of my music knowledge and ability to my Father. He was the bass player of a cover band throughout my younger years, so I have memories of attending rehearsals/ watching gigs and even getting on stage as a ~10 year old and singing with them. My childhood was filled with the music of The Beatles, Prefab Sprout, James Taylor, Prince and loads more. My Dad continues to be my biggest musical inspiration and the reason I play music. I actually used his vintage Harmony bass guitar when I first started playing shows and didn’t have my own.

RUDAH: Music has always been part of my life. My grandfather worked at the first vinyl factory in Brazil (Odeon). He used to make that label that goes in the middle of the vinyl. Sometimes he made a mistake on purpose and took the vinyl home. My mother told me that instead of taking toys to school, I took vinyl. 

Musically speaking, I grew up listening to a lot of Brazilian music (MPB, Bossa Nova and Brazilian rock bands from the 80’s) and was also introduced to many bands by my father, cousins ​​and friends. I remember my dad introduced me to Nirvana in 90/91. My cousin showed me the Ramones around the same time, right when Brain Drain came out (the last record with Dee Dee playing bass). Afterwards, I started looking for more bands, but at that time it was very difficult. In Brazil we exchanged letters with fanzines and made compilations on tapes. Skate videos were really important for us to find out new bands too. It is worth mentioning the importance of MTV in the 90s. This happened in a pre-CD era. Sorry, I’m feeling like the old lady from the Titanic movie lol

We’ve heard you describe your music as “big, dumb, punk”; what influenced this sound?

KYLE: Ah yes, this meme! I don’t know how it started but I struggle to describe our sound beyond an amalgam of a bunch of very simple first-wave sounding stuff. We generally use tried and true progressions leaning on a bunch of tropes that make our songs familiar-sounding, but I can’t think of any one specifically?

ANGE: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! That being said, I am no punk expert and I think in some ways my distance from a lot of punk music can be a boon. I am always trying to come up with unique phrasings or so-dumb-its-smart wordplay to keep it interesting. Not to say that all punk is dumb! I just put thought into trying to have a different vocal style or delivery in every song to keep things fresh.

RUDAH: There’s a Brazilian punk band from 80’s called Os Replicantes that used to say: be punk, but don’t be dumb. There are several ways to interpret this.

Artwork by Francesco Goats

We love your Demo that came out in August this year; what can you tell us about writing this collection of songs? What does Sooks’ creative process involve?

KYLE: I generally have a half-cooked idea then we workshop it as a band. Lyrics are usually written on the spot by Ange, and we have a new song by the end of the rehearsal. Occasionally, I’ll go home with my tail between my legs and work something out before reconvening and trying it again. 

ANGE: There’s always giggling from Morgo and I as we watch Kyle try to explain to Rudy what he wants from the drum sound (with Rudah doing his bombastic Brazilian style anyway). The whole band end up teasing Kyle a bit for cracking the whip and being our ‘chefe’ (boss)

RUDAH: My mission is to play drums in time and put all my energy into the songs. I show them some ideas and beat variations, but basically Kyle and Angie already have some ideas to show me. It makes my job easier.

What’s your personal favourite track on your debut release? What’s it about?

KYLE: ‘The Bends’ – it feels the most visceral and I love Ange’s vocals. It’s about toxic relationships coming to an end.

ANGE: ‘Idiom/Idiot’ – Short, fast, loud. I challenged myself to write a nonsense song entirely made up of idioms but it ended up being a statement on the complexity of the English language and how we tie ourselves in verbal knots trying to communicate a simple point.

MORGIN: ‘U.D’ – it goes hard from start to finish and Ange kills it with all the vocal gymnastics. It also has a powerful message about all the bullshit in the world (‘Bushfire’ is my favourite to play live – love the doom groove)

RUDAH: NFT. I don’t know what it is about because I can’t hear anything while I’m playing drums (sorry, bad dad joke).

Demo was straight to tape recorded live by Will Hooper at Stable Sounds; why did you chose to do it this way?

KYLE: I guess I’m responsible for spearheading this ha-ha. I am a big fan of all the releases he’s been involved with, and the fact he prioritises getting a true live sound. I believe the tape hiss and snarl helps but I’m no expert. From my limited experience lots of other producer types don’t work this way. There’s a certain energy in his work and I’m hoping that was captured in our demo. 

