STACK #138 Apr 2016

REVIEWS MUSIC

that, especially with new bands. Now you’re more well-known, are you trying to cultivate a more encouraging scene? Big time. We've played on a lot of bills where you aren't allowed to chat to the other bands, can't hang in the band room, don't have a rider. All that sh-t is so lame. On a Bennies tour we share

mixture of both methods and also can write in more of a story throughout his lyrics. But partying for sure plays a massive role in the inspiration for all of us, haha. Q4/ You have toured China a few times now - what is it like? Touring China is the best. We've been lucky enough to tour there twice now, and even played a couple of big festivals over there thanks to This Town Touring. The people are super friendly, the food is insane and the fireworks are easy to buy – and perfectly dangerous. What a place! Q5/ You just played a massive cruise party last month - was it a sea of happy puke? It was fun as f-ck: Dallas Frasca, Tequila Mockingbird, Massive and The Bennies! We also have a sweet national tour happening [this month] to promote our new album Wisdom Machine – so across all these shows there should be plenty of inspiration for more lyrics.

Photo by Ian Laidlaw

everything with all bands! You can borrow our amps, you can drink beers with us, you are allowed to hang out wherever the f-ck you want. That's what playing music and making friends is all about. Death to the music industry dinosaurs! Q3/ Do lyrics come from a day-to-day diary any of y’all keep? A diary sounds like a good idea! We all approach lyrics very differently. For myself I generally write lyrics one or two sentences at a time, just whenever the mood strikes me. But I know Jules will generally wait and see what each riff inspires in him and then write towards that feeling. Anty has a

Q1/ The art on the LP is absolutely stunning. Who created that image and what’s it about? Cheers! The artwork was a collaboration between Anty's dad and our good friend Chris Cowburn from The Smith Street Band. Anty's dad painted the image in the middle: it’s four mystical characters riding their horses above the clouds surrounded by a dragon and a phoenix – very ska (haha). We wanted the artwork to match the psychedelic journey of the music, and we couldn't be LUKE BOERDAM VIOLENT SOHO INTERVIEW THE BENNIES T ime: it’s literally what separates the men from the boys (thanks John Oliver). It also makes all the difference, luxury-wise, when you’re writing one of the most anticipated follow-ups in the current Aussie album landscape. “ Hungry Ghost took three or four years, and we were basically writing whenever we wanted to,” Violent Soho’s lead singer and songwriter Luke Boerdam tells us of his band’s 2013 release. “This time around it was, ‘Hey guys, here’s a CD of demos, and you have to learn them in two weeks.’” The studio time dedicated to WACO , the fourth album from the Brisbane four-piece, included many sessions that went post- midnight; but it’s the way those initial song ideas came to Boerdam which he expounds upon. “I do a lot of writing whilst sitting on the couch watching documentaries on mute, just basically trying to get out of the comfort zone of making some rigid process out of it,” he says. “The best ideas always happen when you least expect them. It definitely feels truthful, in songwriting.

Bassist Craig Selak gives us the goss on new album Wisdom Machine.

more stoked with what Chris added to bring our vision to life. He is truly one of the most talented and best dudes in the world. Our dream was for the artwork to make you feel like you were about to be transported into 'the realm of The Bennies,’ and we feel like Chris and Anty's dad have achieved that. Q2/ You've said that while touring Japan, the other bands were wishing you the best of luck and cheersing you and such. Melbourne isn't always like

Wisdom Machine

by The Bennies is out now via Poison City Records.

MUSIC

sounds very Smashing Pumpkins. “Well, when [Smashing Pumpkins] are sad they like to write a song. They don’t feel like writing happy songs. It’s just not them. I feel like that’s the stuff I want to write; that’s where I find my inspiration,” Boerdam says – but it goes deeper than that. “I feel like there’s this other way to view the world out there, and when you really step back and view what we’ve built around us and the reality we find ourselves in, some of it is really bizarre. I like to find those moments and find those weird occurrences and point them out.” One such occurrence is the siege for which the album is named. It deserves a Wikipedia look-up if you’re not familiar, but in a nutshell: an isolated religious sect in Waco, Texas, run by megalomaniac loon David Koresh, became engaged in a gunfire-choked siege with the FBI for 51 days in 1993. The stand-off concluded in an enormous fire which consumed the cult compound, killing 80 people. “Completely blindly believing the whole myth that they created for themselves,” Boredom muses disbelievingly. “I just find it fascinating, the human nature behind it, that this is how we deal with things, how we deal with reality. There’s the whole Third World out there completely living in poverty and asylum seekers knocking on our door. It’s how we deal with the world: we distract ourselves. We all live in our own little shell, to some degree. A lot of this record is about that kind of control, and illusion.”

WACO by Violent Soho is out now via I OH YOU/Mushroom. The boys are touring Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Sydney from May 10 to May 27; check violentsoho.com for details! I always found the more you try to follow a particular idea, the worse it gets,” he continues. “There’s even been times when I accidentally put part of a riff on loop [in Logic] and it sounded better. Takes like that are a relief. It’s a bit of originality, when you find little spikes of ideas that you weren’t expecting.” In addition to the singles Like Soda and Viceroy , which roil with the slurred but hopeful Motor Ace energy Violent Soho are known for, there are some gorgeous surprises on WACO . Tracks like Sentimental , SlowWave and the superb album closer Low – which is filled with resignation, and the prettiest little guitar-picked riffs over the top of deep, almost whispered vocals – are full of a graceful melancholy that

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