Too Fat To Skate Zine - Issue #3

TOO FAT TO SKATE Issue #3 BRAWLERS 路 DIKEMBE 路 FIGURES HORROR MY FRIEND 路 MALAKYTE TOTALLY UNICORN 路 WHALEHOUSE

INTRODUCTION

We probably did this with way too short of a turn around from Issue #2 but we had so many bands we wanted to chat to that it didn’t make sense to sit on our asses and wait an “appropriate” amount of time before we bumped this one out so here it is: Too Fat to Skate Issue #3!

This is the first issue where we’ve simultaneously interviewed more than two members of a band and boy oh boy, did we get some cracker content for you guys. Want to know what Randy from Dikembe thinks would be a good horror film idea? Or were you more curious as to what happens when WHALHOUSE’s Amy-Rose walks into the Manly tavern at 4 o’clock in the afternoon? Even more so, did you have an insatiable itch in

the back of your head that could only be stopped if Harry from Brawlers told you what he thinks about Australian avocados?

Spoiler alert! You can appease your thirst for such unique knowledge by reading on, and sinking your brain’s metaphorical teeth into our humble little zine.

Also how damn good does our cover look? I love it and a massive thank you goes to Nico Ford, who’s a swell Brisbane photographer. We’ve been wanting to work with him for a little while now and we’re super stoked to be able to use his work.

You’re also thinking that this issue looks a little different… and if not, well, your eye for detail is slightly lacking because you didn’t pick up on the awesome skills that are possessed by one of our favourite humans, Megs from The Brisbane Collective and To Be Continued Magazine.

So much love goes out to this dude.

Words by Matt Lynch.

As always, a huge and very sincere thank you is extended out to all the bands who gave up their time to answer my questions. So here’s a special thank you to the following people and bands for their correspondence: Harry from Brawlers; Randy and Steven from Dikembe; Totally Unicorn’s ever charming Drew, two gentleman who are great to share a beer with Muz and Dalton from Malakyte; the absolutely kick ass WHALEHOUSE trio comprising of Zoe, Sonya, and Amy-Rose, Figures’ members and purveyors of beautiful music Nic and Fraser, and of course, Sam from Horror My Friend. Without you this zine would be terrible.

It would also be terrible without my main man, my buddeh, king of the DADSTHETIC, and all round wonderful human being Harrison. Must have done something right to be working with this homie.

Last but most definitely not least, thank you, my dear reader. Firstly for putting up with absolute drivel for the past four hundred and fifty three words (it’s actually four hundred and sixty eight now) of this introduction and for picking up yet another copy of this zine. It’s so awesome seeing to see people getting behind this.

To quote Ted Theodore Logan and Bill S. Preston Esquire... Be excellent to each other and party on dudes!

Contact Us: toofattoskate.zine@gmail.com Website: toofattoskatezine.tumblr.com

BRAWLERS

It’s honestly one of the best surprises when you head to a show without knowing all the bands on the line up, and one of those bands blow your tiny mind clean out of your ugly head. That, my friends, is exactly what Leeds quartet Brawlers did when they came through with Luca Brasi at the start of the year.

The Brits blast out perfectly crafted pop punk at high octane levels that put themselves on the same plane as Angel Du$t and PUP, while their infectious positive energy and love of beer won me over on a personal level.

Despite a few communication issues between Too Fat and the lads, we managed to put together an email interview chock full of charm, brimming with positivity and humour.

Words By Matt Lynch.

Firstly, hey gents. How’s it going and where are you writing in from?

We’re writing from Harry and Pert’s basement, we’re going good - just got the mixes back from our next record so we’re pretty hyped.

Let’s get straight into it; in January you capped off your virgin Australian tour in support of Tassie boys Luca Brasi. How did that tour come to fruition?

Man, a bunch of things - we had a song on the radio, we knew some manager people out in Oz, we asked some questions, got some publishing money together, made it work!

It’s a seriously long trek from home to make this tour, seeing how far away we are from everyone else down here. It seemed to be the best working holiday for you guys! Being what was your first tour Down Under, how did you find it?

It was a blast! The Luca guys made it unforgettable, you guys have like, five places to play and we flew from show to show, so we had heaps of downtime and explored and drank and jumped in rivers and stuff. Stuff you see in movies but don’t think you’d ever do.

BRAWLERS Cont.

Plus the shows were insane; people lost their minds and chatted to us, no hipster bullshit like in the UK, just kicking it with new friends every night.

Did you find that the crowds and shows had a different kind of vibe to what you’re used to?

We’re a pretty full on live band, so its nice when the crowd responds to that, but those Oz shows were off the hook - drinking beer out of our shoes, crowd surfing, like I said, no ‘cool-guy’ stuff, just people going to shows to have a good time and most importantly - for the music.

Was there anything you had heard from other bands who’ve toured here before you were especially keen to check out or see happen?

I guess just the countryside - the bush? - And getting into nature and swimming in the sea, all that good stuff. Food was excellent too - we all went home, bought a bunch of avocados and then cried because they taste like shit compared to you guys’...

I saw you play at Black Bear Lodge in Brisbane, admittedly going into that show with very little knowledge of your band. To say I was pleasantly surprised hardly does your show any justice and I’m almost certain you blew away more punters than just myself.

You’ve said you never have nor will play like a support band; is that your ethos to playing live?

Absolutely. We play music because we love it and each others company, but we see so often support bands kind of playing this ‘support band role’ - fuck that noise - you were asked to play so go fucking play your heart out and make it memorable, you know?

There’s serious love in the Brawlers band for beer. You made a joke about how expensive how beer is over here but despite that, did you find an Aussie brew that became a staple of the tour?

Hmm, tough one - Boags was a favourite in Tassie. VB obviously. But we just drink whatever the fuck anyone puts in our hands; we’re no beer snobs. Although I checked out a brewery Young Henrys. That place was cool as fuck.

Going through Brawlers short but solid discography, the music comes across as refreshingly hard to classify. The confessional, narrative of the vocals mix in seamlessly with the straightforward melodic punk of the musical backdrop. You’ve all had previous bands in the past, all with varying styles; does this make Brawlers a happy amalgamation of all the members?

I guess, dude to be honest, we don’t even think about that stuff - we just hang out and write songs together about stuff we like, hate, hangovers, shit jobs, just normal stuff. We don’t over-think anything.

In the choruses of your songs especially, you have knack for writing devilishly catchy hooks. Is that pop-sensibility you openly strive towards in terms of song writing?

Yeah man. Writing pop songs and having a good chorus is like cooking macaroni cheese and using cheese, you know? We try and write catchy choruses so we make bank bro, get me? Need to stack them sweet paypes.

So far, all of the releases you’ve put out have been through Alcopop Records. Didn’t you sign with them after your second show as Brawlers? How’s the experience with Alcopop been so far?

They’re like experienced stepfathers. They know we’re not the kind of guys to be told what to do, they’re not our dad, so they just watch from afar and make sure we don’t fuck anything up too hard. Great label too.

On top of that, you’re currently working with touring agency as Fucked Up and Trash Talk, which is ironic because you’ve been deemed “bubble gum Trash Talk”. Have you had a chance to play with either of those bands?

Yeah we played a bunch with Trash Talk one summer: tough guys, don’t talk much, we stole their beer and were cool about it.

Now that you’re back in Europe and playing a slew of shows and festivals, what’s the plan for the rest of the year?

New record, get money and girls, buy leather jackets, I’m gonna marry a girl from Tasmania, fish, write my memoires, usual shit.

Any final words or shout outs?

Shout out to Luca Brasi, Heights & Grenadiers for being boss babes with mad skills and big hearts...xxx Find more: www.facebook.com/wearebrawlers

DIKEMBE

A self-confessed musical anomaly, Florida’s Dikembe have been steadily realising cathartic, and highly emotive emo-tinged rock for nearly five years. Having their first release generate a considerable amount of ground swell, the four-come-three-piece have just celebrated the release of their third studio record “Hail Something”, which is now out via awesome Sydney label Lost Boy Records.

The record is an honest and highly personal reflection of the band’s year, and Matt teed up an interview with two thirds of the band while they were packing up copies of the new record. Their third record “Hail Something” is set to come out mid 2016.

Words By Matt Lynch.

Firstly, hey gents! How’s it going?

Randy: It’s going pretty great. I just got home from work and am actually packing up copies of “Hail Something” right now so they can ship out before the 12th!

Your third record “Hail Something” is set to come out in late July and that date is coming up thick and fast. In comparison to your previous albums, this new release feels, to me at least to be a more cathartic release, and in the same vein confessional?

Randy: It definitely is. The whole process was very relieving though. It was great to be able to get out all of the bullshit that we have dealt with in our personal and band lives over the past year and have it stored away on a record now. I just watched The Conjuring, and it kind of feels like how they had these demons posses trinkets and dolls and stuff, we took our demons and put them onto a record though. (Jeremy, there’s a movie ideas in there somewhere) There’s a definite change of tone on this new record, in the lyrics most notably. The themes on “Hail Something” definitely delve into more visceral, personal areas. David has pointed out there are clear pre & post baby songs on the record and you’ve said the lyrical content is the story you’ll tell your daughter when she asks about your life and mental illness. Is this sombre mood reflective of the period of time around this record?

Steven: “Hail Something” pretty much perfectly captures where I was mentally during the record.

It’s a story of the lowest lows and the highest highs I’ve ever experienced, and they all happened to slam together last year. I think overall there is a hopeful tone to the record that I hope resonates above all the negative spaces.