ANGE: I love recording live but this was my first time recording to tape. I really enjoyed working with Will, it felt pretty effortless and we managed to smash it all out in the space of a weekend. The scariest part of the whole thing was trying to figure out if I could do a better vocal take each time! If you re-take the vocals, you lose the previous take. The immediacy of being pressured into making those choices was kind of cool though and forces you to leave your perfectionism at the door.

RUDAH: I had already recorded on tape in this analog system in Brazil a long time ago (98/99). I particularly like this format. Will is an amazing guy. It was a pretty cool experience. We had a lot of fun that day.

What are some great bands local to your area that we should know about?

KYLE: The local music scene here is shockingly good. As far as punk is concerned everyone needs to hear (in no particular order) No Future, Krimi, Helta Skelta, Ghoulies, Bikini Cops, Semtex 87, Paranoias, Aborted Tortoise, Cold Meat, Gaffer, Total Defeat, MSOL, Nervous – Basically everything that comes out on Helta Skelta & Televised Suicide Records.  

ANGE: Didion’s Bible, Yomi Ship, Nika Mo, Sprawl, Grievous Bodily Calm

RUDAH: Whenever I have free time, I go to gigs to meet new bands. I’ve seen a lot of bands since I came to Perth. I really like all the bands that Kyle and Angie mentioned, besides them it’s also worth mentioning the bands from Another Rat Records and the Black Diamond Lake band.

What do you do when not making music?

KYLE: Sooking. 

ANGE & MORGIN: Collaging and drinking zooper dooper-based cocktails

RUDAH: Running, crossfit, playing soccer and FIFA on my PS.

What’s something really important to Sooks?

ANGE: Social justice & work-life balance.

MORGIN: Authenticity. 

RUDAH: Making music without forgetting our roots.

KYLE: Having an excuse to cancel plans. 

What’s next for Sooks?

SOOKS: We’re super excited to be playing ALT fest at Badlands Bar on November 12th and will be cooking up new music in the very near future.

Find Sooks on bandcamp + @sooksband

BEHOLD! Leipzig Punks, Lassie

| gimmiezine
Original photo courtesy of Lassie. Handmade mixed-media collage by B.

Dungeon synth-punks Lassie bring a winning combination of excitement, wit, punchiness, fun and escapism on their latest full-length album BEHOLD. The band are at the tail end of a European tour. Gimmie caught up with them to chat about the album and their record’s launch in a medieval village, playing with the Osees, music they love (including Australian bands we love too – CIVIC, Pinch Points, Gee Tee, R.M.F.C.) and more. We first spoke to Lassie a couple of years ago. They’re one of our favourite German punk bands.

How have you been? What’s been happening in your world lately?

MARI: Oi Bianca! Thanks – been alright, the usual insanity of our quasi-dystopian here and now, I had Covid two times but feel alright generally. We just returned from a festival in the south of France called Montesqiou – it’s a small festival in a medieval village there’s a hill where D’Artagnan’s mother was born. A ideal setting for us. Organized by very nice people and the whole village, old and young are pulling it off together. We saw great shows by Pogy & les Kefars and Powerplant! It was also the first time we toured by train.

KATHI: I am OK. Lots of different projects I started during lockdown were due now, so I’m actually a bit overworked, creatively speaking, but I go on holidays soon.

SHREDDY: It’s Autumn now, which is actually my favorite season, but it’s cold and I wish I could go on holidays too.

TEUN: I’ve been traveling a lot this year: a full-fledged European tour with my other band Lemongrab, the France trip with Lassie as well as visits to many other countries. It’s been exciting but a lot of fucked up stuff happened in the last months so I’m really happy to be back in Berlin for the moment. I just moved to a new place, and I’m excited for new beginnings. Something that includes less traveling and less partying hopefully, and, at risk of sounding like a total twat, a bit more financial security.

FRITZ: Busy busy! Not enough time for what really matters and that often is playing music and coming up with new ideas. Other than that I’m still pulling the strings here and there, setting up DIY shows in Leipzig and releasing tapes of friends via my little tape label Universum Bacteria [ubac].

