Blunt Magazine

BLUNT POSTERS 27 IS ON SALE NOW!

Tracey — Fri, 11 May 2012 05:51:11 +0000

The time has come for another kick-ass issue of Blunt Posters!

We are feeling pretty stoked ‘cos it’s jammed full of killer posters you are going to want, nay, NEED for your walls. It’s punked-up, it’s got classics aaaand some hot new faces.

As for the biggies, and making a very special appearance in mega form, we’ve got:

Rancid
Architects
The Amity Affliction
Paramore’s Hayley Williams

Plus there’s also:

Pennywise
Brand new Buried In Verona
Classic Anti-Flag
Deez Nuts
City and Colour
You Me At Six – Live from Soundwave
Motionless In White – Live from Soundwave
Tonight Alive – Live from Soundwave

Plus heaps more!

Blunt #109 is on sale now!

Amy — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 02:05:20 +0000

This month we dive headfirst into the Butterfly Effect’s bitter split as all four members get their claws out and openly discuss a decade of fights, backstabbing and drama. Meow! Home & Away wishes they could write a script this juicy. You want more noise? We’ve also chucked in the über cool Lords Of Poptown CD featuring the sweet, sunny sounds of Soap Box Derby, Awaken I Am, While The City Sleeps, The Cavalcade, All Year Round and stacks more. Also filling the pages of Blunt this month we’ve got:

- Rise Records: We visit the new kings of the underground.
- Lostprophets are still stoked on Limp Bizkit and don’t give a fuck what you think.
- Cannibal Corpse still want to desecrate your remains.
- August Burns Red are heading back to Australia to kick your arse and praise the lord.
- DragonForce have a new warbler and are still as ridiculous as ever.
- Lucero thinks you need more soul injected into your lives.
- DZ Deathrays remind us that no matter how hard we try, we will never be as cool as them. Ever.

Plus Between The Devil And The Deep, Jonesez, Your Demise, Cancer Bats, SXSW 2012 wrap up, Sick Of It All, a sweet Slipknot poster and all the usual BLUNT good bits!

Blaze Of Glory

Amy — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 03:22:32 +0000

If you’ve ever found yourself belting out a sneaky rendition “Hit Or Miss” or “My Friend’s Over You”, the man to thank is New Found Glory’s guitarist and lyricist Steve Klein. Steve was kind enough to have a chat with BLUNT about going back to basics for album number seven, the joys of taking to the road with your friends in Taking Back Sunday, and how he’s the band’s mediator. Care to guess who he pins as the asshole?

One of the most impressive things about New Found Glory is that you’ve kept the same line-up since you first started out. Do you think that’s something that would ever change? Or would that spell the end of the band.
I don’t know, it depends on how it goes. It’s kind of hard to think about as I’ve never really been in that position. For us, I feel like we started this band for the right reasons and none of us had egos or crazy weird things about us, so I think that’s why we’ve been able to stay together so long. This band for us is like a family and we all kind of keep each other on the same plane, we don’t let each other go too crazy. We all run the band together and I feel like we all kind of write the songs together and stuff like that. We try to keep it as a camaraderie rather than it be just about one person. That’s what keeps a band together. There’s one person that kind of takes on more responsibility than the others though, cos obviously, there has to be a chain of command in a band, you know, there has to be one asshole, one kind of mediator, and then the other people are the wheels that make the whole machine run.

Where do you fit in?
I guess I’m more of a mediator, I think Jordan’s [Pundik, vocals] more the asshole [laughs].

You’ve been hailed as one of the greatest pop punk bands in history. How does it feel to be the ones spearheading this revival of pop punk?
For us, we feel like we’re not reviving anything just cos we’ve been around, we’ve never gone anywhere. All these bands have come and gone, but for us, we kept on working and writing records and being a band, and now everybody’s like, “Oh it’s a revival cos there’s all these bands getting back together” but we’ve never gone anywhere. We’ve been the same band putting out records for our fans and just trying to be like a real band. For us, you know, it’s nice that people are calling it a revival, but there hasn’t been a weird attendance at our shows or anything. Our fans haven’t gone anywhere either. This is seven records for us now, so we’re very happy to still be relevant and still able to write music that people still enjoy.

