It’s a Tuesday night at Spectrum on Oxford and as I sit and wait watching THE LOCKHEARTS sound check I start to wonder if these four outlandish guys are as interesting off stage as they are on stage. It wasn’t long until I realised that they are far from dull, as they kick off the interview by interviewing me! Squished up in a booth upstairs at Q Bar with all pleasantries out of the way we begin to discuss band chemistry, pseudonyms and potatoes… by LOUIE SMITH.
Do you mind if I record this interview?
Jimmy Majam – Yeah don’t say my real name though while we’re recording cos I’m in witness protection…
Tim Meaco – We’re not going with Jameel? Jamal’s a favourite.
Ha, whatever name you wana go by.
J – We’ll work it out later…(whispers Jimmy)
You’ve held a residency here at Ziggy Pop for over six months now?
T – Well we started Ziggy Pop at Brighton Up Bar across the road and that was in April I think, how many months is that?
J – That’s eight months
You must know how to draw a crowd!
T – You would hope so wouldn’t you. We’ve built up quite a crowd of regulars.
Dave being one.
T – Haha yeah, what a guy, what a guy.
Age Vella – We met Dave at Gallins Music and mentioned we were playing for the Baby Animals that night at The Entrance Leagues, turns out he was already going. So he watched us that night and we just blew his socks off…ha and he’s come every week since.
I was actually at that gig. I had no idea who you were at that point but you caught my eye straight away. You’re quite different to anyone around at the moment.
Group – Thank you
Have you found that though? Do people say that to you?
T – Actually yeah. I don’t know I guess we’re all a bunch of bloody misfits and when you put us together you kind of a get a bit of a different thing. We all take influences from all different areas and I guess we just mix it all together and that’s what you get.
Do you think it’s harder or easier getting a foot in the door because you are so different?
T – I think it’s hard for any rock band that really wants to make a career out of it. It’s hard work for any band who wants to be professional.
J – It was hard to get this residency in itself.
T – Yeah it was hard to do that.
J – How many venues was it?
T – It was like six or something we went to before Brighton Up Bar.
J – We asked them for their quietest night of the week and promised we would bring the crowd and it was like too much effort for them to have a band on.
Well you’ve lasted eight months so you must be doing something right.
T – Yeah I hope so. I guess we just keep showing up and hope the crowd does too. When they do it’s a good night.
A – We get to play every week so that’s cool.
J – Most of the original bands around can only afford to do like a show a month and draw a crowd where as we kind of built this community where they feel like this is awesome.
How was it touring with the Baby Animals?
A – We did two shows with them. We did one at Monavale and then the other one at the Entrance and it was really good. They were so lovely to us.
It would have been a different crowd at The Entrance gig compared to what you’re used to…
A – Yeah my grandparents were there it was awesome. Haha, nah it was an amazing experience.
J – Everyone was so nice.
T – Yeah the coasties are a really good crowd. They’re so welcoming.
How did the BA’s discover you?
A – I don’t know if we’re allowed to tell you that on the recording.
J – Like Suze Demarchi said she’d kill me if we told you.
A – We were ex lovers back in the day.
T – Age has the photos to prove it.
J – Back in what day, back when you were three years old?
T – All we know is that they heard one of our songs, ‘Freakshow’ which is out now and available for free download on our website. But yeah they heard ‘Freakshow’ and they were into it and that’s kind of what decided that we would get the support. So we got lucky with that and it was cool that it was actually about the music.
I believe ‘Freakshow’ reached number two on MTV.
J – What do you have to do to get to number one!
T – Yeahhh.
A – You need to come in on a wrecking ball mate.
J – Honestly Katy Perry get out of the way, I don’t care about the elephant, I’m here.
How did you find the whole filming process? It looks like it would have been hard to pull off.
T – It was really fun. It was tiring but the hardest thing was just that our paint kept falling off. They had to keep re applying it because if you actually look closely in one of the clips you can see my lips falling off, which is always fun. We had a really talented director Tanzeal Rahim who put out a horror film this year called Muirhouse. It’s about Monte Cristo the most haunted house in Australia, so he’s got some cool ideas.
You released an Ep a few years ago now, is there another one is the making?
T – Well we’ve recorded a whole bunch of songs and at the moment we’re just building up to the release of our first single, which will be hopefully early to mid next year and after that, we’ll see I guess. You never know, there might be an Ep there might be an album, might be a movie, who knows.
A – I think our main focus for now is just playing live shows and becoming a really good live band so that way when people come and see us they will come back.
J – It’s cool to actually just play a lot and you know play to different people and actually work on that rather than be like ‘shit we need to record we need to record we need to record’. It’s not like we don’t though, Tim sits in his bedroom and records every weekend.
T – We’re always writing but I think we’re more focused on getting out there and just developing as a live band and bringing it to the people I guess rather than just recording and having no one to give the recordings to.
J – Well it’s awesome because we recorded for ages and we played so much live that by the time we actually put something out people did care. Rather than being like ‘here’s something’ and everyone being like ‘cool that band did something’.
T – But for now if you want to know most of the songs you have to keep coming to shows…
J – Tape ‘em on your phone haha.
T – There’s a few that have gone up on Youtube I think… so you can download those illegally.
Group – Hahahaha.
J – For now…we got our lawyers working on that haha.
How did you all meet? Wasn’t it a different line up when you first started?
T – It was and they’re gone now…
May I ask why?
T – Look the short story is that they just weren’t the right guys. They didn’t have the drive and commitment and I think at the end of the day their hearts weren’t really in it so I sort of had to go my own way and start again. Age and I have been best mates at uni for a few years and we always wanted to work together musically so I just sort of called him up and said “hey I’ve got rid of everyone in my band do you want to join it? It’s just you and me.” We sort of just went from there and we got Jameel to fill in for a week.