Between “Hail Something” and “Mediumship”, the Dikembe crew was reduced down to a three piece, with you parting ways with your guitarist Ryan Williams. With Ryan being with you from the start, was it hard to downsize to a three piece?

Randy: It was definitely hard, he is one of my best friends and I love making music with him. I’m really glad that we are still cool and hang out all the time, because he also has one of the coolest kids in the entire world. We ended up having to change a lot of the sound of the songs from what we had written with him so we could play them as a three piece. I think the songs were sounding a lot closer to “Ledge” before he left, maybe those demos will come out one day.

The Australian pressing will be coming out through the super awesome Lost Boy Records. From what I know, this is the first international release that they’ve put out.

DIKEMBE Cont.

How did that come about?

Randy: They put out a record for our friends in Meridian actually, which is Max from Signals Midwest and his brother, Jake’s band. But Olly just sent us a message saying he was interested in doing something and we thought he seemed cool and it would be great ideas to have people in other countries help us out. Hopefully it saves people a lot of money on shipping and helps get our music to some new people so we can come tour over there one day. We had already decided that we didn’t want to work with record labels too, but Lost Boy and Dog Knights (who is handing the UK pressing) seemed a lot more on the same page as us. It was pretty easy to make it all happen and has been a great relationship so far.

One thing that drew me into your music since “Chicago Bowls” dropped way back when was how you’d intertwine your songs with self-deprecating humour and pop culture references. It made the songs relatable and sticks with me, personally. For you, does including those elements provide the songs with a deeper connection?

Steven: Absolutely. “(Chicago) Bowls” was sort of an in joke through and through. We were sort of testing the dynamics of the band, so the only thing we cared about was getting to know one another and try and crank out some tunes.

The last question segues nicely into this one; you take your music itself seriously but not yourselves. Does being able to laugh at yourself contribute to Dikembe’s longevity without becoming stagnant?

Steven: Everything else in life is so serious right now that Dikembe provides this wonderful reprieve where we get to just goof around and be ourselves.

When “Chicago Bowls” dropped, you didn’t have any of the usual social media platforms and there was no band members or email listed on your bandcamp. You’ve referred to your band as an anomaly, not being able to tour as much as other bands but your fan base has been gradually swelling over the last five years. Has it been odd to see?

Steven: I still am baffled and humbled by our success. We never set out to be popular, we just wanted to play shows. We didn’t expect anyone to hear “Chicago Bowls” aside from our friends, so we didn’t even bother with social media. It’s kind of good that we didn’t on account of our “face for radio” vibe.

If you had the opportunity to tour more, would you take it?

Steven: I would definitely tour more, but it would have to be a big enough deal that I could support my family. It would also have to be with people we cared about. I can’t wrap my head around how bands can tour together without knowing the other bands at least a little bit first. Everyone is out here trying to get famous and we just want to hang as hard as possible.

You all work full time jobs, which is something that definitely contributes to an absence of excessive touring. Steven, in particular, works as a middle school English teaching; a reason he said why he can’t swear in his songs otherwise he’d get fired. Have you had any students come up to you and say they like your music?

Steven: A few years ago some students found a tumblr post about Fake Problems that mentioned us and since then there have been small pockets of middle school punks throughout my career who are in on it. Generally they see it as an inside joke between us, so no one makes a big deal.

Speaking of playing shows, you guys played The Fest last year, which is hosted in your hometown of Gainesville, Fl with a tonne of other awesome bands like Drug Church, AJJ, and PUP. Is it sweet having a major punk festival in your hometown? Is it a fail-safe invitation to you, being locals?

Randy: Of course having The Fest happen here is incredible. I actually moved from New Jersey to Gainesville after attending my first Fest (Fest 6), I had so much fun and loved the atmosphere.

Now I get to work for Fest and call everyone involved my family. I can’t imagine anything (other than another baby being born during Fest) keeping us from ever playing.

After “Hail Something” drops, what’s the plan for the rest of the year?

Randy: We have a tour with Slingshot Dakota coming up in about a week, which will be a lot of fun. We always have a great time with them. After that we will probably work on some cool releases for the “Death Protector Collective” subscription thing we are doing on Bandcamp.

Probably some live records, acoustic stuff, covers, etc for that.

Any final words or shout outs?

Randy: I have a friend named Kiiks in a band called Edmonton. They’re really good, but I’d like to say “Fuck you Kiiks” to him. And Jeremy Silveria, please take my movie ideas seriously.

Steven: Digital music should be PWYW (Pay What You Want) 100% of the time. Anyone who says differently is greedy and entitled.

Find more: www.facebook.com/dikembefl ­

FIGURES

Rightful sacrifices to the fuzz lords, Brisbane’s Figures blend the intensity of the 90’s musical wave with the lush voiced tonalities of Elliot Smith in perfect matrimony.

Initially established in Melbourne, Nic Belor’s musical project was able to find a residency within the heart of Brisbane’s music scene. We sat down with both Nic and Fraser over a warm beverage as we delved into the cosmos that is Figures.

Words By Harrison McCormack.

FIGURES Cont.

If my understanding is correct, Nic, you’ve had this project going since late 2014 but only started playing shows this year. Tell us a little history of ‘Figures’.

Nic: I lived in Melbourne and at the time I had two other members playing with me but for whatever reason it never came into fruition. Essentially it wasn’t a bedroom project but we never played shows. As soon as I got up here and started looking for some people it then kind of happened. It clicked a lot better than when I was in Melbourne.

How did you end up meeting Fraser and Chris?

Nic: Fraser was through my brother, Jesse, and Chris was just a recommendation from someone as I was really struggling to find a drummer to rehearse at the time. He’s moving over to Europe soon sadly, so we’ll be back in that transitional phase again.

How does it feel to finally be able to play these songs live?

Nic: Initially we were only playing the songs I had just written on my own because we needed something to play. It was good and sounded okay but it didn’t sound what we wanted to do. So I think now it sounds like how we wanted to sound as a group. Last night, we rehearsed a bunch of new songs and to me they sounded really good. I notice every rehearsal that we sound better and I think that’s important for any band.

You guys went into the studio with Cameron Smith at Incremental Records to record the “Taekare” EP that was released earlier this year. Lyrically, songs like ‘Figure Eight’ gaze upwards and contemplate the mysteries of outer space whilst yearning to discover more of the unknown. In saying this, what interests you guys about the most astral/space rock genre and how did you collate that into the EP? Fraser: For me personally, the music and lyrical content that comes out is really cool.

Nic: I think it’s the ability to say something that you’ve been feeling and channel it through something way bigger than you.

Nic: So when you’re talking about space, esoteric or ethereal stuff it’s a really easy way to romanticize and communicate themes that are important to you. It can be interpreted in heaps of ways as well. Phrases like, “I’m looking to the sky”, could mean something completely different to someone else. I’m always trying to convey this sense of wonder I have with the world around me.

How different was the writing process for this release compared to previous releases such as From The Ages? Did having a full band alter how you approached the songs?

Nic: Taekare for the first time to me personally felt very collaborative. Prior to that I had either recorded everything myself or had someone do me a favour and recorded it. So it was nice to go into the studio with Cam and have him worry about all the technical stuff and us focus on recording.

Did you scrap many songs?

Nic: We scrapped heaps of songs! We could of easily done more.

Fraser: We had close to maybe six that we were throwing around. I think a lot of the writing came into play in phases. So we’d start a song and work our way up to a finish. Go through a few basic riffs, add parts and then toy with effects. Doing it that way we were able to knock out a lot of things we didn’t like.

Nic: When I’m writing, I’m nearly always going for that soft/loud dynamic that’s quite obvious to the listener. I’m always looking for the heaviest riffs in the biggest sections.

Figures also recently took part in contributing a cover of Jesus and The Mary Chain’s “Taste The Floor” for an upcoming tribute album celebrating 30 years of “Psychocandy”. The album will be released through Tyms Guitars later in the year.

What was is it like to be selected to take part in the compilation?

Nic: I just put my hand up and I honestly wasn’t expecting to get picked for it but I’m really glad we did. The fact that Tim or whoever listened to us and liked it was really awesome. When we got in there we completely flipped that song on its head and it doesn’t sound anything like the original.

Fraser: I think we went through two or three iterations of the song. We actually hated it for a long time because we were really struggling to try and give it our own spin. We did flip it on its head though and I think we did it pretty well.

Nic: It’s such a simple song so to make it enjoyable for us we really had to work at it. We’re not going to do something we don’t want to do. It was either we do this 110% or we don’t do it.

Fraser: And Tim’s such a relaxed guy as well so we were able to take our time with the song, which was cool.

FIGURES Cont.

Nic: Something I will say about that session is that we were so well rehearsed we ended smashing it all out in one take.

Fraser: Yeah, we were meant to have an hour and a half to record the song. But ended up doing it in 20 minutes or so.

Nic: It was a full band track, extra guitars, vocal and then we were done.

Figures sound is very reminiscent of that loud guitar-driven music that was very prominent within the 90’s. Can you pinpoint some of musicians/artists that have helped influence your sound and how they affect you when composing your music?

Nic: For me foundationally a lot of the tonalities are reminiscent of HUM, Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine. Vocally, I feel it’s very Elliot Smith. Not necessarily the phrasing, but the tonality of it all. I’m trying to do my own thing but that’s what it always reminds me of. There’s heap of stuff that influences me, it’s hard to name one, as there are so many.