Holding that title seems like an awful lot of pressure. How did you feel about approaching Radiosurgery? Does this sort of thing weigh in on your mind?
Those are things that other people say about you, so you don’t really believe the hype. It’s more like people use that as a headline, it’s not anything that we self-proclaim, you know? There’s not really that pressure where it’s like, “Oh my God, we have to write the greatest pop punk record ever in the whole world or else people are gonna hate us”. We stick to the formulas and just write songs that we like and it just happens that other people like them too. We kind of put together all of our favourite music and all our collaborative efforts and what we’re going through as people and in our lives, you know, growing up and becoming men [laughs]. That sounds weird, but it’s the trials and tribulations of growing up and being in a band and dealing with relationships and stuff like that, that’s what our records are about.

Radiosurgery is essentially a break-up record. Is it strange teaming these deeper lyrics with catchy melodies and a fun sound?
Yeah, I guess it’s kind of what makes it fun. You’re singing these sad songs, but they sound like they’re happy. It’s kind of like the yin and the yang. But for us, we always try to write songs that are relatable, that way when people listen to the record, they can instantly put it towards their lives and think, “Oh my God, it’s like he’s singing to me, this is exactly what I’m going through!” and stuff like that makes certain songs stick with you and it’s awesome that people say that about Radiosurgery or any of our records. We’re just five guys writing music and trying to have fun, so it’s awesome that it affects people in a good way.

Talk us through the album. Being album number seven for you guys, what were you trying to get out of this record? It sounds like you’ve gone back to basics, you know, straight-out no-frills pop punk.
I think for this record, we kind of wanted to go back to the roots of what made us get into this sort of music in the first place, like go and listen to the Ramones, old Green Day records and Rancid and NOFX and stuff like that. What were the special bands that got us into this music? We wanted this record to have that classic feel, so I’ve been listening to those records and having that in your subconscious kind of steers the direction of the record.

Are you still striving for the same things you were back when you started out?
For this record, I felt like we wanted to open up the vocals more and so in the past, Not Without a Fight and Catalyst are very guitar-riffy records, whereas this one is very vocal driven and anthemic. Just straight up and catchy right away. That was the direction we wanted to go in, for people to put on the record and to listen to the whole record all the way through and to enjoy every single song.

You can’t go past a good punk cover. How did you guys come to do the From The Screen To Your Stereo records?
Well, the original idea was, at the time, back in ‘99 all these movie songs were like the biggest songs at the time, you had Aerosmith, Celine Dion and Titanic, so when we first started, we thought it’d be fun to make punk versions of these songs, so we covered the Titanic song and Aerosmith and people started coming to our shows and were requesting those songs, so we decided to do a record full of them. We did the first From The Screen To Your Stereo and it became like a cult thing and we’d play those songs live and people were like, “When are you gonna do the next one?” and we kind of found time between our split from Geffen and going to Epitaph to put out From The Screen To Your Stereo Part II and it’s kind of all been movie-song-cover-related, so it was just a lot of fun and people like them and enjoy them. It’s better when people know us for our original material though. It’s fun to do the covers, but it sucks when people are like, “My favourite song that you guys wrote is “Kiss Me”!” Yeah, we didn’t write “Kiss Me”. It’s someone else’s song and we just covered it for fun, but other people know us for our original material, so that’s good.

Adam Lazzara actually provided some of the vocals for From The Screen To Your Screen Part II and in April, you’re on your way here for a tour with them. What’s it like taking to the road with old friends?
We’ve known Adam for a very long time. I remember getting a Taking Back Sunday demo when we first played Long Island and it was a black and white cover and people were like, “Oh you should hear Taking Back Sunday!” and since then, they’ve grown into this big band and we always kind of cross paths and we like to play shows together like the Warped Tour, so it’s nice that we actually have a tour with them in Australia cos it’ll be a lot of fun.

On the Pop Punk’s Not Dead tour, you’ve been touring around with a lot of younger pop punk bands. Do you prefer guiding the younger bands? Or do you more enjoy hanging with your contemporaries.
I think it’s good to be with your contemporaries. Nowadays, people are like, “Oh it’s just New Found Glory playing, I don’t really know any of the other bands”. People don’t wanna spend the money just to go and see one band anymore, it has to be a package deal [laughs]. So when you’ve got Soundwave and all these festivals and all of these bands touring together in packages, the kids come out more. It’s more justifiable for them to spend the money on the ticket because there’s so many bands they wanna see. It’s always fun to tour with your friends’ bands and it’s especially fun to go to Australia with your friends’ bands.