What’s something you’ve been listening to a lot?

TEUN: Sun Cousto, Quintron & Miss Pussycat, the sounds of my new dishwasher, BBC fucking 4.

SHREDDY: ‘Access’ by RMFC, Dorothy Ashby, Kate Bush, Michele Mercure, Peace De Résistance, Podium, Taqbir, Joy Division, Linda Smith. Also I’ve been really into ‘Caprisongs’ by FKA Twigs lately, she’s such a great artist!

MARI: Exxon – Diesel Tape, Cex Crime, Natoxie & TKD – Applaudissement, Imaginary, Worlds Podcast, Alvilda – Negatif, Nikki and the Corvettes, Pinch points, Powerplant, Crime of Passing, SICK THOUGHT’s new singles , Skin Deep – Football Violence, Famous Mammals, Decoder Ring Podcast, You’re Wrong About podcast, Mark Mothersbough – Midnight Muzak, Violenta & URIN , Alt NYC 88 Soundtrack, The End – People talk, Graveturner, Cuero, Soup Activists and Coins paraléles.

KATHI Random Dungeon Synth (old and new), Phantasia, Plantasia, Peace de Resistance, Poison Ruin, Taqbir, Warthog, NTS radio Feelings playlist, Hex Dispensers, Straw Man Army, Linda Perhacs.

FRITZ: Oog Bogo, Poison Ruin, ATOL ATOL ATOL (my new favorite band from Wrocław/Poland), Bili Rubin (SPAM: just released his new cassette on UBAC), Peace de Résistance, Plastics, Giulio Ersamus, Gee Tee (Rock Phone 7”), Famous Mammals, Duster, Acetone.

Album art by Shreddy.

In June Lassie released a new album. The name suggests that the listener is about to experience something remarkable or impressive with the album; where did the title come from?

SHREDDY: It’s that phrase sometimes used in medieval-themed and/or fantasy movies. 

When there is something about to happen and a knight or a wizard shouts  “BEHOOOOLD!”. We used that phrase like a running gag in daily life. I think the title wasn’t necessarily supposed to point out something impressive with the album. We just thought it would be funny to name it like that, because it sounds really epic!

MARI: Well the listener is wrong – just kidding – ya BEHOLD comes from a long running gag between our friends who like us love to talk nonsense in medieval english or german or what we think that might sound like. (I am pointing the mace at you governor and leader of the water people Warberg!). Some of us also have a soft spot for sci fi and fantasy, especially pen and paper RPGs and magic so there is def. a connection.

TEUN:  Some of us, that is to say you haha.

Again, we love Shreddy’s artwork! What can you tell us about it?

SHREDDY: Thank you so much!!  It’s the first time I did the artwork for a LP and I was very happy to do it. The font from the cover is the same one that has been used for ‘Bat Out of Hell’ by Meat Loaf.

MARI: I can tell you that I do also love it to death and that she is always way too shy about it. So I am gonna do a lil advertising for her newest strike of genius ( don’t know if you can use this German expression in English lol) A zine called PATCHES (semi-autobio) and generally about how FLINTAS feel on and off stage in this band, scene and I guess in general – correct me if I am wrong. There is also a soundtrack and spoken dialogues by Kathi that complete this piece.

KATHI: Yeah, that was a really cool and intense project! and Shreddy’s drawings are supercool as always. For the cover its the same, all the tiny details are just perfetto

What were the best and worst bits of making the LP?

SHREDDY: Covid started when we wrote the first songs for the album. I think that’s why the process felt kind of slow and some of the “new” songs already seemed like weirdly “old”, because we couldn’t practice together for some time, or play live etc. 

For me the recording was lots of fun. We could experiment with sounds or developing parts that didn’t seem finished before. This was super refreshing and really nice! 

MARI: It was amazing to work with our friend Tobi Lill in Berlin, he was very patient and didn’t produce or intervene much only in the right moments he would be like “nah don’t do that it’s stupid” – which I think is a quality that most recording engineers lack – the ability to step back and let the madness play out. The worst was how long it was taking lol – I caught Covid in-between so the whole thing happened over 3 sessions of 4- 5 days, from which during the second I was quarantined in a hotel room in Berlin, we luckily had the money to pay for one night and traveled back to Leipzig the next day. Also the nature of the building and its neighbors we recorded in is worth a lil story but maybe someone else wants to describe that lol.

