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?
It’s hard getting with girls at my gigs as they are nervous and awkward and hide up the back. They will perhaps send me a Facebook message a few days later but that isn’t exactly ‘sealing the deal.’ If I do get to take one home we spend most of the night having a D&M about our childhoods, last minute fool about followed by a weird fight at 4am, which I find incredibly arousing.
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?
Lenny Kravitz man, ‘Are you gonna go my way’ changed my life. And then he followed it up with the spiritual ballad ‘Believe’ including lyrics ‘I am you and you are me, why’s that such a mystery..’ I’ve been saying that for years. Why can’t we all get along? Lenny not daggy enough? Okay how about Jimeoin’s serious stuff he put out on his ‘Craic’ album. Or what about the Carlton Football Club theme ballad ‘How Blue Are You?’ which was mailed out to me on tape because I was a subscriber to ‘Blues News.’
What’s been your worst gig and why are you glad there’s no footage of it on Youtube … yet?
Worst gig is an interesting one. My first instinct is to mention something from the ‘early years’ but in context, I was a bit shit, but alleviated that tension by playing the self-referential ‘look at me, I’m a bit shit’ shambles aesthetic card. Mathematically, what is probably worse is some bad gigs this year, when I was actually trying to be really good and confident and well aware that I was capable of better. By that formula, I’d mention a gig at Vibe in Melbourne. A comedy night where I was doing a half hour headline spot. My guitar lead stuffed up at that start railroading my momentum, and being in a bad mood anyway, and no foldbacks, as is the way of the comedy gig, I imploded nicely. There is no worse feeling than being trapped bitterly beneath the burning bright lights, partially making out the nonplussed faces of people working real hard to try and like you. I ended up ‘riffing’ on how my girlfriend was in New York and had just done acid and I was really worried about her, and ended the performance with these exact words: “I completely apologise for this performance, I’m just really hating life right now.” I’m so subversive. I’m 70 years they’ll make a cult movie about me.
Tomorrow’s payday, so we’ve only got $20 to get you drunk. Where do we go and what do we buy with it?
I don’t really like getting drunk anymore, because with every emotional high there is inevitably a low that follows, and the low’s are getting worse as I get older. Hey, alcohol’s a depressant right, so why do we use depressants to have a good time and stimulants to unwind? We’ve got it all wrong. Having said that a six pack of Fat Yak beer would be fine. I’ll be fun, I promise. We’ll hang at my house and talk about The Wire. Why are you looking at me like that? What? Was this not the answer you were looking for? What was I supposed to say? Take me to The Tote and I’ll do shots of tequila with Wally Meanie? Know your audience.
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?
Brown and motherfucking Orange. My difficult second album that nearly killed me. As if anyone would try and find it on ebay when they can torrent it. The Torrents, my favourite new band headed by torrents trent d’arby.
Suppose we put a gun to your head and force you to kiss a member of another Australian band. Who, which band and why?
Conrad Richters from Richard In Your Mind. We’ve had a mutual man-crush on each other for ages. It would probably take a threat of physical violence to make us do anything about it. Who’s making us do it? The editor of ‘indie fanboy stripey shirts monthly?‘ Hot.
The Bedroom Philosopher’s epic national tour with his Awkwardstra kicks off TONIGHT (Thursday August 12th)in Adelaide at the Jive Bar, followed by possibly the most comprehensive tour around Tasmania ever undertaken by a mainland band, then a ridiculous number of dates around Australia over the next four weeks.