J – Jimmy (group laugh).
T – Actually no that’s not exactly what happened. What happened was our old Ep got into the hands of Sunday Morning Records and I got a call from Chris Johns the label head and he wanted to meet up with us. It was just Age and I and so we were hardly even a band and I said “oh yeah yeah” and he said “oh bring the band in we’ll have a meeting”. “Ohh cool yeah I’ll tell the guys” and I called Age and I’m like, “we need to get a third member because we can’t walk into this label meeting and have like two people.” So we called Jimmy and so we’re like “oh so we’ve got a meeting and we need to look like a band do you want in?”
J – I’d only been playing bass for a few months. I was a drummer before that so I had no idea what I was doing haha and still don’t.
T – So we got together for the meeting and convinced them that we had been a band for a while and started auditions to find Brenny.
Brenton James – That’s where I came.
T – Haha he speaks!
A – When Brenny auditioned, it was between him and a potato and the potato nearly won…
J – He just didn’t have any arms.
B – Ahh and I got the job.
J – Nah but Brenny’s real audition was awesome. We had other people in and we went out and were like “let’s just have a break and chill out, like this next guy’s coming in an hour.” Walk outside and see Brenny one hour early bouncing up and down with a cigarette in his mouth.
T – Whilst I’m writing out bass parts for Jimmy because he doesn’t know the songs as yet.
J – He’d just been over to the closest pub and had like three beers to calm himself down.
B – I was a bit nervous.
J – So the audition started early and at first we interviewed him as well, of course.
T – Oh nooo that’s a story for another time.
A – BTJ…put that in there.
J – Nah it’s secret.
A – That was BTJ by the way.
What is BTJ?
Group – Ohh nahh can’t tell you, it’s a secret. You’ll know one day.
J – But yeah Brenton was the most ferocious drummer out of all them. The rest of the guys could play the songs but they were safe. He was just like ‘cool I know the songs and I’m gunna do them way better than the recordings’.
T – The potato was just a vegetable so…
J – Yeah what are you going to with that? Make chips that’s about it.
A – I think the best thing about Brenny on the day was that when we knew he was the one it was not when he actually played the song but it’s when he just jammed with us and he kind of really fitted unexpectedly, it was quite good.
B – Nawww.
A – Anyone can learn a song but I think it was when he just really gelled with us we were like ‘yep, this guy’s something else’.
J – He was the only drummer to jump in when we started playing. The rest of them kind of sat there waiting for us to be like ‘it’s this song’.
B – Yeah even when we were talking outside it felt like I’d know them for ages. I just clicked with everyone immediately, kind of nice (high pitched laugh).
J – Are you going to type this out? Cos um can you put that high-pitched laugh in?
B – (Another high pitched laugh) ha I did another high-pitched thing there as well!
A lot of bands that I do interview these days seem to have a presence on Triple J Unearthed. I looked up all the bands that are supporting you tonight and all of them have profiles but I couldn’t find you guys.
T – What’s Triple J Unearthed? Nah I’m kidding ha.
J – I think if you’re signed you can’t be on unearthed. It’s just independent artists but because we’re with Sunday Morning Records you will never find us on there, you’ll find us on MTV.
T – Unearthed is fantastic.
B – Weren’t we on there at one stage?
T – Yeah we were, we used to be on unearthed. It’s a really good resource for unsigned bands like it’s a great way to get radio play and get exposure.
J – It’s kind of taken over. There isn’t really that many sites you can find to discover new bands.
T – It’s great that something like that still exists in Australia and is still so well known. There’s not enough resources like that for young upcoming bands to kind of get noticed. It’s cool to have some supportive things left in the culture.
J – It’s cool to just be able to go to a rock chart and go ‘rock, ok that’s cool, you guys aren’t cool’ haha. Or go out to gigs, which is what more people should do…
Group – Yeahh!
J – Seeing bands live is really good exclamation mark.
Awesome, well I always like to finish on this question even though it really is cliché but what is it about music that makes you want to play? What draws you to play music?
Group – (Speechless)
Individually!
J – Individually, wow.
A – Alright, I think that what makes me love to play music is how diverse it is. I think that no matter what kind of mood you’re in there’s always some kind of music to help you through it. There’s never enough in one lifetime. There’s so much to learn.
T – I don’t know for me I think it’s the fact that music cuts straight to the heart and connects to every person. Like not even just people you know animals as well. I think it’s something that everyone can connect to and relate to in one way or another. I love music because you can just reach down and grab somebody’s soul and shake it and you want to feel something. It makes me feel something that nothing else makes me feel.
B – Playing music is like…it sounds stupid sorry but real primal, especially for drumming anyway. I sort of just attack the shit out of it and you just don’t think. For the time that you’re up there it’s just like nothing’s in your head really. You don’t even think about what you’re doing most of the time it kind of just happens and it’s done. It’s like sex really isn’t it haha.
Group – Hahaha.
B – I think a 40-minute set is longer than sex though so…
Group – Hahaha.
B – Now I’ve said too much.
T – That last bit we’d like to scrap from the record haha.
J – Why didn’t you just stand there and go “rock n roll can change your world and the chicks are great.” Why didn’t you just say that?
B – Whoops ha.
J – Nah like honestly I think on stage is the only place I’ve never felt self-conscious. That’s the most comfortable place I’ve ever been. At rehearsal in front of the boys I can be self-conscious because they’re all so frickin’ talented but on stage I just feel like this is the most comfortable I could feel in society and that’s how I’ve always felt. I remember listening to Zeppelin in my headphones and being like ‘that is awesome’. I was in hospital by myself when I was seven years old and I was like ‘what’s this?’ put it on and I just felt safe. There’s just something about that that’s really awesome.