I know you personally tend to write from real life experiences, so what’s been happening in your life at the moment that could potentially end up on album number eight?
[Laughs] I don’t know. I feel like Radiosurgery is still a fresh taste in my mouth. We haven’t really been thinking about any new songs, we kind of put out the record and went straight on tour, so we haven’t really been able to take a breath and relax yet, I mean, I’ve only been home for two days before this interview, but I feel like when we get to Australia we’ll be nice and rested. For us, any time our record comes out, the next day I’m like, “Alright, I’m ready to put out another record”, so don’t worry, we’re thinking about it too, but it’s just hard to say when it’s gonna be or say when we’ll be doing it. It’ll be whenever it comes naturally.

New Found Glory and Taking Back Sunday
feat. The Maine and This Time Next Year

Thu Apr 5th – The Tivoli, Brisbane (18+)
Fri Apr 6th – The Tivoli, Brisbane (AA)
Sat Apr 7th – Big Top Luna Park, Sydney (AA)
Sun Apr 8th – Festival Hall, Melbourne (AA)
Tue Apr 10th – Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide (AA)

By Emily Swanson.

Sublime With Rome Kick it Old School

Amy — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:05:37 +0000

Sublime With Rome kicking back.

When you’re asked if you’d like to steal a few minutes of Eric Wilson’s time – one of the founding members of America’s most successful ska punk band Sublime – you don your best criminal ensemble and steal away. After getting a hold of the man on our crackling phone line, we quizzed him on what he’s been up to lately.
“I spent the weekend dirt biking in the desert actually,” responds a casual yet tired Wilson. It was around then that we thought it best not to tell one of the icons of the California punk scene that we’d inevitably spent the weekend catching up on some quality couch time. To get some perspective on Wilson’s latest band, Sublime With Rome, we asked if he’d care to cast his mind back to the glory days of the California punk scene.
“It was awesome,” Wilson enthuses. “I was 15-years-old when I started getting into punk and the punk scene was starting to die out about then, but I was lucky enough to see some great bands like The Dead Boys and it really changed my life. I was glad that I was able to catch the tail-end of it.”
While Wilson may have arrived fashionably late to the punk party, it was through a diverse mix of influences that he and band mates Bradley Nowell and Bud Gaugh were able to craft their ska punk sound and stage a mainstream revival of the genre in the United States. Alongside the likes of Bad Religion, Rancid and Pennywise, the scene flourished. Kids stuck it to the man and anarchy reigned supreme. When BLUNT caught up with Pennywise’s Fletcher Dragge at last year’s Soundwave Festival, he couldn’t speak more highly of the trio and by all accounts, the feeling’s mutual.
“His bass player Randy Bradbury was in a local band in Long Beach and I’d go and watch them practice all the time,” tells Wilson. “He’s actually the reason why I even started playing bass in the first place.”
It wasn’t until the late ‘80s that Wilson decided to gather the troops for action and craft the ska punk sound you’ve come to know and love on era-defining songs “What I Got” and “Date Rape”.
“I’d played in bands with Bud before and I’d played in bands with Brad, and when Brad came home for Christmas break one year from studying in Santa Cruz, I decided to call him and Bud and get us all together,” Wilson says of the band’s inception. “When we did actually get together, it was awesome. Brad immediately transferred back down to Long Beach where we all were so we could properly start playing together.”
With Wilson and the boys officially getting the Sublime name out in the open in 1988, it was during this year that another event would impact on Wilson’s life, namely, the birth of Rome Ramirez, the vocalist of the newly-formed Sublime With Rome. With such an age gap, we couldn’t help but be curious as to how Rome came to be on board.
“It doesn’t seem like I’m playing alongside a little kid,” Wilson laughs. “I ran into Rome at a studio where I was doing some work and we just started jamming together. I saw the talent he has; he can sing, he can play guitar, he writes great lyrics as well and he fit the criteria.”
After Brad Nowell died of a heroin overdose in 1996, both Wilson and Gaugh had agreed that they had no interest in reforming the band with a new member. However, it was after coming across Rome that the idea seemed enticing.
“It seemed like the right thing to do ‘cos I always wanted to play the songs that we recorded with Brad that we never got to play because he died,” Wilson sombrely admits. “Before Rome, I’d just never met anybody that could fill Brad’s shoes, so to speak, but he’s up there in talent and he’s a great musician.”
Despite the setback surrounding the band’s name, brought about by Nowell’s estate owning the rights to the Sublime moniker, the band regrouped as Sublime With Rome and released their first album, Yours Truly, in July of last year. Kicking the nostalgia into gear, Butthole Surfers guitarist Paul Leary worked the knobs, having last worked with Wilson and Gaugh on Sublime’s eponymous final album.
“It was awesome,” gushes Wilson, evidently pleased to be working with Leary again. “It was great working with him again and everyone was really happy about it.”
With the band turning their focus to touring, Sublime With Rome are currently embarking on an Australian tour and Wilson assures us that you can expect to hear lost Sublime gems from the glory days.
“We’re gonna play a little more of our older stuff than our newer stuff, so it’ll probably only be about six songs from the new record. We want to play a lot of really old songs from the different Sublime albums.”
As for the band’s mission statement, Wilson’s just happy to be back on the road and doing what he loves.
“We just want to keep writing good stuff and keep playing around the world,” he says.
And that sounds more than alright to us.