Fraser: In terms of influences for me when it comes to playing, I really like a lot of that Run For Cover records music and old rock/country as well. Like other bands, we’ve all drawn influences from different types music so that’s why we sound the way we do.

Nic: When I first started writing two years ago, I wanted to make a Heatmiser band. The lyrics are incredible, the songwriting is really smart and there was very little dynamic. I like that but I don’t think you can be as expressive. That’s where it all started for me, just collecting Heatmiser records and evolving from that. I really like the EP that we did with Cam but its very different to what we’re doing now. We didn’t spend too much time on production as we basically mixed and mastered everything in the same day. We could have spent a few weeks or more doing those songs but we just wanted something out.

Alongside Figures you also run your own business, Midnight Amplification. Where did you develop your love/passion for pedal making and what’s it like running an independent business?

Nic: I’d been interested in building pedals since a young age. I was very keen and interested but couldn’t grasp the concept. I tried many times and failed. One year I decided to build my Dad a fuzz pedal similar to a Tone Bender for Christmas. In anticipation, I built a bunch of treble boosters and it got to the point where I wasn’t sure to do with them. So I sold them on EBay and then they just keep selling. I built 10 more again and they all sold immediately. That’s when I realised there was something here. I chose a bunch of circuits and started selling them. It worked out that way.

I’ve never really felt comfortable with my guitar sound until now and I’ve owned a lot of guitars, amps and pedals. Honestly now that I build my own gear I can completely control every element of the sound.

Regarding doing this as a small business; I’ve been doing this full time now for two and a half years and it’s excellent. I work really hard at this and I think it’s about putting yourself out there whilst been honest and grateful even if you fail. The first year of Midnight was great but very challenging. Whilst I was in Melbourne, I was working at a fruit market and one day they told me they told me they had no work going. Weeks went by without any word and they ended up laying me off. At that point I was like ‘fuck working for people ever again’, and since then it been really fun.

I read recently you were able to meet with Dallas Green before and after his recent Brisbane show. What was that like for you?

Nic: Pretty crazy! I have so many memories of listening to Alexisonfire in high school. City & Colour is something that’s been a really big part of my family that we’ve all shared. So to be able to meet that person was a pretty surreal experience.

We’re nearly halfway through 2016 and we’ve had some great music released thus far.

Are there any releases you guys are enjoying from this year in particular?

Fraser: The new Pity Sex album is cool. I actually don’t mind the new Kanye West release, it’s a good driving album. Autolux’s new album is very interesting and I’m looking forward to what the rest of the year has in store. I’m really excited having heard DEAFCULT’s news songs at last nights show so I’m keen to hear their album hopefully later in the year.

Wrapping things up, what’s next for Figures?

Nic: In the immediate future we’re aiming to be playing shows but we’re also looking at possibly putting out a full length or maybe even a split. That would be pretty cool.

And finally, any final words or shout outs?

Nic: Shout out to the polar bear man, the polar bears are sick! Plus the blue collars, the hard working people [laughs]. Oh, and hey mum! You haven’t listened to my record yet.

Find more: www.facebook.com/Figures-438105256314447 ­

HORROR MY FRIEND

Having dropped their stellar debut record “Stay In, Do Nothing” in the early months of 2016, Horror My Friend have gone from strength to strength, announcing their first overseas tour as part of The Great Escape Festival in the UK, supporting Pity Sex, of whom they’re massive fans, and joining in on the Poison City Weekender.

Combining youthful enthusiasm with a distinct knack for writing impeccable hooks, the Adelaide trio are most definitely a band to keep an eye or, more aptly, an ear out for. After a full day of uni, Matt gave their drummer Sam a buzz to talk about their love of Flight of the Conchords, touring with their punk rock dads The Grendadiers and not really trusting bass player Tom anymore.

Words By Matt Lynch.

Firstly, hey! How’s it going?

It’s good, it’s good. I’ve just been at uni all day. It’s been a fun day; lots of learning and knowledge.

It’s that time of the semester where all the students start stressing out.

Pretty huge new coming out of the Horror My Friend camp recently; you’ve just announced that you’ll be heading on your first overseas trip, cruising all the way over to the UK to be a part of The Great Escape Festival. A massive congrats on that one!

That sounds like it’ll be an amazing experience. How did the opportunity for that come up?

Thank you, thank you. We’re really lucky because we were picked, maybe 9 months ago to be a part of this ARTSA program. ARTSA is this grants body and it’s South Australian fellowship.

Last year was the first year they ran it and BAD // DREEMS and Tkay Maidza got it. Then this year, we applied for it and were lucky enough to have got with The Grenadiers, and a few other Adelaide bands as well. We’ve had a bunch of stuff to do with that but their big thing at the end of it, is that they send a couple of those bands over to The Great Escape festival, which is of like SXSW in Britain, that kind of industry festival. We’re really lucky to be able to go over for that. We thought since we’re there, we’re obviously going to try and organise as many shows as we can.

We’ve managed to get about 8 or 9 confirmed at the moment.

On top of the festival, you’re going to organise some shows over there too?

Absolutely. We’re kind of going to do a road trip around. We’re even going all the way up to Glasgow for a bit and around the rest of England for a bit. And just playing shows, well, as many as we can. A lot of them are sort of DIY punk shows. I think we’re even playing a house party, which I’m stoked on because it’s going to be sick!

Oh man, that’s going to be awesome!

Yeah, yeah! The guy who helped us with the booking a lot of these shows is going to come hang out and drive us around which is awesome.

Alongside that announcement, you also released a video for the single “PB Remains”, which was filmed throughout the launch tour for “Stay In Do Nothing”. It was a really cool video and was a cool insight into your touring life. Was that how you intended it to come out?

HORROR MY FRIEND Cont.

We were planning on releasing “PB” as a single because I think, it’s one of those ones on the album that everyone seems to universally love. It’s a pretty long song so we weren’t quite sure what we’re going to do with it and we just thought to be out a video and it’ll be a good time. I’m not always the biggest fan of tour videos, necessarily.

Lewis Brideson is the guy who filmed it. He came along to Melbourne with us and filmed a few shows there and then Ballarat and a show in Adelaide. So yeah, it was a good chance to just… we weren’t really intending this, I guess, but it was a cool look into how we spend our time on tour.

A lot of it is sort of just kicking around and finding ways to spend the day whilst we wait for shows and soundies and all the sort of stuff.

It was pretty cool to see, actually. You went into op shops and the likes and just kicked around a few stores like that. It looked like fun.

It was fun to shoot…but I guess we weren’t really thinking about being shot at the time.

The video for “PB Remains” and the news of your trip to The Great Escape Festival was all featured through Bombshell Zine. At the end of the feature, they mentioned that the heavier and darker sound on that song was an insight to your new material. Were you consciously writing it that way?

At the time, it came out how it was. Putting it at the end of the album seemed natural. It wasn’t meant to be “…and here’s a preview of our next album”. We were probably writing a lot more stuff like that at the moment. A lot of the songs there are a bit longer, that we’re in terms of new material.

I suppose it may have been the case with a lot of bands that the stuff that you write just reflect what you listen to. I don’t think anyone really listens to the same thing over and over again. At the time of that record were listening to tonnes Title Fight.

“Hyperview” had just come out so “PB Remains” is a reflection of that. We haven’t really thought or talked about what specifically we want for the next album or the new songs. It’s an intuitive thing based off what we’re listening to at the time.

In conjunction with the release of your debut “Stay In Do Nothing”, you did a pretty extensive tour. Was it the first major one you’ve done?

It wasn’t our first tour. We’ve toured a few times and wasn’t our first headlining tour either. We’ve done a bunch of smaller tours for singles. The first tour I did was Horror My Friend was for their

EP launch a couple of years ago. But this album tour was by far the longest we’ve done. It’s probably twice the size of any other one we’ve done.

How was the album tour, by the way?

It was nuts. It was really cool too. I think the thing we found that was the best bit about it was we finally had a bunch of people coming out and sort of knew the songs, which was really cool. And it was kind of surreal, Particularly places like Sydney, we’ve never really…I don’t know. It’s just been always really hard to pull people in Sydney, for whatever reason.

This time we played at Blackwire Records. It’s more aligned to the style of music we play and the bands that we listen to. We know a lot of people who play in bands over there and we found playing there made all the difference. Just being a bit wiser about touring was a bit better. It meant that people that would usually go to that venue anyway would come to our show and would come along. It was a lot better than us playing some random venue in Oxford St, where people would probably walk in and go “Ah, this is a bit weird, let’s go.”

Definitely. Blackwire really does has that whole community vibe about it...

It is such a community. All those bands, kind of reminds me a bit of Adelaide because it’s just so small that you kind of have to know a bunch of different people and by design you know a bunch of different bands. So it reminds me of that; this little community where everyone knows what’s going on and where all the bands were playing and everyone was friends and you could go to a show there and half the audience, if not more are all really good mates. I love that and it’s so much more fun to play to. Instead of playing to people who’ll look off in the other direction.

I guess that kind of links back the that English house show you’re playing?

I don’t know why but maybe I’m building this up in my head but I’m really looking forward to that.

And the guy that got us that show, we’ve talked to him a fair but and he’s such a cool dude, so I reckon it’ll be fun.

“Stay In Do Nothing” dropped at the very start of the year through Poison City records and has really taken off, from what I’ve seen, racking up some pretty positive press.

How have you seen the reaction going?