KATHI: It’s a huge building, and there are people practicing, living or partying (or all at once) so its smelly and noisy around the clock. and there is also a cute dog. So it was a bit hard to chill when we had breaks during the recordings. Constant Bass equals Constant Pain (btw also the title of a cool album by New Project 666 from Hamburg, Shreddy also did their cover)

TEUN: Yes that building is mad. It’s got a lot of good bands in it but also a lot of junkies and sometimes when you go to the bathroom some wino’s passed out on the floor and everything smells of piss. Tobi has created a little paradise in there however, he’s got a lot of beautiful shiny equipment and a nice couch that I slept on more than once. We bought loads of food and beer from the supermarket and practically spent many 12-hour days in there working, waiting, joking, partying, and shredding.

FRITZ: All in all an amazing experience to record in entirely new surroundings. I didn’t know Tobi before and also really admired his patience, never felt any pressure. A trained ear might really sense some acid techno frequencies underlaying the entire album. I have learned to accept them during my stay at this madhouse.

All Live Photos courtesy of Lassie.

How would you describe your life when making the album?

MARI: Frustrated yet eager.

KATHI: Rollercoaster.

TEUN: My new dishwasher.

SHREDDY: Drawn-out.

FRITZ: Drunk on love.

What kinds of things were inspiring you when writing the new collection of songs?

SHREDDY: The Internet, Blade Runner, modern life of spiders and humans.

I think the lyrics of ‘Hurricane’ are inspired by ‘Cross the Breeze’ by Sonic Youth, because it was my favorite song at the time I wrote them.

MARI: Tobi’s KILLING JOKE obsession inspired some of the lyrics of ‘ZYCHOKILLER’.

The inability of saying “no” and therefore getting swamped in deadlines and things to do.

The passing of my uncle. General shit state of society we are living in. “It was capitalism all along!” (quoting You’re wrong’s Sarah Marshall here). Powerpop. The works of Ursula K. le Guin, Octavia Butler, Phillip K. Dick. ‘1 4 the Road’ is about a creep I hitchhiked with on the way to the call center I worked at a long time ago – he at some point got a paranoid boost, switched lanes and shouted “I can kill you all”. Civic. German conspiracy honks who were demonstrating against Covid measures and ‘celebrities’ making money off hopping onto that.

What lyric do you most love on the record?

MARI: “I wanna breathe your whistling lightness – your moonlit eyelid – is pounding frightless”~ ‘HURRICANE’

TEUN: I love the lyrics to ‘Frowning Term’ and how it’s a play on the CAPTCHA test, as well as on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. They are like an elegant philosophical joke that flows very nicely along with the  tune. Very DEVO: are you human? Bravo guys!

KATHI: BBF, ’cause its so much more than meets the eye or ear. It’s about friendship.

FRITZ: Puh…where do I start? Well, answering to this on my laptop after just clicking through pixilated images after logging in somewhere again and again and again, it always strikes me how ‘FROWNING TERM’ is brightening my boring office hours. I really liked our high speed demo version of that song as well, which we released through our friend Jonas’ label Turbo Discos. 

SHREDDY: “It makes no difference what you choose to be – even if it’s something real cool like a wizard” ~ ‘MULTIVERSE’

How did you approach songwriting this time? How similar are your approaches to making music?

MARI: We started by doing 4-track home recordings during lockdown – sending them around so each party would contribute their parts – recording them at home or in the rehearsal space. This was the starting point, from which the recordings went through a lot of stages and also the songs changed quite a bit – you can hear this process pretty well when listening to the 3 released versions of Temporary Cemetery (Flennen compilation version is the roughest most demo-ish but it’s so cool I love it personally – then you have the single version which is still recorded by Lassie alone but mainly digital – and then you have the 16-track studio version on the album recorded with Tobi).