Sublime With Rome’s new album Yours Truly is out now through Warner Music Australia.

Catch a healthy dosage of ’90s nostalgia at one of the Sublime With Rome shows near you:
Featuring Mat McHugh of Beautiful Girls and Live@Subs

Wednesday 4th April 2012 Cooly Hotel Gold Coast

~~Thursday 5th April 2012 HiFi Brisbane~~ – SOLD OUT

Saturday 7th April 2012 UNSW Roundhouse Sydney

Monday 9th April 2012 Palace Theatre Melbourne

Tuesday 10th April 2012 HQ Complex Adelaide

Wednesday 11th April 2012 Metropolis Fremantle*
*Live@Subs not appearing, Matt Gresham appearing.

By Emily Swanson.

Havin’ a Laugh with Chris Wainhouse

Amy — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:04:26 +0000

Chris Wainhouse on stage and doin' his thang

With a slew of shows coming up at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, BLUNT tapped into their funny bone and tracked down comedian Chris Wainhouse for a quick chat about his place in the politically incorrect shows and what it’s like to battle drunken hecklers and play to a crowd of seven angry tradesmen in the back of a ute. Needless to say when the man revealed his skater past and penchant for the heavier side of music, we were stoked.

Chris, what have we interrupted you doing?
My wife’s just started a new job so I’m at home babysitting and playing dad right now. You know, pulling play dough out of the DVD player and doing those sorts of things.

Now at what point did you stop and think, “You know, I’m funny, and people may just pay to see me do this”. Was being a comedian a childhood desire for you?
Not at all. Look, I always loved comedy. I was in Brisbane when I first started, and I didn’t even realise it was a thing. A friend of mine who I was working with at the time asked me to come and see a gig and I just assumed he was a musician, as I was before I started, and I turned up and it was a comedy club and I just loved it. So I signed up for two weeks time from the date I saw it and it was my birthday, so that was my birthday present to myself: open mic, die-in-the-ass in front of a couple hundred strangers.

You’re from New Zealand, but I’ve watched you… Well, you openly poke fun at yourself. Does this flip to paying out Aussies when you do shows over there?
Absolutely. Australians and New Zealanders are quite cool with laughing at themselves, as are the English which is quite nice, the Americans not so much (in my experience, anyway). Aussies don’t mind having the piss taken out of them and nor do the Kiwis.

With playing shows overseas, do certain audiences tend to react differently? How’s the Aussie sense of humour received abroad? I’m guessing not too well in America then…
I don’t really do that many shows in America because they don’t really pay that much unless you’ve really cracked it, so it’s a lot of free work and I tend not to go there, but the UK is great fun and they’re all very much based in irony and word play and they love that sort of stuff and you can get quite subtle over there. They’re very switched on, comedy-savvy crowds.

I’ve actually read that you’re considered to be a “comedian’s comedian” so that’s gotta mean that you’re doing something right, but what comedians inspire you personally?
I never really know if that’s an insulting reference [laughs], but I tend not to watch comedy all that much. I would never sit at home and pop on a comedy CD or DVD, I see enough comedy when I’m performing on the night and I sort of leave it at that, but every now and then someone will come along like Doug Stanhope. I saw his show when he came back a few years ago and he was excellent.

I remember watching an interview Andrew Denton was doing with Billy Crystal, and Billy was saying how he actually gave up stand-up for about 20 years as he hated waking up and thinking, “At eight o’clock tonight, I have to be really funny”. How do you deal with that sort of pressure?
I really love the stage, I love getting out there. I almost dread waking up and not having a gig that night. I could work seven nights a week, 365 days a year, it doesn’t worry me. I never get tired, I can do it sick, drunk, whatever. I’m very comfortable jumping up on stage.