It’s been really good. It’s been good for a few reasons. Getting Poison City was a huge help.

We’d had the album recorded before Poison City agreed to release it so we weren’t really sure

HORROR MY FRIEND Cont. how we were going to do it. We had approached a few people and they all gave us semi-answers or maybe.

As soon as we sent it to Andy at Poison City he was just like “Yep, let’s do it!” pretty much straight away and we were almost like “…is this a joke? Are you taking the piss?” We pretty much thought that it was because it was so quick. That has been one of the best things, I think; having someone like him behind us, who is not only well respected in the music industry, or at least in the groups we like but having him really passionate about it as well, is cool. I think that’s fed off to other people.

The best thing about it was it allowed us to get more new fans that we might not have had otherwise. Having the (Poison City) name attached to that, you feel a lot more part of the family and it’s been so good for us.

Didn’t you get the Andy’s contact after playing a show with Clowns?

That was pretty much it, yeah. We’d sent him an email already or to another one, kind of and we didn’t get a response. We talked to Clowns that night and they said we wouldn’t get a response from that one, and they gave one and told us to use that. He responded so that was good.

The LP was written and recorded over the period of about a year. During that period of time, you’d just graduated from high school and started up at uni. For me, it really captures that snapshot of adolescence. Do you feel that there was that kind of progression or reflection?

I mean, I wasn’t involved in the writing or recording of the (Million Hands) EP but even from then you can kind of see, not musically but lyrically there’s progression. Not sort of kids but just growing up, you know what I mean? And becoming not even more mature but having lived more.

The subject matter for the album being written had changed a little bit. To go back to “PB Remains”, I’m pretty sure that was one of the last songs we wrote so I think both musically and lyrically you can see that it’s quite different to the EP. It was definitely a snapshot of the time. It was kind of weird too. Having all these songs written a year ago finally released.

Sitting on those songs for so long and then finally having dropped, you can almost take a step back and reflect on that period?

We weren’t even sure we like them anymore, like “do we have to put them out?”. (laughs) But no,

it was all-good.

You headed down to Melbourne to record a greater majority of this record; splitting sessions between Hothouse Studios and Soundpark. With this being your first time recording outside of your hometown of Adelaide, was it a bit of a weird experience for you?

It was a bit different. We were recording, at least for a majority of them, with a good friends of ours, Richard Bower from Magic Bones. That was our familiar link. We weren’t just completely in a brand new place with new people but it was different. It was cool. It was more like a holiday because we took two weeks out of our lives to go to Melbourne. That works really well because then you’re getting focused and relaxed at the same time. You’re focused because you’re there, you don’t have work or uni to distract you. You’re just there to knock it out. But it’s also nice to not have to distractions as well. You’ve got 2 weeks off work and you can just hang around and record your stuff. It was really fun. If we were to do it again, I think we’d do something similar.

With all of you working part time and going to uni, do you find it difficult to manage a balance between this project and general life things?

It is but we make as much time for it as we can. This is the main focus of our lives at the moment.

We all want to finish uni, it’s not like we don’t but everything takes a little of your life away so we feel that we’re in that position in our lives right now where we may never get the chance again to do something like this; to get the chance to tour and play in bands. I mean, even if we ended up at the end of the year, hypothetically, we’d be pretty chuffed with what we’ve done.

I don’t think we expected to even get a record out, let alone be able to go overseas. We want to try and will be happy to try to do this for as long as we can and fit everything else around it. But unfortunately, you can’t live off this. You still have to work and make ends meet and plan for the future career if nothing else progresses.

I feel that. It’s shit you want to do but you still have bills to pay, still have feed yourself, and pay rent and shit like that.

You have to be smart with it. You hear all the time when people are all like “I’m going to follow my dreams and go into music and became a musician” and that’s super sick! Glad you got that passion but you’re also being a wide-eyed dreamer if you think you’re going to make money out of it because 90% of bands wouldn’t be able to earn a living off their music, or at least nothing substantial.

HORROR MY FRIEND Cont.

Another awesome thing that’s you guys have lined up a little later on this year is you’re playing the Poison City Weekender! Massive congrats on that one there.

How stoked are you to be playing it?

Oh man, we’re so stoked. Last year we went over and played the Pre-Kender and so we hung out and watched all the Weekender shows. We’re stoked that Andy asked us this year. And the line up is awesome. We only just found out that full line up as well. We knew a handful of bands. I didn’t even know our mates from Adelaide, The Hard Aches, are coming. I saw it last night and was like “Yes!” All three of us are the biggest Pity Sex fans as well.

You came through Brisbane this year with The Grenadiers as the main support for their “Live Fast Diabetes” tour. Both being Adelaide bands, there was definitely a lot of comradery between your bands. There’s even been time where you’ve referred to them as your “punk rock dads”. Do you consider them that?

Absolutely! Because we’re young…well not young but we’re still learning how to navigate the, quote unquote, music industry, the cool thing about having bands as friends like Grenadiers we can ask them for advice. They’ve done a lot of stuff before and also they’re probably a bit more clued on than us. It’s really cool having them around to ask for advice or shooting ideas. To even hang out as well, they’re all the best guys to have a beer with.

We’re stoked when they asked us to do that tour that was brilliant. If only just to get more time to hang out.

Speaking of that Brisbane tour, and this is a super specific question, but Tom and Josh made the “mum guitar and bass guitar” joke from Flight of the Conchords. In other interviews as well, you’ve made mention of them and Rhys Darby. Are you guys big Flight of the Conchords fans?

Yep. Huge! I actually got to see them when they did that big tour. They played at The Entertainment Centre. It was huge and weird. It’s funny because a friend of mine actually looks like a splitting image of Germaine. This is how much he looks like him; we’re sitting in the crowd and people were coming up to him and saying stuff like “good show”. It was super weird.

The music blog Happy did a “Choose Your Own Adventure” styled interview with you on your album launch tour. At the end of the adventure, Tom ended up turning into a vampire and killing you. Since he murdered you, are you the same band or is that still hanging over him?

Nah, we’ve never been the same band since that day. That was actually at the Blackwire Records, just before the album launch. I don’t think that trust can ever be brought back.

So now you’re always carrying around a gun with a silver bullet in it?

I never leave the house without silver, man. Especially if Tom’s around. And how could you trust him?! He killed us in a fictional tale. How can we know that’s not going to happen in real life?

I mean, you even tried saving him.

To be fair, to be fair to him because you had to choose an option every time, I’m pretty sure. Josh and I accidentally killed him first and got a second go. Maybe this is where the animosity came from. Sorry Tom! Minus The Great Escape Festival and then the Weekender in September, what else do you have in store for this year?

We’ve got a couple of supports for some national tour but I don’t think they’re announced yet so we’ll announce them when we’re allowed to. But other than that, we’re going to try and start recording…well we’ve already started recording demos. We’re going to keep working on a new record.

I mean, judging by how long the last one took, we’re probably going to need a bit of time. Going to see if we can do a quick end of year headline tour and play a couple of venues on the east coast.

Oh! We’re also going to over to Perth for a sick festival. Our booker Greg Sanders from Gun Fever, he’s going to be putting on a 2 day punk rock festival so that’ll be cool.

Any final words or shout outs?

Hi mum and dad! Hope your well. Thanks so much for letting us do this.

Find more: www.facebook.com/horrormyfriend ­

MALAKYTE

Words By Matt Lynch.

MALAKYTE Cont.

Chances are if you’ve been to, in my opinion, Brisbane’s best music venue, Crowbar anytime in the last three or so years, you would have come across the ever-lovely Malakyte gents. The local Brisbane thrashers have been a staple in the local heavy music scene, enthralling crowds with their performances and then charming their hearts when meeting them.

Having opened the proceedings for the likes of Anthrax, Toxic Holocaust, and the ever-coveted opening slot at Soundwave Festival, Malakyte have been doing everything right. Matt caught up with their larynx tearing vocalist Muz and six string wizard Dalton to see what’s been happening, and I find out that proper battle jackets don’t have sleeves. I found out that the Elephant Hotel in does $16 dollar jugs of Coopers Green. This was a fucking fun interview.

As a side note: Rest in Peace to The Beetle Bar. Sadly, I never went there but that joint was doing so much cool shit for the local Brisbane heavy scene so it’s sad as fuck to see it go.

Firstly hey gents, how are we?

Muz: Better now! (raises beer glass) You’ve had a quiet few months on the gig front to take time to finish the new record.

The last gig was on Jan 15th, what have you been up to since then?

Muz: We’ve been trying to write the second album, I suppose. It’s going a lot slower than we all expected and the downtime was kind of because we get out of rhythm with band practice and shit.

We fell apart a little bit at the start of the year, I reckon. I think it’s coming back now; we should have a lot of stuff ready for that show in June...

Dalton: Wait no, it’s July, isn’t it? It’s on Federal Election day!

How was that last show for you guys?

Dalton: Well, we did one at The Triffid which was pretty cool, and I guess we did one at Crowbar under the guise of Dildo Blizzard.

Muz: That doesn’t count. Good show though!

Dalton: Okay then it would have been that Triffid show.

Muz: I think we played Triffid show was back in January That Dildo Blizzard show was super low key. How was that show?

Muz: It went really well, yeah. Heaps of people were saying it was one of better times they’ve seen us play so I guess that’s good. But we really just did that as a bit of a piss take. We figured that we hadn’t been on stage in what, three or four months?

Dalton: Four months, I think.

