We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files, but we don’t like regurgitating press releases or asking the easy questions. At Tone Deaf we only ask the tough questions, 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.
Who gets the most ‘off stage action’ in the band? What’s the secret to their success?
If by “off-stage” you mean “stranger-sex”, then it’d be Sam. Everyone else has a babe girlfriend. His secret is he’s 7” with 6” hair.
Have you ever been arrested? Where were you, and what was it for?
Geordie and Sam once snuck out of a Kings Cross club to smoke a joint with some guys. It was a couple of years back. It was in an alleyway off Victoria street and the weed was fluorescent green. Then cops came rolling down the alley with flashlights and shone their lights on them all in this doorway. The cops may have been in a car, actually. Anyway, there’s this deer-in-the-headlights moment and then five guys on hydro started running crazy in different directions with police chasing them. Sam and Geordie got in a cab and drove down to Hyde park, but because they were so high, got out of the cab and ran through the park, hiding in trees and stuff. They came back to the club an hour or so later.
Lady cops also give you a harder time for some reason.
Anyway.
No arrests.
Scared of jails
What’s been the worst day job you’ve ever had?
There’s nothing quite nerve-wracking as dealing speed and hillbilly heroin in high school. If the bikies find out then you can forget about formal. Oh, and Retail in shopping mall.
Sex, drugs and groupies – In what order do you prefer them and how often?
Good question. Probably in that order. Or in combinations. What is a groupie? Someone who fucks you because of your band? Yeah, I guess that happens one way or another. But any kids reading this, listen, being in a band, whether you’re a boy or a girl, is great and a lot of fun and playing gigs is amazing if you like having free licence to be whoever you want to be and people actually appreciating you for it, but, furthermore, the truth is, being in a band is going to significantly increase your chances of getting laid. All. The. Time.
Take us back to the first gig you went to. Where was it and what was the venue?
One Dollar Short – KANGA
Grinspoon – Warringah Mall
Frenzal Rhomb – Youth Fest Dee Why
Led Zeppelin at Randwick Racecourse ‘72
What’s your favourite site to download music from and do you ever pay for it? Can we find any of your releases there?
John-Henry and Sam and James live together and there’s always this crazy Hawaiian lap-steel album playing at their house where every song sounds the same as the last. It has this Gus-Van-Sant-drug-scene vibe. I think they got it off some torrent thing. Geordie’s always downloading Ice Cube and stuff. Although, recently James got drunk before Christmas shopping and impulse bought a Gary Numan album at JB. So we do contribute, I guess.
What’s the furthest you’d go to win over a new fan?
Gifts. Promises. Invitations to our homes. Kisses. Compliments. Another trick we have is to let them play the set with us. In Sydney half your fans are in other bands.
Right, here’s the plug section – tell us about upcoming gigs/tours and releases.
OK. We have just released our first EP. Our EP was mixed by Mikey Young from Eddy Current Suppression Ring. We are finally getting down to Melbourne for the first time as a band and we are fucking psyched to play down there. We are playing the Tote with Priory Dolls and Greasers on Friday the 21st of January and RATS at the Old Colonial Hotel the following night.