That seems like the toughest part. The ‘getting up in front of people’ and not knowing how the audience will be.
I’ve got a few tester jokes to see where their heads are at, so if they don’t get those, I know where to go and if they do get those, I continue along that track. Festivals are a different story of course, I kind of dread festivals. Getting out there fliering is a tough slog, but this one’s kind of nice because I’m not putting on my own show, I’m just part of another show, so I don’t have to flier. That’s really soul destroying [laughs]. Checking how many tickets I’ve sold for the night, don’t have to worry about that, so that’ll be nice and of course to just enjoy Melbourne for what it is. Catch a few shows, catch up with my friends… comics where we cross paths only once or twice a year, it’ll be good to catch up with them.

I’ve always wanted to know this about comedians. How do you combat heckling? Is that the sort of thing you learn in “Stand-Up 101”? Or does everyone react differently to it.
It depends on the heckle. I mean, some punters will give you a really funny heckle and that kind of adds to the show, but if they’re drunk assholes just yelling out the first thing that comes to their mind, it gets kind of annoying and if that’s the case, just give them a pair of smoking shoes and it sort of stops the next guy from wanting to try it.

What’s the marker of a good show for you?
Oh, there’s sort of a roll of laughter that you can get and if you can get that at the beginning and just keep that going the whole way, just by the sound when you’ve wrapped it up and if they’re just going crazy then you know you’ve done a good show. I really like big theatres though, I don’t often get to play them, but there’s something about a 1,500 seat theatre that’s a lot of fun. Most gigs I do are only to a couple hundred people; comedy is not overly “big”, the clubs are all quite small, so I like big shows.

And where would playing in the back of a ute to seven angry workmen slot in?
[Laughs] Oh that was horrible. I’d just started and some genius, they weren’t gonna pay these tradesmen for some reason, so they thought that a comedy show might be a nice way to break it to them, so I was stuck up at the back of the theatre, I was really new to comedy too, and these guys were just… They were very furious as you can imagine, not getting paid, and they just wanted to know so they just kept asking me how much I was getting paid for this, so it was terrible. Needless to say I never worked with the guy who booked that one again.

With these Politically Incorrect shows you’ve got coming up at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, it’s all about the Aussie tradition of taking the piss. How did the whole Politically Incorrect movement come about?
I guess comedy has started to get a bit wowzery and everyone has started watching their Ps and Qs and all that sort of thing, and there’s a few topics you don’t touch, it’s not gonna be politically incorrect as in totally racist or anything like that, we’re just gonna hit any topic we wanna hit and you know, there’s a rule in comedy that’s: the darker you go, the funnier it has to be, to get away with that of course.

With shows like this, is there anything that’s “off-limits” material-wise?
I really don’t know many racist people in the comedy industry, most of them are very free-thinking cats and kittens so there’s not a lot of that that comes up. Obviously there are jokes that can be racist, I think you can say a racist thing, but if the joke is on you or your ignorance, like you might not understand something, that sort of thing… But I tend to steer clear of it. It’s like the old mother-in-law jokes and the old Irish jokes, they’re all very dated. Stereotyping different cultures, it’s all been done a billion times. That being said, a joke’s a joke. I have the feeling that you should be able to go anywhere with it, comedy’s kind of the last avenue of free speech. People will be offended in this show, but I have a feeling some people just go to shows to complain. I’ve had people telling me I was drunk on stage. I’m just standing there talking, it’s not like I’m gonna kill anybody [laughs]. I got a bit slurry and that’s normally because of the free alcohol that you get at a club. If you’re on at the end and you’ve gotta wait like four hours, you’re just steadily drinking as soon as you get there and it catches up with you.

With gathering material, what’s your biggest inspiration? Do you tend to draw from past experiences? Or do you make an effort to keep on top of current events.
I’m big on the news, I like keeping up to date with what’s happening, but to be honest, I don’t really give a fuck about actors or pop stars. The kind of music I like doesn’t really get to radio and I don’t follow the Kardashians and things like that. I used to be a skater back in the day, so I got into a lot of sort of heavy and punk style music, so I like that and I follow that still.

(Catching us completely off guard, BLUNT excitedly filled Chris in on the mag. He has a soft spot for Marilyn Manson and we have a new fan)

Do you ever think you’ll have one of those moments of doubt where you think, “Am I still funny? Do people still ‘get’ me?”. Is that what wakes comedians up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat?
I’m sure it wakes some of them up [laughs]. I’m sure there’s quite a few of them waiting for something to pop their bubble. I think if you just keep rotating your material and you keep coming out with new stuff, it’ll be fine. But then again, I have jokes that I’ve been using for quite a while. If I have trouble writing, I will just add to old jokes and just fill them out a bit and explore them, so you turn these little one-liners into ten minute bits with about 20 to 30 jokes sprinkled through it. That’s what I do, it doesn’t always work and some jokes take longer and longer to sort of nail; I’ve got a few jokes at the moment that are just taking it in the ass, they’re just not working, but I know there’s something funny there. It’s just sticking with it and seeing where you can go. Sometimes it gets a bit dark and it can sort of stop becoming funny, but if you just keep pushing it, it gets there and becomes funny again.