Muz: So yeah, we were just like taking it under the guise of Dildo Blizzard so Crowbar didn’t get overwhelmed by thousands and thousands of fans.

Out of all the names to pick, where’d Dildo Blizzard come from? Was it just a funny name and you ran with it?

Muz: Pretty much, I think.

Dalton: Yeah, I think Laggy’s (Malakyte’s fellow guitarist) sister came up with it.

There’s been another momentous show in the last few months for you guys. You had a farewell show for your, now former, drummer LG. It even included a really dope Reservoir Dogs themed poster. Was it a very bitter sweet moment?

Dalton: Yeah definitely. We’d spent a lot of time together and he’d been there from the start. We all got real close as a band. I don’t really know the words but it was sad to see the change. At the same time though, we’re also really excited because we’ve now got Pete.

Muz: I just ended up getting really fucking drunk that night.

That almost always leads to a good time though, yeah?

Muz: Oh yeah! But I feel like for Liam, I don’t want to talk for him but, he had to do that. Like, that was his time.

MALAKYTE Cont.

He had to and I mean, we’re still good mates with him. It’s different now. I mean, he was sort of the father in the band. He was a little bit older and did a lot of the behind the scenes stuff.

Dalton: Well yeah, he did do most of it.

Muz: He was kind of our manager, I suppose? So that was odd for us because we didn’t really have our shit together too well. We’re also just excited to see new member joining the band.

It’s like they’re injecting fresh ideas?

Muz: Well yeah. It’s a new energy and if you’re sitting around in the band room talking shit, you’re like “sweet, there’s this other guy here who can join in”.

Continuing on with approaches, one thing that has been maintained since your inception has been the focus you’ve held to keeping every manageable aspect of the band to be as DIY as possible, seemingly minus PR at this point. How important is that ethos to you as individuals and ultimately as a band?

Dalton: I think it’s pretty important. I mean, we all want to get more skilled at doing these kinds of things, you know? And we figured the more hands on we are, the most experience we can get for ourselves. The more mistake we make, we’ll be making them for ourselves, not having someone else making them for us.

Muz: We kind of have a hands off manager at the moment but that’s mostly because we’re not playing much. But he hooks us up with some things. You know Dennis?

Oh yeah, Dennis is the man!

Muz: He’s more of our booking agent.

“Human Resonance” came out three years ago now and you’ve been working on the new record since…

Muz: Holy shit, yeah.

Dalton: It will be in October.

Muz: Shit, it has almost been three years.

Dalton: Jesus, what have we been doing?

Touching on that new record, how is the writing process coming along?

Dalton: We want to be sure of it. Because there’s been a new energy in the band, we’ve been trying to find a new direction and a new sound. We want it to sound heavier and a bit more serious.

Getting heavier is never a band thing and if you guys did go on the opposite way, people would be “Aw, ya fucking sell outs!”

Muz: I feel especially because of Pete, our new drummer, has a very different style to Liam and that’s pretty much the reason why we picked him. He’s more of a death metal drummer. We didn’t want to be a death metal band.

Dalton: That influence, the more extreme metal influences is where we want to do. We’ve been trying to work on a sound incorporation different influences as opposed to straight up thrash.

What other influences have you guys been bringing into this new record?

Muz: Goatwhore! (laughs) Dalton: Vektor! (laughs) That Vektor record only came out a few weeks ago and I’ve heard that so many people have been frothing over it super hard.

Muz: It’s sick. I mean my only criticism…. it needs more solos.

Dalton: That’s what I thought as well. It was 15 minutes into the album before the first solo.

Muz: Here’s one, finally. We thought they were going to St. Anger us but thank fuck.

“Human Resonance” was recorded with Sam of local Brisbane band Defamer, and was mastered by Harris Johns who’s been behind a fair few Kreator records. Is the technical approach to this forthcoming release going to change at all?

Muz: I reckon we’re going to try and put a bit more money into it so it…

Dalton: Sounds better.

Muz: Really yeah. Sam helped us out a lot and he was really starting to learn a lot of new

MALAKYTE Cont. techniques in recording. I think he maybe tested some new techniques and gear on us so it was very cheap. At the time, it was all we could really do. We would have gone with Sam anyway. I feel this time we’ll all have a bit more money to put behind it and try to get something a bit more shiny.

Was there anyone you would be hell keen on working with for the new record? Have you scouted around and checked out who’s in a record’s liner notes?

Muz: That’s a good question…I don’t know? We don’t have anyone in mind at the moment, that’s for sure. We’ll try and keep pretty local though. Maybe not for mastering but definitely to record because it’s easier that way.

Dalton, you studied and graduated in a Bachelor of music performance in the last few years, have you found that academic filter of music altered your approach to writing?

Dalton: I’d say yeah, it has just because I kind of view music a lot differently now. I notice different things, different ways to structure the music, and different ways of thinking about it. Not so much academically but in studying, I make my own rationalizations from what I’ve learnt and definitely affected how I approach writing.

From last I heard, all of the Malakyte crew live together minus Trip. Being constantly in the same spaces, as each other would work well when creating new music, would it not?

Dalton: We all live close to each other and for a while we all lived together.

Was it tough for you guys to be in a band together and be constantly surrounded by your band mates? Did you reach a point where you couldn’t do it anymore?

Muz: I feel it did get to that point, yeah.

Dalton: It did a bit, yeah.

Muz: There were 4 of us living together.

Dalton: It was mostly the lack of a jamming space in our house.

Muz: It was a tiny house and we couldn’t do that much band shit, which is kind of a bummer.

I’m the same. I live with my guitarist and that’s cool and all but for full band practises,

it kind of sucks having to lug your gear somewhere else. It would be tight to have one of those huge old Queenslanders and have the bottom as a jam space.

Muz: It would be awesome to be like “Hey, where are you doing today?” “Well we’re jamming all day”. That would be pretty sick.

Back tracking a little what has been the reaction to that record? It seemed to gather a fair amount of praise from what I read.

Muz: It had the good and the bad at the start. Although a lot of things I read was “the music is good but the vocals suck” (laughs). I’ve had a few people this year who…when you’re in a local band, people pick up your cd and don’t listen to it for fucking ages and say “Oh, I found this at the bottom of my car. I finally listened to your album.” I’ve been getting a few of those but they’ve been good, I guess?

Dalton: Live, the songs have progressed a lot as well. We’ve changed them up a bit.

Muz: That’s true. With Pete on the drums, all the old songs have a new feel now live compared to the album.

Dalton: You were only really learning the songs while we were recording.

Muz: Yeah that’s true!

Dalton: We’d barely played them at all.

Muz: I think I had played 2 shows before I had to go into the studio to do that album.

Shit, so you were kind of thrown in the deep end with this one?

Muz: I wrote the lyrics for 1 and half songs was like “all right, done!”. The rest was already done for me so I went in there and did it. I hung out with Sam for those recording sessions so it was pretty sweet.

Have you started to weave new material into the set list or is it going to be a surprise when it drops?

Muz: Nothing from this year’s writing. There are 2 songs that we wrote last year that won’t be on the album but we play them live and they’re some of my favourite songs so far. Those two songs

MALAKYTE Cont. are more represented of what will happen.

They offer an insight into where you’re heading musically?

Muz: Yeah dude.

Dalton: We’ve got another three that we’re working on.

With the album, do you have a date that you’re set on having the writing completed by or is more a case of letting the writing happen organically?

Muz: We were trying to have it out by the end of the year but the further it gets into the year, the more we’re realising money is a big factor and writing is taking a bit longer than we would have hoped.

You’ve been performing for nearly a full decade now individually and as band for just under five now, have you noticed a difference in Brisbane’s and by extensions Australia’s metal, and in particularly underground metal scene?

Dalton: I’d say yeah. There was a period when we were starting out, it seemed to be dwindling a bit. It’s definitely better than what it was in 2012ish.

Muz: The more you are involved in your scene, the more you’ll see of that scene, and that’s what a lot of people don’t get. They don’t go to the shows they complain about people not going to. Then you kind of go “Man, if you were there, more people would be there”. That’s what I’ve noticed at least. If you get out more, you definitely get more out of your scene.

Dude, for sure. I mean, there were shows almost every day at Beetle Bar hosting local punk and metal shows.

Muz: Yeah, fuck me. And there’s the back room in Annerley, out the back of the Chardons Hotel.

It’s owned by Woolworths. It’s an awesome venue, it’s really big and professional too.

Apart from finishing the record and going back to melting faces with your live show, what’s up your battle jacket sleeves for the rest of the year?

Dalton: They don’t have sleeves!

Muz: Some do, I guess?

Dalton: Oh yeah, Lags’ does.

Muz: At the moment, we’ve got some interstate festivals booked. We’ll be doing Metal United in Melbourne in October and another one in Adelaide, which is November, I think. It’s not economically viable to do one show at a time interstate. We’ll be looking to get some shows around these festivals to make it a little bit more worthwhile. It’s always worth playing a show but when you get home and you’re fucking broke as shit and you end up being like “aw, god damn.”

So we’re at least trying to get 2 or 3 shows out of interstate travel.

Trying to link a few of those shows together for a mini-tour?

Muz: Yeah, it makes it easier instead of having to travel every month to different cities and shows for them to be like “well, here’s your half hour or forty-five minutes”.

Any final words or shout outs?

Muz: Shout out to the other Malakyte dudes who aren’t here. And definitely keep it true in all that you do. Even if it is gay as fuck, keep it gay as fuck.