TEUN: This remote way of recording didn’t really work for me. I’d record the drums in Berlin and it felt strange, the others not being there. In the end we ended up not using these tracks at all. The band can be more than the sum of its parts, provided that we actually have a sense of togetherness. So I think it’s good that we changed our mind and recorded the album being in the same room physically. Although the recordings on it aren’t live, we used a lot of ghost tracks, where someone else would play along and you’d hear them in the headphones so that it didn’t feel like you’re playing in a vacuum.

What’s your favorite song on the album and what’s it about?

MARI: ‘Zychokiller’ is my fav, and it’s not really about anything specific – but that is also what I like about it – the lyrics where kind of made up on the spot before singing – just phrases with a certain feeling – so anyone can project, at least that’s what I am hoping. But for me if I’d to pin it down – it’s about these teens who grow up together outside of society kind of, falling in love, coming of age, developing in different directions, being frustrated by their ‘scene’ and betrayed by their kind and ideals and also gender dynamics, how teachers are always bastards, and revenge haha. Kind of a gory Ghost World scenario.

KATHI: Phew, I can’t really say. I like ‘Spiderweb’ cause it’s about spiders and I think that’s cool. And sounds cool.

TEUN: I like a lot of them but I also think ‘Spiderweb’ is my favorite. It’s a funny, cute lyric that fits the slight horror/fantasy theme of the record, but this contrasts with the fact that the song is aggressive and a bit over the top at the end – which I really like, it could be the soundtrack to a thousand knights galloping down a mountain. I think a lot of what we did on the album is a bit over the top, and to me that’s not a bad thing; everything’s densely packed with *stuff*, and that makes it sound very bombastic which ties in well with the album name.

SHREDDY: It’s hard to say, I think I like a lot of songs for totally different reasons. 

‘Modern World’ and ‘Multiverse’ are very cool, they are also fun to play live. Hurricane too, because we switch instruments there. ‘Spiderweb’ is about a spider who is going out at night and she puts on her going-out shoes and going-out gloves and stuff like that.

FRITZ: No downsides in my opinion. I love the album in its entirety, how everything melts together and how we decided not to fill it up with too much extras this time. It’s such a punch in the face!

You had a record release party for BEHOLD and encouraged everyone to dress in medieval costume; who had the idea for this? Who had the best costume and what did it look like?

MARI: Honestly, I don’t remember who or how we came up with that idea – but the medieval theme has been a long running gag between us – me and ‘others’ love to use medieval speech sometimes and it was just natural that it would evolve into sth like this at some point haha. Also I grew up playing fantasy pen and paper RPGs and LARP a lot, so this is kind of a natural development. I’ll send you some pictures of the best costumes!

KATHI: Yeah actually there were a lot more great costumes than i imagined, I felt underdressed haha. There were even self-made Lassie shields.

SHREDDY: So cool!! ❤

FRITZ: The venue [“Recycling Museum”] was also the best spot to set up such a wacky themed party. Formerly some kind of a junk shop we were surrounded by all kinds of trash that shaped our stage fortress in the end. 

Lassie recently played a show with the Osees and King Khan; what’s your recollections of the show?

SHREDDY: Thee Osees have two drum sets on stage.

MARI: The day after we had that medieval release party and naturally we invited them to come because King Khan also played in the city, there was big hectic and nobody really knew how to work that digital mixing desk which was new in that location ( recycling museum ) – at some point Leyton the sound-guy of King Khan showed up with their guitarist and offered to take over the live mixing – from then on it sounded really massive – very cool move!

KATHI: I feel more comfy on smaller stages.

TEUN: I remember going to the back stage fridge during the Osees set to get a beer but they were all gone; at this moment the Osees were doing a longer instrumental jam and John Dwyer barged in like a madman screaming for a beer and when there were none, he cursed King Khan loudly for having drank them all and slammed the fridge door before grabbing a soda and making his way back to the stage like an angry bear, pushing people to the side. Kinda freaky but also a bit understandable and funny.

FRITZ: (The) Osees brought me back a few years ago when I was digging Thee Oh Sees a lot. What was I doing in all those years?? Their show was insane. And incredibly loud! Lost track of time during their 5-hour set and zoomed out.

What’s been your scariest experience as a band?

MARI: Recently we played a festival in the south of France and went there by train to hang out in a bungalow with a pool (!!) before a bit – it was in this setting that Teun told us he wanted to quit the band for a bunch of personal reasons – I’d say the time since then was the scariest part of the band’s history so far. Because of the conflicts and uncertainties which come with a landslide decision like that.