Featuring Chris Wainhouse, Chris Franklin and Steady Eddy

Catch Chris and a world of other politically incorrect comedians as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival:

Venue: The Evelyn Hotel (18+) – 351 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Tickets: $30.00 Full │ $25.00 Concession │ $25.00 Thursday Laugh Pack
Time: 6.30pm
Bookings: Ticketmaster.com.au 1300 660 013 │ Comedyfestival.com.au
Dates: Thu-Sun, 29th Mar-15th Apr

By Emily Swanson.

Blunt #108 is on sale now!

Amy — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 03:02:25 +0000

See no evil, hear no evil, ~~speak no evil~~. This month’s cover is graced by the likes of Soundwave frontmen Jeremy McKinnon, Bert McCracken and Josh Franceschi aka the revolution in noise! Speaking of noise, we’ve also gathered the hottest and heaviest tracks to give you a bonus Ear Bleeders sampler CD featuring the likes of Chimaira, Sienna Skies, Hearts Like Wolves, Delawarewolves and more. Get that up ya!

Filling the pages of Blunt this month we’ve got:

- Soulfly: We quiz Max Cavalera on his musical juggling act.
- Meshuggah are wiping out entire cities in a groovy sort of way. Just don’t call them djent!
- Every Time I Die prove they’re just as sarcastic as ever.
- A Day To Remember: Get a load of our photo montage tour diary!
- Sleigh Bells‘ Derek Miller tell us why he ditched the metalcore scene to play alongside DJs.
- You Me At Six frontmen Josh Franceschi and Max Helyer open up about the dark side of pop-punk.
- The Used: A new record? A new label? Cookbooks?! Bert McCracken isn’t fucking around this time.

Plus The Menzingers, Napalm Death, In Trenches, Say Anything, Psycroptic, a live poster of hair metal revivalists Steel Panther and all the usual BLUNT good bits!

Young, Wild and Dangerous!

Amy — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:10:02 +0000

Dangerous! frontman Tommy Lofts is gearing up for the band's upcoming national tour.

Holding the title of the first ever Australian act to be signed to a worldwide deal with Epitaph, days of scrubbing dishes and boxing Big Macs are long behind the boys of Dangerous! who, after a 2011 international debut at Download Festival, are on their way back home for a run of national shows in support of their debut album, Teenage Rampage. Frontman Tommy Lofts runs BLUNT through how the band stumbled across producer Ulrich Wild’s home phone number online and why he thinks when it comes to band members, Slipknot have got it right.

The Dangerous! sound is like old-school rock ‘n’ roll. What made you want to bring that back to the public interest?
Nothing was really intentional, we just all grew up on different types of music and then we got together and started writing songs. We’d all been playing in bands around Adelaide for a bunch of years and we kind of just met each other and formed a supergroup, like a super boy-band male group. It wasn’t really preconceived or anything like that, it just kind of happened and we love it. We love the record and we love it when other people love it; it’s a good feeling. You know, it’s not for everyone, but the people that do like it are really supportive and dedicated to us, and that’s really good, so we’re happy.

It makes you want to party. Is that what you guys were going for with it?
I don’t know, you say that the record makes you wanna party, if you come hang out with me you might not wanna party, it might just be the record. We’re not necessarily a party band, but we make happy, good-sounding music that inspires people and if it makes them want to get off their chairs and start jumping up and down and dance and have a good time and sing a long, then that’s wicked. We dabble in a good time, but I wouldn’t say that we’re a party band. We’ve had a lot of good times and we were lucky enough to go over to the UK last year and do a bunch of touring over there and play some really big festivals and it was just a really, really good time and we got to meet a lot of great people and play to a whole new different style of fans over there and a different culture and different type of people, and that’s kind of opened up our minds and broadened our horizons in regards to the way we look at the band. We were very lucky to do that and it’s just really cool to be amongst other great bands that you’ve grown up with and then you know, being able to share the stage with bands that you kind of idolised when you were growing up, so it was just a really great experience.

