Interview Psychedelic Porn Crumpets: ”In Australia making music is the weapon of choice”

For years now Australia has been a musical greenhouse producing some of the best and weirdest psychedelic rock bands. One of the most exciting ones is the Perth-based Psychedelic Porn Crumpets. On February 5th their fourth record ‘SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound’ came out and it once again is full of weird sounds, furious guitar riffs and trippy vibes. NMTH had a zoom call with Jack (vocals/guitars) and Chris (keys/guitars) to chat about the new album, writing at home and stories from the road.

Text: Pieter Sloot

Klik hier om het interview in het Nederlands te lezen.

While it’s a snowy morning in the Netherlands, over the zoom call we can see that Jack and Chris are sitting in the Australian sun. “Having been home so much has definitely been beneficial for my writing process. Eventually this album was supposed to be released in March 2020 and originally this record was supposed to be called ‘The Greatest Hits of Sir Norton Gavin’, we were gonna cover a bunch of songs by Norton Gavin. I had a great mismatch of songs. When Covid-19 hit I showed Luke and Rich some of the tracks, but there were too many ideas for one album. We picked Mundungus, Mr. Prism and Pukebox as the mould to create the record around. Going into ‘SHYGA!’ it really got a flavor, there wasn’t really a deadline. Not having to panic about going on tour put me in a nice flow.”

Too many ideas for a PPC record? How is that possible? How do you even cram so many ideas in one album or even one song?
Jack: ”Well, there I had written some nu-metal songs, with the guitars tuned to drop B. It sounded like Slipknot or System of a Down. Those ideas were just too heavy for ‘SHYGA!’. I wanted to set the pace for the record like it was always lifting up, that was the ambition for the material I was working with. It started off slow but it became a noisy, super computerish glitch rock record, like a 70’s homage. I saved a lot from the heavy material and I am trying to piece that together for a next record.”

Despite this not being a metal record, the ending of Mr. Prism still hits you like a brick.
Jack: ”Yeah, that riff came up during a jam at Rich’s house. I had that riff floating around for ages and I wanted to use it as an explosion at the end of a track, with the line ‘Nobody fears the nose beers’ over it. Haha, doing that felt so stupid and silly but putting that at the end of a boppy natured song like Mr. Prism really worked.”

When you are writing in Ableton and you keep coming up with all kinds of different melodies and parts, how do you transpose those to a band situation?
Chris: ”Haha, the main problem is that you can’t play them all at once.”

Jack: ”Yeah, that’s the hardest part, working out who plays what and when. Having all those harmonies and stuff… I’m glad I didn’t write multiple bass lines which I actually do have for the next record. But achieving how we play as a band in a room is a kind of coincidence, we’re still working on that. On the record there are a lot of samples and also multiple vocal harmonies, so playing it live will sound a bit different.”

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are, as their name already suggests, a band that is known to come up with very creative song titles such as Found God in a Tomato, Cubensis Lenses and Hymn for a Droid. On ‘SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound’ you will once again find wonderfully creative song titles such as Mango Terrarium, Pukebox and Hats off to the Green Bins.

How important is that absurdist approach to your identity as band?
Jack: ”I think song titles are really important. If you had songs like ‘love song #1’ or ‘my house #2’ you’re not giving across any identity or flavor at all. But the title is the first thing you see! So we like to make our song titles wild and intrinsic so they fill the gap of you wanting to build an image in your mind of what to expect before you even hear the song. And I really don’t make up everything I write; the titles are about things. Cubenses Lenses for example is about my glasses when I’m tripping on mushrooms and Found God in a Tomato is actually about finding God in a tomato. And hopefully when you read those titles it intrigues you enough to make you listen to the song.”

So from what experiences did you derive the lyrics for ‘SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound’?
Jack: ”Mango Terrarium is about Matso Mango Beer, they brew it in Broome. While writing I’d often walk to the local bottle shop and pick up a sixpack Mango beers. Not sure if I was lazy or distracted by the recording but my room was filled with all those empty bottles. It gave off a fruity aroma and eventually it ended up looking like a terrarium, in which I maneuvered around. So then I decided to write a song about me living in a Mango terrarium.”

