Royal Headache: Interview
Something has been happening down the side alleys of the Australian music scene over the last several years. while a large part of the Australian audience have had their hearts on fire, or using their flippers to get down, there has been a noise growing in our pubs and suburban garages. The only inclination to the wider music audience that this Garage Punk scene is happening would be the odd Eddy Current Supression Ring track on Triple J or the crudely put together gig posters on city walls. Hailing from Sydney, Royal Headache represent the more pop side of the Australian Garage Punk scene, with a sound reminiscent of the garage scene of the 60s and the bubblegum Punk of the Buzzcocks.
Alex Gordon-Smith shot a few questions at the band as they ready their debut LP.
Hearplugs: First of all, how’s the LP going. Last year’s interviews suggested that we were going to get it early this year?
Royal Headache: The LP’s going good. I think everything turned out really well. It’s just been a bit of a process getting everyone to agree on boring stuff. There’s no big drama or interesting story, it’s just our first record so we wanted to make sure we were doing the band/songs justice. We’re still new at this making records shit so it’s taken us a while to figure it out. Everyone has survived this long without the record, I’m sure they can wait another month. Or year.
Hearplugs: It’s cool to see that you decided to release it on RIP Society. Do you think it’s important to support the home grown Indie labels. Did any other labels approach you?
RH: I guess so, it’s not really a super conscious decision like “we HAVE to support our great home grown indies just like the real punks!”, really, RIP is supporting us. Nic, who runs it is my housemate/really old friend from school. We all love Nic and everything he’s released, it just makes sense that we’d go through him rather than someone we had no direct contact with.
We’ve had a few places from Europe and the US interested in doing a release of the LP, but its all still in discussion right now.
Hearplugs: Your 7” had a limited release, but it seems as though everyone has it on their playlist. It would seem that illegal file sharing has helped grow the fan base of the band. How do you guys feel about file sharing, especially with the upcoming release of the LP?
RH: Maybe it has helped us? I really have no idea how people find out about the band. I don’t think we really have an opinion on illegal file sharing. I’d hope most people interested in what we do would rather own the record than some mp3 files. I mean, I don’t think we’re going to have trouble selling records – because people download the album. If you can’t afford the record, or you’re growing up in some tiny country town like I did and downloading is your only access to us, then I would rather they hear us like that, versus not at all. We’re not Metallica man, we don’t do this shit for a living, we don’t need every cent.
Hearplugs: There are those bands that when they initially record, their first demos or EPs have a Lo-fi sound as a result of simply not being able to afford decent production, and never intended to retain the sound. That in some cases added to their initial charm, how is it with you guys, and the production of the LP?
RH: Well our first demos were recorded in our practice spot on Law’s Dictaphone, just so we could remember our parts. They weren’t really meant to be for anything else. But the energy and shit, whatever happens when we get together and play, that was all caught on those recordings and they sounded pretty badass. All of our recordings so far… I mean we do it on as small a budget as possible, but we try and get the most out of it. We’re never gonna make a record that sounds like Grinspoon or something, but you know, we just try and make the band sound like us.
Hearplugs: Who or what is Royal Headache’s paracetamol?
RH: Records (listening to, not making), pizza and beer.
Hearplugs: It’s been some time now since the Pitchfork ‘Forkcast’ of Eloise, has this exposure helped the band at all? Did it open any avenues overseas?
RH: I would say no. Not one person has ever come up to us and said “Hey! Heard about you boys on Pitchfork!”. When it happened it was only really a big deal to people who already knew about us AND never read that site anyway. It didn’t get us any shows or record contracts or lines of coke or hot model girlfriends like everyone thinks happens when your band gets featured for a day, with another 20 bands on some website that nobody who would actually be interested in your band reads. It was just like a bunch of websites talking about us being on another bigger website? Whether that helped us or not I really don’t know, we should hire somebody to gather statistics on the impact Pitchfork had on raising our “profile” so we have answers to give in interviews.
Hearplugs: The Australian Garage punk scene seems to have a real sense of comradery, is that so? Or is it really a cut-throat industry of bastards ready to throw down over top billing?
RH: Yeah, it’s pretty tight but it’s like, we tour, we play around Sydney, we go to shows you know, we all really like the bands we play with (most of the time) and we all just become friends. We go to Melbourne, Brisbane or Adelaide, wherever – we end up hanging out with the bands we play with because we like their music. They give us places to sleep and most of the time they’re the nicest/funniest people ever and everyone would be best buds even if we weren’t playing in bands. We’re just Punk bands, there’s no money to be made or fame to be had, so what would you screw your friends over for? Maybe more drink tickets.
Hearplugs: You guys last played the Exeter in July of last year, do you plan to head down to Adelaide again soon?
RH: I think we’d like to, we had the most retarded good times in Adelaide. It was sort of the easiest tour we’ve done, apart from the fact we played pretty shit at the two shows (sorry dudes!). But we’re doing some shows here and there in Sydney over the next few months and then heading to the U.S. in September to do a tour for the LP. Then we’ll figure out what we wanna do when we get back to Australia. But yeah man, get me back to that Hahndorf meat.
Alex Gordon-Smith