We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files, however we don’t like regurgitating press releases or asking the easy questions. No-one gets out of the Tone Deaf Interrogation lightly, so just hold still, grit your teeth, clench your buttocks and be still while we put on the rubber gloves, apply the thumbscrews, and pull out our thermometer while you open up and say ahhhhhhhhhhh… Truthful answers only or we drink your rider while you’re on stage.
Everyone joins or forms a band to get laid. If your band represents your sex life are you Casanova or spending plenty of time doing the five knuckle shuffle?
I would have to agree that people do indeed join bands to get laid, and I don’t think it very likely that anyone would believe that British India remain the exception. It must be remarked though that the original motivation does begin to pale comparatively as the band becomes established, and not necessarily because the band members soften and mature but just because you realise how much you underestimate how satisfying a lot of the LESSER motivations people associate with joining a band are, I’m talking about the things bands should never talk about here, money, the respect of your peers and re-gratifying your school yard battered ego. That all said the thrill of getting laid doesn’t fade, or maybe the thrill of just how EASY it can be doesn’t fade. It lasts as long as you, or who ever has convinced you that you’ve fallen in love with allows it to. Initially there was a whole lot of sex going on among all four of us but I like to think we always handled the situation in an acceptably respectable fashion- we were never hair metal about it. Like Mike skinner says it CAN become a bit un-satisfying once you get a bit spoilt so some of us have moved into the pseudo-celebrity shagging realm of things which is yet again as gratifying as temporary self esteem propping can be expected to be. Who with specifically? Ha I’ll not say!
We don’t want to know about the painfully hip bands your press release says you’re influenced by. Take us back to your bedroom when you were 14. What band posters did you have on the wall?
Well I was lucky in that I had an older sister who was at least informed enough to keep me away from Hanson and Take That. The stuff she turned me onto was typical 90’s drama rock like Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots, I also got into Greenday and the Offspring which are probably considered embarrassing enough today to satisfy your question. At the time though Dookie and Xinay On The Hombre were like the fucking Rosetta stone, there was simply nothing else as exciting anywhere else in life at that age, and not just the music but the image as well, cornbraids and blue hair dye? Fuck yeah! These rather crude blue prints gave way to far cruder buildings, NOFX, Pennywise and Drop Kick Murphy’s and then a few years later came hip-hop and you weren’t allowed to like guitar bands if you wanted to be down with Dre and Pac but that didn’t make my choice of music less cringe worthy- three words that should never go together- Insane Clown Posie.
What’s been your worst gig and why are you glad there’s no footage of it on Youtube … yet?
Oh god I hope it never emerges, since Beneath the Satellites and Avalance started getting played everywhere we’ve been asked to play at a few places we simply do not belong. One in particular was at a radio station sponsored party for the NRL state of origin final or something equally awful. Nothing about the event or venue suggested appreciation of fabulous music typified perhaps by our performance being preceded by a trio of cheerleaders sporting Hogs Breath Café costumes. I don’t want to put across that we were uncooperative but it was hard to summon any enthusiasm for the performance and I don’t recall any of us being a lightning rod of rock energy to say the absolute minimum, not that anyone noticed the party guests were so uninterested and or confused we weren’t playing rugby league team anthems that the unanimously left or yelled into their friends ear. That was one particular gig we didn’t exactly finish the ryder, we were the fuck out of there man.
Tomorrow’s payday, so we’ve only got $20 to get you drunk. Where do we go and what do we buy with it?
How many of us are there? If I’m by myself to my local, the commercial in Fitzroy incidentally, I’m pretty confident I could at least get a bit over-talkative on $20, I’m not exactly heavy set. If there are a few of us then inevitably we will be heading to a nearby street corner with two boxes of wine which is OK in the summer but in the winter in Melbourne it’s just so fucking depressing, the novelty gets snapped up by the frost and you’re just drinking to forget.
We’ve been looking in the $2 bin at Dixons Recycled and also bidding on eBay – what releases are we looking for there that your band has put out?
I really don’t understand the question? Do you mean to ask if we have any crap releases? Fuck yeah we do, our first EP is a fucking travesty- I remember a reviewer called it a ‘selfish piece of silver shit and I remember thinking that was pretty apt. Listen to it if you want a good laugh, all that aside I’d much rather be a band with good records and a shit first release rather than those typically modular bands who can never top the first five tracks they ever recorded.
Suppose we put a gun to your head and force you to kiss a member of another Australian band. Who, which band and why?
Do mean anyone or specifically a male? Because I could think of a few women in the industry I’d kiss gun or no gun. I’d kiss Megan Washington for sure, but I know her boyfriend so that’d be a bit rough, I’ve thought about kissing Lisa Mitchell as well- Shit I think I’ve even tried (and failed) but my ultimate choice would be Taylor from Operator Please although I’m so so so confident that she’d slap me across the face if she so much as read that. If you’re talking about males though that’s a little tougher, maybe Ben Lee, at least he’d be gentle.