TEUN: Yeah this is scary, in a real-world kind of way, not like Exek having their tour van roll down a cliff or anything spectacular like that. It’s scary because you build this thing over time and get to identify with it and with the others. You are a kind of powerful institution that defines you and which you represent when you go anywhere. However, to what point this is solely a good thing, no one can ever tell you. Are Lassie destined to play ‘Spiderweb’ and ‘Gimme A Break’ at the age of 81, like the Stones? I’m joking, but I am scared. I was scared of making the wrong choice and still am. You know, it’s hard for a lot of musicians and band people to talk about this kind of thing. I often feel like my bands and all my friends’ bands are doing great and we’re happy when we’re doing band stuff and we pretend that’s all there is, but in the meantime our everyday lives are going to shit; we’re broke as fuck and frustrated with society and we’re not getting any younger. Having said that, Lassie is probably the best thing that ever happened to me, and we still have a common goal. I’m not planning on leaving the stage with a whimper.

What ideas do you have for future work?

MARI: We booked a big tour to play the new album in October, it’s still uncertain if we are going to do it or not because of aforementioned reasons, so we are also not really big on ideas for the future. I think a lot of us need some time to find a better balance between the different lives we are living. Especially when it comes to financial and psychological safety, playing so many shows and doing everything that comes with that is often hindering when it comes to establishing your “other” daily life if you know what I mean. None of us have real jobs so a lot of times we either don’t have money or have to rely on the annoying Jobcenter options in Germany – that can wear you down pretty easily. But I don’t wanna sound too pessimistic here as well, we just have to figure out a lot of stuff for now.

KATHI: We decided to go on this tour together. And then we see from there. It’s pretty confusing, but a change always is a possibility. Right now i have absolutely no idea what is going to happen. I think I am gonna focus on university and my instrumental skills. And then we will find out what the future Beholds haha.

TEUN: I want to us to play a kick-ass tour. And to do it as a team.

SHREDDY: I have nothing to add : – )

FRITZ: Everything is said! This tour will be a blast!

Lastly, what do you hope listeners can learn about you from this record?

MARI: As always from Punk and R’N’R – that you can be whoever the fuck you wanna be and most likely you are not alone out there! 

KATHI That it’s cool to try stuff and experiment. You don’t have to be perfect on an instrument or with your voice in order to use it for a song. You just have to like it.

SHREDDY: Yes, and have fun doing the stuff you like.

TEUN: I don’t have anything to add. Except that it’s OK to trust people over 30 sometimes.

BEHOLD is out now on Phantom Records via Lassie’s bandcamp HERE. Follow @lassie_itsalongwaytothetop

Phil and The Tiles’ ‘nun’s dream’: “Sex” and “Catholic school”

| gimmiezine
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!

Anything else you’d like to share with us? 

HATTIE: No one in the band is called Phil.

REILLY: Thanks for having us!! 

Phil & The Tiles’ S/T 7” debut release will be available from October 28th on Anti Fade Records.

Follow: @philandthetiles and @antifaderecords.

Blonde Revolver: “Friendships, bad mental health and housemates, getting dressed up and feeling good” 

| gimmiezine
Original photo courtesy of Rack Off Records. Handmade collage by B.

Today punk band Blonde Revolver drop the utterly cool new single ‘The List’ from their exciting upcoming debut full-length due out next year on Rack Off Records. Raw expression and attitude are on full blast as they rip through this driving track. This song has fangs. Blonde Revolver are a vital band.

Everyone in Blonde Revolver has other bands – Future Suck, Carpet Burn, Delivery, Body Maintenance and Gutter Girls – as well as doing all kinds of other cool stuff; what’s like been like for you lately? What have you each been up to? 

BEC: Speaking on behalf of everyone, life has been busy! Future Suck just put out their debut album, Simulation. Delivery is about to start releasing theirs. Body Maintenance and Carpet Burn have been recording and Gutter Girls are about to play their first show in almost two years. Other than that, Grace and Emma have been Pub Footy captains for the Cudas and killing it. Iso has just been living it up in Bali. Kayley has a new job at PBS Radio and is about to jet home to Canada for a while. Zoe is getting her license and Emma just got a new job too, so it’s all happening really!