How do these national tours that you’re about to do here shape up to festivals?
This tour that we’re about to embark on is the first tour we’ve done since the album’s been out, so we don’t know what to expect. You know, we’re really excited. We’re excited to do stuff in our home town, in our home country, and finally have the album out. It’s gonna be a really strong, rewarding feeling to be back home and playing on your home turf, playing to your home crowds and celebrating what you’ve done, which is the CD and the songs and just enjoying it, you know?

You guys were the first ever Australian act to be signed to a worldwide deal with Epitaph, do you find it weird being so well-received overseas?
We’ve always been well-received here, this is our home town and this is where we come from, but the Australian music industry is 2% of the world’s market, so there’s gonna be more opportunities overseas to do this and to do that, but that’s a whole other side of things, you know? In regards to being received, we have great, loyal fans down here and it’s always a real pleasure to tour in Australia and be playing to your home town crowd.

So many Australian bands struggle to crack the international market, but you guys seem to have done it.
I think the market over there is very, very different and a lot bigger, so I guess in a way it’s hard to crack, but there’s a lot more people over there, so there’s a lot more fans to be made, so if you think of it in that sense it should be easy for anybody to do that because you’ve got more of an opportunity. It’s always going to be very similar to how you’re received in Australia. If people like you in your backyard playing in your shed and your friends are like, “I like that song, I like your band”, that’s cool, other people are gonna like it too, so I think generally it just starts at that level. If you’re onto something good, I think it’s gonna be well-received anywhere.

Saying how you were starting off small, you worked with Ulrich Wild (Deftones, Pantera) on this album. How did that come about?
That’s a funny story because we had a whole bunch of producers that we could’ve worked with on the album. We had a whole lot of Australian producers we wanted to work with, and the label was forwarding producers for us to work with on the album and it just came to it that we found Ulrich on the back of one of our CDs. We went through our CD collection, we picked up the Pantera album and were like “Ulrich Wild”, and then we picked up a Deftones album and we were like, “Ulrich Wild. This name keeps popping up”, and then we found him on the Internet. It didn’t come from the label, it didn’t come from management or a booking agency or anything like that, we got on the net and looked him up and got his email and emailed him saying how we wanted him to do our album. We sent him tracks and stuff and he wasn’t replying to our emails, and somehow, somewhere along the line, we got his home phone number off the net and our drummer Jarrad (Lee) just called his home phone and was like, “Dude, what’s up? It’s Dangerous! from Australia” and he was like, “What?” and we were like, “Do our album dude, what’s going on? Write back to our emails.” And we made it happen from there and I just think that’s cool as shit. It’s something for kids out there and younger bands to take on board because if you want something to happen, you can make it happen. You’ve got the Internet which is the strongest tool in the world, so get out there and find out what you want to do and do it because it’s possible.

Yeah, if at first you don’t succeed, ring the bastard’s home phone.
I thought it was “pick yourself up and try again”? I like that one though.

Since the release of Teenage Rampage, have you had the chance to start working on any new material yet?
There’s always stuff lying around because when we got signed, we all quit our jobs, so we’ve got all this time on our hands and naturally, you just pick up a guitar and start writing, so there’s always stuff in the works. But you know, the album’s come out, this is the first Australian tour we’re doing in support of it, so we’re focusing everything on that at this point.

What kind of jobs did you guys used to have?
Well, think of all the shit jobs you could ever do, and we’ve done them all. Actually, what’s the first shit job that comes to mind?

I’d have to say the Golden Arches: Maccas.
Done it. Done it! Our drummer Jarrad worked at McDonald’s for a couple of years I think. But washing cars, scrubbing dishes, we’ve done it all. I think as we got older though we kind of moved up to the more respectable jobs like retail [laughs]. We’ve always dedicated ourselves to the band and having a job was always a second option for us, it was never a fallback plan, we always wanted this to happen, so it was never a big deal for us to move up the ranks and get a good job and get paid well. It was always the band and we’ve always kind of focused our energy on that and managing ourselves and managing our careers and just trying to get the most out of it.

So many bands always seem to put the band second.
That was never the vibe for us. It was always put the band first and no side projects or girlfriends on tour [laughs]. In all honesty, we’re not really that anal about things, but it’s good to have four like-minded individuals and it’s good to have everyone on the same page, because if you’ve got four people all working for the same idea, you’re gonna get there four times as fast. In saying that, it took us fucking ages to get to where we are, so maybe we should have formed a band like Slipknot and had more people involved. I think that’s probably a good word of wisdom: if you wanna start a band, the more people, the merrier, because it’s hard work and it’s a long slog, so get as many people as you can working for you.