Find more: www.facebook.com/Malakyteband ­

TOTALLY UNICORN

Anyone who’s followed this shitty zine over the last year would by now know how well documented my love for Sydney lords of “what the fuck just happened?” Totally Unicorn, or “Totally Who-nicorn” as Courtney Barnett said. Over the past six years of novelty shaped vinyls, appearing on Border Security, and bending the mind of Australian audiences, the hirsute mythical gents have been garnering a name as one of the most exciting and interesting musical acts in the country.

Already armed with a solid collection of releases and are now poised to wreak havoc in greater affect with the release of their debut record “Dream Life”. Matt had a caught up with their vocalist Drew recently and chatted about the six year process, doing things for Ol’ Winno, who has the best gut, and slightly illegitimate, but totally hilarious Pozible campaigns.

Words By Matt Lynch.

Hey dude, how’s it going?

Really good, man. It’s exciting, just trying to sort out the loose ends of getting this album done. It’s come together pretty well and I’m super excited, really.

You’ve just capped off you “Top Gut” tour that went through the three major East Coast cities and has been the first since you were planning to release the “All The Shit We’ve Done” cassettes. How was the tour for you guys?

Tour was awesome. Sydney and Melbourne shows were fucking awesome. Brisbane was a bit… eh. But it was super interesting seeing what response we got after not having toured for so long, just because of recording, and life stuff getting in the way. It exceeded our expectations. It was great.

If you had to bestow the award for “Top Gut ” to anyone in the world, who would win the coveted title?

TOTALLY UNICORN Cont.

I would say “Top Gut” Award would probably be David Boone. Fuck, I don’t know…look let’s just stick with Booney because he’s an Aussie legend. Also he holds the record for most beers on a plane so that kind of fits the “Top Gut” thing.

Yeah, Booney is a good choice. I would have also picked John Howard, from Blue Heelers. He’s got a spectacular gut.

Mmm…that’s true. I met him once, actually. He was a nice fellow. The name can be deceiving.

I don’t actually remember seeing anything about those tapes after you’d announced the last tour in support of them. What happened to them?

Just like everything in music; lots of promises and then nothing shows up. We were supposed to release them on an American label that had previously done tapes for my other band, Tanned Christ, which we never saw but apparently they were a thing because a couple of people got them over here. There was this young kid, just out of his mum’s garage in Chicago or something was like “aw yeah, I’ll release your tapes” and I thought that would be sick. And yeah, dunno what happened. If he see this interview, maybe he can see if they’re still in his mum’s garage. But yeah, never heard a word from him again.

It was such a sweet idea. I went trawling through bandcamp and places like that and couldn’t find anything.

Yeah, it was a bummer because we were going to put everything we had on them, which was kind of cool because maybe it was kind of like an album. We’ve got all these songs but nah. We’ve had it happen before though so it doesn’t matter.

Oh shit, seriously?

When we first started off we were going to release a vinyl version of our first EP, “Horse Hugger”, and a young gentleman called Ian Gilbert was going to release it for us. It was cool because it was like another piss take of the “Black Album”, the Metallica one. Instead of a snake, it was like a big dick and it was all pink. It looked really good. He was going to release that and he was going to release the new, well at the time new, Ironside record, and he stole all the money and fucked off. It ended up being kind of funny because he stole all the money and we released a t-shirt with him on it. It’s the “Good On You Gilbert” shirt, you can probably see that on the internet. It’s like a unicorn and a transformer ripping him apart.

I got a phone call the other day from the State Police like two weeks ago asking if I knew this

bloke and he fucked over some bloke he was working for and gone off overseas. They were trying to catch him at the airport. So he’s onto bigger and better things, that guy. What a winner.

Just prior to the tour, you released the “Sometime I Sit and Drink, Sometimes I Just Drink” 7” for Record Store Day. At the same time you announced that you’d been signed to Wollongong label Farmer and the Owl. Was the timing of that signing a major factor in when that 7’ was released?

That had always been a bit of dream but we were always hopeless at that kind of thing. Releasing records costs money and we don’t have that. When we signed with The Farmer and The Owl they were like keen to do a Record Store Day release with one of the new songs on it, which has two songs on it now. Mike, our drummer, was wondering what to do for artwork and was like “did you see that fucking Courtney Barnett got the best artwork at The ARIAS” What is that? It’s horrible.

Let’s just fucking rip that off”. Yeah, it came out really good.

It was funny because Batpiss, who we were touring with, one of the dudes, is her guitar tech.

When he was over at Coachella with her, he showed her this.

She had a bit of a laugh and apparently the line she said was something like “Totally Who-nicorn?”

Yeah, good one Courtney. But yeah, her bass player came to our Melbourne show and bought the shirt with that cover on it and said he was going to wear it on stage to piss her off.

The B side to that 7”, “Convict Brick”, had Karina from High Tension ripping it up as a feature. How did you guys tee that up?

That song wasn’t going to be anything. Kerim, our guitarist, had a few riffs and was just fucking around with them in the studio and we were thinking that we need another song, or a couple of songs. He wrote those riffs down and our engineer / producers Tim, who’s done everything we’ve done, went out for a smoke and a beer…about an hour’s worth and when he walked back in, Kerim had done this track. It was fucking awesome.

I always wanted to have Karina on a track, we’re good mates and yeah, just kind of gave her free reign and she fucking killed it. Did a really good job on the vibe of it as well, which is awesome.

It turned out super good. I think High Tension are one of the best bands in Australia and we get along with them super well and not so much vibe wise but they’re very funny people. I’m glad she’s on it.

And you guys are on the Weekender line up together so that’ll be pretty sick.

Yeah, that’ll be interesting. I’m pretty excited to turn some Hot Water Music heads around. No acoustic guitars for us.

TOTALLY UNICORN Cont.

Could you imagine a Totally Unicorn show where you all played acoustically?

Oh my god. Maybe for our Triple J Like A Version, we could do that.

Alongside that release, you guys also did a fucking hilarious and well put together video for “Customer Service Station”, a screenshot of which made it as the poster I have hanging up in my room. It honestly looked like a shit tonne of fun filming that and playing around with the green screen. How was it?

It was fun, from what we remember. We weren’t going to do it. When that clip came out, everyone kept telling us like “this is it. You gotta do another one” and we thought “nah, fuck that. We’ve done it. We’re not going to do that again.”

There was this interview with Blunt Magazine with Winston and I think the interviewer asked if he heard we were going to do another parody of their skydiving video and he was just like “fuck, if that’s a thing, that’s my most anticipated film clip of the year”. It pretty much made us do it, doing it for Ol’ Winno. So yeah, it happened. It turned out much better than what we thought. We filmed it all in one day. It was such a full on day. So stoked though, it was so sick.

This year has been a pretty big year for you guys so far with the 7”, the launch tour and a week or two before that tour kicked off, you were also announced to be a part of, what I think, is Australia’s best festivals going at the moment, Poison City Weekender which is something we mentioned a little earlier. How did that come about?

I met Andy at Laneway when I was hanging out and did a little sing song with High Tension and just hit him up about it. He said it was cool and that was pretty much it. We’ve always wanted to play it ands I think we were going to do last year of the year before but it didn’t work out. I love the Poison City vibes, it’s all awesome. Most of those guys are our friends so it’ll be a big old par-tay.

It’ll essentially just big a big four day party for you dudes in Melbourne.

It’s good because we’re playing Big Sound and then flying straight down there so we’ve got a few days off beforehand so we can just party the whole week.

The Big Sound lineup was only announced this week sometime. Was it similar to how you guys joined the Weekender line up?

Pretty much. There was a bit of help from our label. I think we’re playing a few shows for Big Sound, maybe like three or four so it’s going to be pretty full on. And also Deathproof PR are helping us out and I think they’ve got a showcase as well. I don’t know when or what we’re playing but yeah, apparently we’re going to be doing three or four shows.

Another massive announcement that came out recently was that your debut LP “Dream Life” is finally being released through Farmer and the Owl!! From what I’ve seen, you were working on it for the greater majority of last year and the first single from that “Space Congratulation” is a peak Totally Unicorn track. Being in the works for so long and being the longest release you’ve put out, how did you approach “Dream Life”?

I’m over the moon with that shit. It’s been six years in the making, literally so much fucking around. The album process for us was we wrote and wrote and wrote and we thought we had a really good set of songs or kind of had a couple of half songs we could write in the studio. But we wrote for like a year, went into the studio because Mike was moving to Adelaide so we had to get into the studio before he moved away. So we recorded all the drums and listened back to the tracks and our guitarists Kerim and Aaron kind of went “I don’t really like these songs”. And it was like, fuck. Mike didn’t want to re-record drums so they had to rewrite all the songs around the drums, which is what they did. So that was another, you know, five months of rewriting and re-recording that again. But in the end, the songs are fucking great and I’m stoked.

Even judging from the single off that, “Space Congratulations” alone, if that’s the signifier for whats to come on the record, it’s going to be fucking sick.

I think that was the last song we wrote for the album and we were playing with a lot of punk bands ad the time so it has that punk rock ending. So there are a lot of things that are different. It’s definitely different to the other stuff which is good.

Is it also a bit of a sigh of relief, seeing it all come to a head?

Yeah, totally. It’s relieving in a way. I’m just excited for people to hear it and play the actual songs live. I’m sick of playing the old songs.

In conjunction to that, you announced your biggest tour to date, which is covering a fair majority of the country. Having only really toured in short stints as Totally Unicorn, how are you approaching this one?