What’s the last song that you listened to and what are your thoughts on it?

EMMA: ‘Okay Okay’ by Pino D’Angio. It’s an Italian disco song from the early 80s and it gets me so hot. 

GRACE: I just re-listened to Garbage’s 2005 album Bleed Like Me at the recommendation of Billy from Disco Junk and it holds up hard. Big rocking out in your low rise jeans and Jay Jays’ top vibes. 

KAYLEY: I’ve been listening through Pookie’s album FLick for the first time and currently on the title track. So far I’m really enjoying it. 

ISO: ‘Tribulations’ by LCD Soundsystem. I’m having a big early-naughties moment although I’m never really not having an early-naughties moment.

ZOE: ‘No G.D.M’ by Gina X Performance. The synth and drums make me stop whatever I’m doing and drop it like it’s hot.

BEC: The last song I listened to was ‘Grounded’ by Pavement. Good band, good song. 

In May this year you celebrated the milestone of being a band for two years; what did it mean to you? What’s one of your favourite band-related moments from the past two years? 

EMMA: It’s pretty crazy to think we’ve been a band for two years, but I suppose time flies during lockdown? It’s been pretty nice being able to have regular band pracs and hangs for the second year we’ve been together and also watching our music evolve too. One of my (Emma) favourite moments from the past two years was definitely playing at Down South Fest in Port Fairy this year. We belted iconic female pop songs from the naughties on drive up and it was such a beaut day. The line-up was sick and the crowd were super welcoming and looked like they enjoyed our set which is always a great feeling. Then we spent the rest of the festival drinking guava voddy cruisers. It was pretty magical.  

And, in August it was the one year anniversary of your first release, the self-titled EP, that you put out in 2021. How do you think the band’s sound has evolved since then, as well as yourself as a musician? 

GRACE: Post-Covid lockdowns in Melbourne we’ve just had so much more time to collaborate on songs and really find a sound that we feel is ours. Like a cute little mix of all the different genres all six of us love. I’ve been trying to practice guitar for the first time in my life and it’s been super fun adding extra little bits on top of songs and working out places where all our instruments can shine a little. At the start most of us were playing our instrument for the first time in a band and one person would write something and we’d be like cool, let’s all just play that same riff. Now it’s fun breaking it all down a little more and being more comfortable in working out what each one of us can bring to the band. 

We’re super excited that your debut full-length album is coming out next year on Rack Off Records! ‘The List’ is the first single from it; what made you choose it as the first taste of the upcoming album? 

KAYLEY: ‘The List’ was one of the first songs we wrote as a band. When we were recording our EP in 2020, we were thinking of adding another part to the song so decided not to record it then. Upon reflection, we decided it was good as is and finally recorded it along with the rest of the tracks for our debut album in 2022. I think we chose it as the single because it’s so fun to play live and it harks back to the start of the band. 

What can you tell us about writing it? 

ISO: We smashed out the album over a 2-month period. We had a bit of a deadline, so we were meeting after work and hungover on weekends to write and went pretty turbo during that time, but it came together really seamlessly. Everyone would bring a riff or idea to prac and then we’d all work together to flesh it out. Special thanks to cream cheese bagels all over Melbourne for getting us through! ❤ 

When and where did you record it? How was the session? 

KAYLEY: We recorded the album at a Secret Location in Fairfield over two weekends in May/June 2022. The sessions were really good, it felt just like the Get Back sessions… except there wasn’t much tension and no one left the band. 

ISO: Recording happened to be during Kayley’s unhealthy addiction and wildly-belated discovery of the Beatles and would come to each day of recording dressed as a different member. 

What kinds of themes does the upcoming album explore lyrically? 

ZOE: The album is a real mix-bag lyrically, each song has it’s own story. It mostly covers experiences that I’d had over the past year – writing is such a great outlet for making sense of something. But the album covers everything from friendships, bad mental health and housemates, getting dressed up and feeling good after lockdowns, and last but not least, dating and falling for someone.

Do you listen to other people’s music while making your own? Was there anything specific you were listening to while making the upcoming album?