And how about Pukebox?
Jack: ”That one is about being sick on tour, like a jukebox but different. Waking up hungover… Rich for example is often sick on tour. He’s always the one that’s hungover in the bus and grumpy until he’s had a coffee. The other songs on the album are a kind of tour diary. Like Mundungus is about coming back from tour and then going away again. Tour lifestyle, sometimes it feels like you’re cattle. Just sitting in the back of a van. You wake up, you feel rough, you know what you gotta do. You soundcheck and you see the city for one hour and sometimes the cities are so beautiful but all you do is find some cheap food. Then you do the show, afterwards you drink and then there is the long drive again. Instead of romanticizing about tour, I just wanted to write about what it is. Also, in a short period of time you go to so many places that it’s hard to recall everything. The album is about the memories of a chapter where we were and then back and forth to where we are now.”

What tour memories stuck with you?
Chris: ”That’s a hard question. When we rocked up Switzerland, I think it was the national day or something. Our sound guy had a friend there and he had a whole bunch of fireworks prepared.”

Jack: ”Yeah, and fireworks are illegal in Australia so we were excited like little kids. So then he set off the fireworks in the middle of a school court or something. The fireworks fell over and they shot into some guys playing ping pong. We were drinking and a guy came yelling at us in Swiss. On tour a lot of strange things happen, like when we were picked up at the London airport by our friend Charlie who at the time had two black eyes. Like what the fuck?! He was also our driver and guitar tech.”

Chris: ”Yeah he was such a good guitar tech for us that rather than going to the toilet during the show, he pissed in a bottle in case something would happen. He’s so committed.”

Jack: ”Japan was also incredible. Tokyo and Osaka are the weirdest places I have been. We got to watch Weezer from five metres from the side stage. We shook hands with MGMT, our bassist Luke stole their setlist before their show.”

Chris: ”The Japanese are really humble and giving people. At Japanese shows they had a person looking after us for each band member.”

Jack: ”They also gave us the weirdest rider. I don’t think there is a big drinking culture in Japan. They gave us five bottles of vodka, six beers and unlimited amount of Bacardi. The beers were quickly gone and then we kept up drinking vodka and Bacardi, haha! I was on the floor at the end of the gig. Lots of fun.”

But can you play guitar when you’re hammered?
Jack: ”No absolutely not. We have a rule now. You get to have two beers before the show, and unlimited after. I can’t even smoke weed before the show. We definitely had a period when we were a bit out of control but now that everything is a bit more professional and people come to watch us we focus more on doing the job right and having fun afterwards. There is a lot of self-control involved. If you’re at a venue for five hours and there is this fridge full of alcohol; what else to do?”

And I also read that you stopped using acid, does that change you as a psych musician?
Jack: ”Yeah, I can’t handle it anymore. If I do it one more time my brains will slip out of my ear. I can feel it wobbling around, it gets more and more liquid. My last time on acid was at Desert Daze 2019, we watched Flaming Lips and Flying Lotus. When I’m back in Australia I need some time to get my thoughts together and work out where I am. I feel like alcohol is just better and also, it’s legal.”

So if this album is an alcohol album, where do we get the hangover?
Jack: ”You don’t! Well maybe The Terrors, it’s like you wake up and you feel awful. I wanted to focus more on the up, the come up. To me, when you have a big night out, you go to a gig or a festival and when you’re a couple of beers deep, that’s the best feeling ever. Two beers in, excitement, and this album is about that emotion. Acid is more like “oh god help, it’s kicking in”. Alcohol is a safe option, apart from in the morning. You can’t be hungover, even though Chris is sick a lot on tour.”

Chris: ”Yeah, I definitely opened the van door many a times to get a projectile out.”

So obviously there are a lot of great bands coming out of Australia right now, how do you think that came to be?
Jack: ”I think it has to do with the Australian rock legacy, with AC/DC or even Cold Chisel for example. There is a really classic sound to Australian rock. When Wolfmother came along I think it opened up the door again and it became big in America, but also global. Every once and again bands like King Gizzard and Tame Impala come along that open up the door for many other bands. More recent we had it with Babe Rainbow and Ocean Alley. In Australia making music is the weapon of choice, making music here is really communal. It’s also important that the bands here aren’t really revivalist, they’re pushing the boundaries of rock music.”

Chris: ”We kind of have our own rock climate, it seems natural.”

So looking ahead: where do you think music will be in 100 years?
Jack: ”Let’s get futuristic… I reckon every song will be six seconds long. The attention span is getting so much shorter, albums will be 20 seconds and people will love it. Or maybe music will be one emotion, rather than being music.”

SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound is out now and available in various physical formats via this link, as well as most streaming platforms. Make sure to follow Psychedelic Porn Crumpets via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.