The Kids

In a therapeutic manner, I wrote punk songs that was blatantly directed at people and things I hated or was frustrated with.

When I then decided to take the song writing seriously, I surrounded myself with my band who were and are my best buddies still to this day and we haven’t stopped since.

When covid hit, we had just gotten off our support tour for Billy Idol, so instead of waiting around until things got back to at least abnormal, we all went away and thought about how we were going to push forward as a group. I had this idea in my head that I wanted the band to come out of all of this with a new sound, image, and persona. I mean we’ve already been around for 5 odd years, let’s reinvent The Kids, as we aren’t kids anymore, and go as hard as we fucking can.We all packed ourselves into a crammed rehearsal space and have written a filthy 8 track EP, that I can assure you will be the dopest and most fucked up shit to come out of Australia in a while (our first single from this long awaited EP being Go Back To Canberra.)

I came in with a set of lyrics and the main ideas for the song as I always do, on our first day of song writing, and in less than 3 hours we completed the single. The song can be interpreted in anyway you like.Picture everything that is dysfunctional and down right bad about Canberra, which it is known for anyway, and that will be wrapped into one big gift on this song.

It took us 2 days to record the whole song, we approached our parts aggressively but the process mostly inspired us all. We were heavily involved with the producing process this time round. Controlling the sounds direction, which is why the song sounds like organised chaos with a sense of tightness overlapped with a roomy sound. It’s a perfect mixture of a more developed old school hardcore song with a modern spin. The tone our guitarist William used ended up suiting the song perfectly. 

I’ll drum anything that’s in front of me. But I personally own a few drum kits, my favourite being a handmade USA wooden CC drum kit. And my primary sticks are Vater.

Our bassist Tomas uses Warwick Basses, a TC Electronic amp and cab, spectraflex cables and pickguys picks, that’s what he has been paid to say by his endorsements.

And our guitarist William uses a blackstar ht50 amp for live shows and a diesel vh40 for recordings. And he has his beautiful Gibson Les Paul on his side all time like a wife.Oh and our singer has a Samson meteor usb studio microphone.

Well it’s funny you ask that, since I am in a crazy punk band people always assume I have a one dimensional music taste, but my taste expands to a bit of everything.

At the moment I’ve been listening to heaps of Glass Beach, Weatherday, LCD Soundsystem, Car Seat Headrest, IDLES, Have A Nice Life, Slowdive, Death Grips etc.

But my artist of the year that I can not get enough of is definitely Jeff Rosenstock, one of my all time musical heroes.And fun fact, my favourite album of all time is In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.

I am a huge movie buff. There’s nothing better than watching a movie with a shit load of junk food. But I work full time for my label Riot Records doing A/R, which takes up a lot of time. But honestly everything I like doing relates back to music, it is the only thing I’m interested in doing and the only thing I’m interested in talking about. Every single day I listen to a new album, play a vinyl, I can never get enough music. I also like long walks on the beach.

I would tell you about the brawl that broke out at our first show for our first headlining tour across Australia last year, but if you look up riot at teen punk show or some shit, some news website has definitely covered it. Instead ill talk about something less known.

We opened for Guttermouth at Frankies Pizza at the start of last year. We were also playing alongside Wolfpack Shred and Radolescent, shout out to those dudes.

It was are first gig of the year after being on some sort of hiatus and I had just spent two days with my singer/best mate Milan, doing nothing but staying up all night playing Call Of Duty and eating McDonalds.

With my stomach gurgling and not been placed into a gig setting for a little while, we start out our epic set to a sold out room at Frankies, which was one of the biggest crowds we played to at that time and it was going off.

We played a minor threat cover and it was one of our first ever moshes. I have always been the guy in the band that’s like the MC, in between every song I will talk and put on the whole stage act, and for years, Milan would go off stage for one song and we would do Killing in The Name with me singing at the kit. We don’t do it anymore because we’ve grown out of it  and I hate singing while drumming.

At that point in the set, I’m half naked, out of breath, sweat leaking from every pore, and it was so humid in that room that all I was breathing was hot air. I could not get a clean breath in. Especially at the back of the stage at Frankies where the drummers spot is tucked away in its little air gap.

We begin the song, the crowd hears the first chord and immediately start going ape shit. The vibe is officially hectic. But as I start singing the first verse, my stomach has reached my throat, my mouth was dry, my breaths were short, there was vomit coming up. 

A gross vomit splatters across the whole drum kit, and soaks both my legs.

But as a gift from the gods, my vulture father spots my struggles and douses me with some of the coldest and freshest water I’ve ever had in my life. I am instantly rehydrated. And I did not miss a beat, I continued to play the whole song and even sing a little, as a chunks of puke flew across the room.

We also did another 30 mins of our set, but I’ll tell you I don’t remember much. My head was spinning and It was a complete blur. Especially at the end for our last number where I repeatedly smacked my head into the snare drum. Great gig.

As a band, when we record at parliament we love walking up to charcoal charlies for a massive feed.

But as a hang out in general, this may not count but going up to Brisbane to just walk around and get up to stupid shit is just the best, we find ourselves always having the most awesome time in Brissy.

But for me personally, I always hang out at Red Eye Records. I am addicted to buying Vinyl and I’m almost there everyday flicking through records, buying albums and talking music with all the dudes there. And I love pasta. Cheers!