GRACE: I think most of us listen to music pretty much 24/7. I’ve been listening to heaps of Motörhead and Girlschool and looking up YouTube guitar tutorials. I’ll never be able to play like Kelly Johnson but a girl can dream.  

Blonde Revolver have played a handful of shows this year; what’s your favourite part of performing live? 

ZOE: Outside of the outfits and band banter before we go on stage, there’s something really special about getting lost in a performance and looking out to see people having just as good of a time as we are. There’s a real sense of community at Melbourne shows, and we really feel it on stage. 

What was the best gig you’ve been to recently? Who’s a band or artist that you haven’t seen live that you’d love to? 

EMMA: Cate Le Bon in Castlemaine was hands down one of the best shows I’ve ever been to. Her stage presence was so fricken cool and I fell in love with the bassist that night. Would pay big money to go see Phil Collins and force the rest of BR to come with me.   

ISO: I’m still buzzing from Future Suck’s LP launch. Grace and Kayley were cheekily and fiercely commanding the stage and the rest of BR were cheerleading and drooling with the rest of the crowd. So much energy in FS’ shows, you come away shook in the best way. The dream would be front row at a Peaches concert paired with watermelon Cruisers for the BR crew. It’s a Peaches world, we’re just dancing in it.

GRACE: Aww Iso! :’) there’s actually a photo of all the BR girls going nuts at the front of the FS show that gave me little teary eyes. Angels! Recently mine would have to be the Swab LP launch at Thornbury Bowls. The Neuros and Vampire played too and every band were insanely tough and there was so much good energy. It’s the best I’ve ever seen swab play and that’s saying something because every show they play is just mind-blowing. 

KAYLEY: Leah Senior at the Curtin launching her reissues/box set. She played a really beautiful set – as always. Iso and I were meant to see Yeah Yeah Yeahs in July but they cancelled their Melbourne show and we were absolutely gutted. But in reality I would probably be disappointed anyway because I would just want them to play ‘Fever To Tell’ in its entirety and we all know they’d play those post-2003 tracks.

ZOE: The Church at Northcote Theatre! I went recently with a few close friends and it was the most magical experience. My mum and I are big fans and there was something very full circle about texting her song-by-song updates while she was reliving seeing them when she was around my age.  

BEC: I just got back from a regional tour with Vintage Crop and the Stroppies, every gig was so fun… Both bands are amazing live. Vintage Crop really do go absolutely off though, their performance is next level they SEND IT every time it’s very inspiring and entertaining to watch.

What’s a song that always puts you in a good mood?

EMMA: ‘Moja Bhari Moja’ by Rupa – It’s another early 80s disco song but from India. You simply cannot be mad listening to Rupa. 

ISO: ‘Gloria’ by Laura Branigan is played before every show without fail. Also a great one to listen to in the car with the windows down on a 23 degree day. 

GRACE: Anything on Hello, I’m Dolly makes me wanna kick a door down.

KAYLEY: Julian Cope ‘Sunspots’.

ZOE: ‘This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)’ by The Talking Heads

BEC: ATM – ‘6 Or 7 More’ – Cool Sounds.

What’s a band that everyone should know about?  

EMMA: Shove – they have a new EP coming out early October on Rack Of Records as well. Front woman Bella is iconic and the music is just so sick.

ISO: Big Wett – horny dance music paving the way for the rest of us.

GRACE: I’d say Shove too, but Emma already took them so let’s go with this little band called KISS. You want the best? You got the best. 

KAYLEY: Dodda Rivka.

ZOE: Kosmetika! Iconic Melbourne band. 

BEC: Yeah Mets ^ Damn, too many good bands especially from Australia. A local band I’m particularly obsessed with ATM is Micheal Beach, he’s releasing an EP at the moment, singles are so good, can’t wait to hear the whole thing – check it out. 

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

ISO: We have a second single off our upcoming album coming out, our first ever video clip and a handful of shows lined up for the rest of this year. Hopefully a debaucherous night of karaoke to celebrate the single releases and another fun year getting to play and make music with besties. 

Blonde Revolver’s single ‘The List’ out now – listen HERE.

Follow @blonde.revolver and @rackoffrecords.