TOTALLY UNICORN Cont.

Nup. We’re just excited to get out there and have fun. Get drunk and do our thing. It’s cool.

We’ve spread it out so it’s mostly weekends ‘cause we all work and shit like that. So we had to space that out but it’s going to be fun. We’re taking Pagan with us, which is super awesome because they’re an awesome band from Melbourne so it should be good fun.

A while ago, you launched one of the best ever Pozible campaigns. It was a full campaign raising funds for a $14 box of wine and you ended up collecting over $100. Did you end up getting that box wine or did it go to something a little bit fancier? $140! It was funny because I thought of doing that and we made the video and what not.

We put it on Pozible and they have to go through some validation process to see if it’s a proper thing. We got an email from Pozible saying “look, you know this is really funny and all but it’s not something that we really do. But because it’s so funny we’re just going to leave it up there and let you guys do it.”

What did you end up spending it on?

I don’t even know what we spent it on. I probably just took it all myself and went to the pub.

You Gilbert’d yourself.

Fuck…yeah. I know right?

Speaking of wine, Mike has been given his own weekly special through The Music. called “Wine About It…With Mike”. Where’d that idea come from and how did you even get The Music on board with that?

So basically Mike moved to Adelaide for wine. He lives in McLaren Vale and he wanted to work in the wineries. He started a page for himself that he would drive people around and take them to the winery and that sort of stuff. Then he did a couple of wine reviews and they were super funny. I think our label sent that to, I don’t know, some people and they thought it was too good. The Music thought it was amazing and wanted him to do it every week. I think his liver is slowly dying from this but his getting wine companies emailing him wanting him to review their wines and that’s fucking crazy. I think he’s going to Crowbar and hosting a wine event up there just for a night. That’s going to be announced soon but he’s going up there to host a party and drink wine and shit. It’s crazy. He’s not taking me with him either, the fucking bastard. I wish he was.

Shit dude, you’re getting ripped off there.

True but he is the star of the show, so I’ll let him have it.

I asked you this at Crowbar when you came through for “Top Gut” but, is it true that the ever-awesome David James Young, who does All My Friends Play in Bar Bands, made your entire Wikipedia page?

What a guy, yeah. We’re doing a new shirt with him on it which should be pretty cool. It should be out for the tour; it’s fucking hilarious. But yeah, secrets. He’s our number one man. I think out of any band he’s seen, he’s been to more Totally Unicorn shows than any other band, which is massive for us and him because he does to a show every night. I think he’s been to thirty-two Totally Unicorn shows. I remember the twenty first show that he came to , we played The Farmer and The Owl fest a year or two ago and we presented him with a pair of tie dyed undies with “21” on them and stuff like that. It was pretty cool.

One of the best things to come out of the end of last year, and was a great early Christmas present was your live performance of “Guts” at the Hysteria Mag studios. You all got some super sweet presents too. How did that come about?

That was funny. That just came about really suddenly. It was like they wanted us to a little skit at the start and we didn’t know what we were doing so we just made something up on the spot. It turned out super good.

Obviously with the album coming out, the accompanying tour, and playing the Weekender has the rest of 2016 pretty booked out for you. Anything else on your horizon? More secrets?

We’ve got a couple of things we can’t talk about yet but yes, we’ve got more things coming up. Yeah more secrets. But everyone go to the tour first and so you might not see us until the end of the year, who knows? There’s some good shit in the pipeline.

Any final words or shout outs?

Nah, not really.

Find more: www.facebook.com/totallyunicorn ­

WHALEHOUSE

With the help of their thrilling live shows and impressive debut release, WHALEHOUSE - that’s all one word, all capitals - were successfully able to catch the full attention of both Matt and myself earlier in the year.

The all-female, all-thrills trash and/or fun punk trio brings something much needed and missing to Brisbane’s diverse music scene.

Harrison McCormack and Matt Lynch.

We were humbled to speak with members Amy-Rose, Zoe and Sonya; the wonderful people who reside within the abode of the great mammal (not literally, whaling is totally off limits man!).

WHALEHOUSE CONT. Firstly hey! How’s it going?

Amy-Rose: It’s good, we’ve got hummus.

For those poor unfortunate souls who don’t know WHALEHOUSE, who’s makes up the trio and what do you do?

Amy-Rose: I play guitar and I sing sometimes.

Zoe: I sing and play guitar sometimes.

Sonya: I play drums and we’re a punk rock band. That’s what we’re calling ourselves right? Punk rock? Trash punk? Fun punk?

Amy-Rose: Three piece?

Sonya: Some sort of sub-genre of punk.

Zoe: Girls…question mark? Maybe?

You guys only kicked things off at the beginning of the year with WHALEHOUSE. Can you tell us how the band began?

Sonya: You guys can do that. I’m going to get more coffee.

Zoe: I don’t know. Amy and I went to high school together and were doing a music extension assignment. We were recording an electric and acoustic bass guitar. We were just like, doing nothing Amy-Rose: I think I still have that recording on my laptop.

Zoe: And it sounded like a whale and a house together.

Amy-Rose: So we called it ‘The WHALEHOUSE Experiment’ originally.

Zoe: ...and it was just us making sounds and putting reverb over the top of it. Then we pretended we were a band for three years and I thought we should actually do band stuff. And yeah, we actually started doing band things with Sonya…

Sonya: No, no you guys were doing covers of “Tip Toe Through the Tulips” when I joined and then after I joined, we played Smash Mouth for ages. That was good.

Zoe: I told Sonya she should learn that drums and she’s only had been playing drums since that day so she basically learnt drums to be WHALEHOUSE. She’s actually the best drummer!

Amy-Rose: Remember when we did broke into jazz Smash Mouth?

Zoe: That was beautiful.

How does one actually do jazz Smash Mouth, out of curiosity?

Amy-Rose: They were playing these really jazzy chords and all I had was a microphone and I didn’t have any proper lyrics so I started singing “All Star”. There’s a scat.

Sonya: We were mucking around with covers and then we wrote “Sick Burn”. We released the demo for that and we got really excited. Maybe a little bit too excited because we wrote a shit tonne of other songs.

Zoe: We currently have thirteen songs in our repertoire and two of them are covers so we have a lot of songs. It’s only because they’re all really short. They only got for one minute. I mean, who needs bridges really? Not us.

Along with starting up the band you also released the “It’s A Whale Of A Time EP”.

Sonically, the EP draws influence from that late 80’s to early 90’s self-aware punk-rock sound. Being your debut release, how was the writing process?

Sonya: Damn, you guys know more about us than we do.

Zoe: Usually one of us will write a song and then everyone else will add their part to the song. I wrote some songs, Amy wrote “Good Christian Girl”.

Amy-Rose: We kind of just do if you wrote that song, you sing that song. Except for “Punk Rock Fish”, Sonya wrote that, which is the secret track at the end of the EP. We thought that’s what it was! We were going to ask about that too actually.

Zoe: It’s actually Sonya. She thought of “Punk Rock Fish” in the night when she was going to

WHALEHOUSE CONT. sleep. That recording is her waking up and being like “Oh, I have to get this down”.

Sonya: Yeah, it was like, 5:30 in the morning. I was walking to work in the dark and singing into my phone’s headphones strapped to the little record button.

Zoe: My favourite part is where she goes “fuck this is so good”.

Sonya: Next minute, they hear it in the car. Nobody was ever supposed to hear that. It was the next week after I did that.

Zoe: She accidentally played it to us all in the car through the aux chord. We’ve actually just done some recording so yeah, look out for that. Soon.

Sonya: Wait, what was the question again?

About the writing process for the EP. Amy: It’s a team effort, we just go through the songs and see what we like and don’t like.

Sonya: I think the form takes the longest for us. Like “Fresh Bread” took ages for us to work out.

Zoe: Yeah, it did. I mean, I mainly write all the lyrics first and we’ll just for the songs around that.

Amy-Rose: I don ‘t know. I always write a nifty chord progression and then write lyrics to it.

I just start saying words while I’m playing.

Production-wise the EP comes across as endearingly lo-fi. Was that something you set out to achieve?

Zoe: We recorded in the downstairs of my house. The recording is all dead and flat because we put all this foam around the room and then we just had a couple of blankets and pillows. I think we have a photo of it maybe. It was good but I wish the sound had a bit more reverb in the mix, as it does sound a bit flat but what are you going to do?

Sonya: …and with a really bad drum kit. But we had good mics though? We also had to buy a snare stand for that as well because we were playing it on a chair…

Zoe: ...and a stack of books.

Sonya: because we had an electric drum-kit, which I have now, and then realised if we were going to doing this properly we’d need a real kit. So Zoe’s Dad just went and found us one.

Zoe: I just said, “Dad, I need a drum kit” and one night he was like “Zoe, we’re going to get a drum kit” and we went got it out from underneath someone’s house and it was rusty but we have a better one now!

You’ve played a handful of shows so far with The Keepaways, Big Bad Echo, and Bugs when there was that dual show at The Foundry with Burlap, which was the first time we saw you guys. How have you found the reaction to WHALEHOUSE so far?

Sonya: Surprise, I think is the big one.

Zoe: Yeah, people totally don’t expect what we’re going to sound like, ever, which is weird.

Amy-Rose: It’s like they don’t listen to us…

Sonya: I think the biggest one was that first gig with The Keepaways and we were sitting in the green room and I’m freaking out because it’s the first gig I’ve ever played in my life.

Amy-Rose: We got there super early for that one too. I think we were that at call time. Like, load in was at four and we weren’t on until 9:40. So we loaded in there at four and kind of just thought “We’re here ready to play. WHALEHOUSE in the building”. We’ve been first to every gig we’ve played too.

Zoe: We try to be late, honestly!

Amy-Rose: We get there like, half an hour late and not even the venue is ready to go.

You’re actually the most punctual punk band ever!

Zoe: So yeah, people are surprised but I think people like it. I hope so.

It was an awesome surprise for us, for sure. We saw you at the Burlap and Bugs double gig at The Foundry. Burlap even gave you a shout out. Tom said during their set that if you don’t listen to WHALEHOUSE, you’re a dumb dumb.

WHALEHOUSE CONT. Sonya: Burlap were so good!

Zoe: They are really nice guys.

Amy-Rose: Yeah, that gig was initially meant to be at Trainspotters but got moved to The Foundry back room and so there ended up being two gigs going on. Burlap wasn’t even a part of it. We just met them in the green room.

Sonya: and they were really nice. They came up to us and were just like “Hey, how’s it going?

What’s your band?”

Zoe: They were really good. Like, their music is so good and they were talking to us in the greenroom and were like “If you ever want to come to Sydney, tell us. We’ll drop everything to play with you”.

Amy-Rose: Bugs are really nice too. So are The Keepaways. Everyone’s nice.

Sonya: So yeah, the reaction has usually been good. Surprise and happiness, and usually loud talking to us afterwards. Have you noticed that? People like, talking to you really loudly. They come up to you and go “THAT WAS REALLY GOOD”.

Amy-Rose: Yeah, my dad came to one of the gigs, he came to our Zoo gig. I did jazz singing all the way through high school. I did my AMEB and all that, you know? And then I get up on stage and scream. I’ve never really done anything else that dads come to and I come off stage and I asked him what he thought. He just goes “Oh yeah, that was different”. That was all the feedback I got. But he hasn’t come to a gig since.

In reference to the fourth question, what are some artists that you guys draw upon both in terms of musical influences and ethos wise?

Zoe: Devo.

Sonya: We love Devo.

Kind of expected that one because you guys do a fucking awesome cover of “Girl U Want”. I actually recommended you guys to my dad (Shout out Mon!), and he asked what song. When I told he was like, “okay yeah, that’s pretty cool.”

Zoe: I mean, really, which other one could we pick? We can’t really relate to “Working in a Coal Mine” but we can relate to “Girl U Want”, you know what I mean? Who else do we like?

Amy-Rose: Bikini Kill. They’re good.

Sonya: I feel that we can draw a lot of weird similarities to The B-52’s.

Zoe: Yeah. I mean, “Punk Rock Fish” sounds a lot like…

Sonya: No it doesn’t.

Zoe: Sonya maintains that it doesn’t but I think it does.

Amy-Rose: I think it could just be the facts about sea creatures?

Sonya: You’re wrong, you’re wrong!

Amy-Rose: I don’t know. We all kind of have different tastes in music individually, so I guess all our different tastes combined. Like I like beach rock, beach rock that screams.

Sonya: I like synth-pop.

Zoe: and I like, you know, I just plug my headphones straight into a trash can. I’m too post-modern for you guys. You just don’t get it.

Sonya: We do try and inspire ourselves from the 70’s riot grrrl revolution but it didn’t really go down that path. We started having too much fun. We’re not angry people.

Zoe: It’s like we’re angry but we’re not actually angry. We’re not angry about important things.

Being fairly newcomers to the Brisbane music scene, how have you found it so far and do you have any particular local artists you enjoy?

Sonya: It’s interesting and not what I’ve expected.

Zoe: Yes, it is interesting and we’ve haven’t encountered anyone who hasn’t been unfriendly.

Everyone so far has been really nice even though we’ve only played a few shows.

Sonya: Some people won’t talk to you but you know I know in my heart, it’s just because they don’t know what to say to you so they won’t say anything and that’s whatever.

Zoe: But most people we meet are really, really nice, I think.

Sonya: I mean, we’ve only really played with a handful of people.

WHALEHOUSE CONT. Yeah, how many shows have you guys actually played?

Zoe: It’s probably only like six or seven…or maybe even eight? Is that right? That seems like too many.

Amy-Rose: I don’t know, we’ve played almost every fortnight or three weeks though.

Sonya: And we’ve played with a few bands twice like Yarout and The Keepaways. We haven’t played with The Dollar Bill Murray’s again have we?

Zoe: No, but we have gone to see them play a few times and they’re really good.

Amy-Rose: I saw them play at the Manly Hotel at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and people were just sitting and drinking beer and shit, it was all the locals. I walked in and then they’re like “its Amy from WHALEHOUSE!”. I was the only one standing there and they were singing to me.

Sonya: To me, the Brisbane scene is really weird because I don’t expect there to be ordinary people. It’s not until you talk to someone then you realise that they’re just regular people.

Amy-Rose: Doozy Daze is also another band I really like.

Zoe: Yeah we just played with them recently and they had two girls in their band. We’ve actually only played with four girls out of all the bands we’ve played with so far. The same girl was in two bands and the other one; the band had two girls in it.

Sonya: We just want more girl friends in the Brisbane punk scene. There’s that classic scenario when we’re loading in at a show and we walk into the venue and they just go, “who are you?”, They slightly think we might be groupies or random people.

Amy-Rose: That or they think that Oscar and Ash are in the band.

Zoe: Our boyfriends are there helping us with our gear and the people at the venue are all like, “Hey man, what’s up? What do you play?” until they realise we’re actually the band.

They’re our roadies.

Sonya: Apart from that everyone has been really kind.

Amy-Rose: Oh, REBEL YELL was another female we’ve play with as well.

Oh yeah, that’s Grace Stevenson from 100%. Her stuff is super interesting.

Sonya: I saw her in the green room and I was like “hello, another girl” and then I spoke to her in the bathroom before when she was about to go on.

A friend of ours snuck goon into that gig and then proceeded to fill up cans of Melbourne Bitter for the rest of the night?

Amy-Rose: Was that Mario?

Oh shit, yeah! I forgot you knew Mario.

Amy-Rose: Yeah, him and my brother Kenyon, were all like “Oh mate, you’ve got to fill up my tinny.”

I’m pretty sure that Mario is has been put on this earth to spread positive vibes and make everyone happy.

Zoe: What a nice reason to be alive.

You currently have a new release in the works. What can we expect?

Zoe: At this stage we’re thinking about just doing a single release and then later recording some more stuff. But it’s going pretty good.

Sonya: I was thinking about this the other day and I was really confused but have we recorded that song twice? Have we been to uni twice and recorded it twice? I’m not just making that shit up?

Amy-Rose: We have haven’t we!

Zoe: No, no. We have been there twice; I think the second time around the sound was better so I think that’s why we went back.

Sonya: Okay, because I remember going home and practicing then coming back and realising I could play to a metronome now. That was a good time. Are we going to say what

WHALEHOUSE CONT. the song was?

Zoe: Yeah, it’s “Punk Rock Fish” by the way.

Sonya: Good because I wasn’t sure if it was a secret or not.

Zoe: We want to do a film clip for the song too and I know there’s some people out there who are like “film clips are a dying art” or whatever, but they’re so much so why wouldn’t you want to do one?

They’re essentially just candy commercials for songs so you can afford to have a bit of fun with them.

Zoe: Yeah, exactly.

Sonya: Zoe and Oscar go to uni for music so they have to do production and record things so we’ve been the go to band, which is nice because free recording.

Wrapping things up, what does WHALEHOUSE have in store for the rest of 2016?

Zoe: What do we have in store? We’re thinking of getting some shirts done.

Sonya: We’ll be playing Battle of the Bands next week as well, which should be cool.

Amy-Rose: Yes! We might have a new song by then.

Zoe: What else are we doing this year?

Sonya: Well we might be playing with our favourite band soon too.

Zoe: That’s not confirmed yet!

Sonya: We don’t have plans. We just take this shit as it comes so we’ll probably be doing a lot more practicing, songwriting and then eventually take over the world.

World domination is on the WHALEHOUSE agenda for 2016?

Sonya: Yep! You should write that down!

Amy-Rose: Yep, we’ve got six months left.

That’s plenty of time. You’ve just been planning for those first six months and now you can use these last six months to do it.

Sonya: I think we’ll just need one week of action.

Any final words/thoughts/shout outs?

Amy-Rose: We’re just having fun and we want other people to have fun! That’s really it.

Sonya: We want to get other people involved in the music industry and to inspire people who are shit at music to start playing music.

Zoe: People are always like “I can’t do that. I can’t do whatever” and it’s like shut up.

Amy-Rose: I’ve had people come up to me and say “Oh, I could never do that” and it’s like, have you tried?

Zoe: It’s really easy. I think people should stop saying no to themselves.

Sonya: I roasted someone at work because they told me that they always wanted to play the piano and I pretty much turned around and said “Just fucking do it!” and they were super confused like, you can’t do that. But yes you can! I have literally just done it. Please! Fucking dweebs.

Please, just play some music.

Amy-Rose: Emerge yourself in the Brisbane music scene and keep community radio.

Sonya: Purchase local Brisbane music legally and please come to our gigs!

Zoe: We don’t want to sound desperate or anything…

Sonya: PLEASE COME!

Find more: www.facebook.com/whalehouseband ­