Catch Dangerous! at a venue near you on their upcoming tour dates:

Thu Mar 15th – Next Nightclub, Melbourne
Fri Mar 16th – The Patch, Wollongong
Sat Mar 17th – Spectrum, Sydney
Wed Mar 21st – Afends Warehouse Party, Byron Bay
Fri Mar 23rd – Monster Madness, Surfers Paradise
Sat Mar 24th – Kings Beach, Caloundra
Thu Mar 29th – Snitch Club, Brisbane
Sat Mar 31st – Spotted Cow, Toowoomba
Thu Apr 5th – Gee Whizz (Central Club), Gosford
Sat Apr 7th – Northern Star, Newcastle

By Emily Swanson.

Let’s Get Refused to Australia!

Amy — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:44:35 +0000

Refused Aren't Fucking Dead - Sign our petition to have them here in Oz!

It’s no secret that we here at Blunt Magazine are huge fans of revolutionary hardcore band Refused. But then again, who isn’t? The Swedish 4-piece created a storm well after their disbanding in 1998, with their classic albums Songs To Fan the Flames of Discontent and The Shape of Punk To Come influencing a decade of heavy music and making them somewhat of a cult band worldwide.

We never got a chance to see them and chances are you didn’t either, which is why Facebook and Twitter feeds worldwide went nuts when the band announced they would reform for this year’s Coachella Festival in California.

We all thought the comeback was a one off, but with dates now announced in New York, Spain, Germany, Sweden and many more lucky countries, it seems there is a chance we may see them for the first time on our shores.

Blunt has decided to get a petition going to show the band just how many fans would die to see them down under. While we can’t guarantee this will work, we have let them know we are doing this. So spread the word and show your support – who knows, maybe we can make something amazing happen and have a tour by one of punk rock’s most iconic bands in our little old country. The odds are good!

Sign your name here and spread the word to let everyone know that Refused have your love and dedication in Australia.

Kvelertak!

Amy — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 05:37:48 +0000

A quick chat with frontman Erlend Hjelvik about all things Kvelertak!

With the mighty Soundwave festival rolling into town this week, Cameron Chambers caught up with BLUNT’s favourite Norwegian lunatics Kvelertak to talk about all things Kvelertak.

You guys have a pretty unique sound, where do you fit in back at home, with the punk, rock or metal bands?
We don’t really care, we just do our own thing but I guess it’s easier for us to identify ourselves as a rock band, that’s what it feels like to us at least.

You’ve toured a lot – both at home in Europe and abroad – lately, which bands have gelled with and who has thrown the most support behind Kvelertak?
Converge have been a huge help to us as they were the first to bring us on tour in Europe and the obviously we recorded with their guitarist [Kurt Ballou], so they’ve obviously been a great support to us. Other than that, no one in particular… there’s bands we stay in touch but too many to mention and none that have helped us like Converge has.

And as you’ve already said, you guys worked with Kurt Ballou for your self-titled debut, how’d that come about considering you’d only released a demo up to that point?
It was pretty easy actually, we just sent him a message on MySpace along with the songs and he got back to us the next day saying he’d love to record it [laughs].

I’m sure you’ve just made a lot of other bands jealous right now, bands who probably weren’t as successful when approaching Kurt…
[Laughs] Well he must have heard something in the songs, I guess. We were lucky. We’d all talked as a band about where we should record and we all agreed that Kurt was the guy. The sound he makes would be perfect for us, you know, like Converge, Torche and bands like that.

What was it like working with Kurt; we’ve heard he’s a bit of taskmaster?
Yeah he’s pretty straight to the point but we like that kind of honesty. He’s still very professional too though.

John Dyer Baizley did the art for your debut, so you’ve pretty much nailed the holy grail of behind the scenes staff for the record, were you surprised he opted to work with a band that was still something of an unknown up till that point?
Yeah it was kind of weird, everything just fell into place by itself. John Baizley was another guy we all agreed on to do the art and like Kurt he was into, so once again we were just very lucky.

Well as always his work looked amazing…
We think it’s his best one yet [laughs].

The record was released throughout Europe in 2010 but didn’t hit the US and Australia until nearly a year later, what do you think it was that made people suddenly catch on?
I guess it just takes time. With the release in the US it was supposed to happen in 2010 but we had all this stuff happen with the label so that’s why it took longer over there, just the usual stuff. To me though it seems a lot of people already knew about the record from websites, a long time before the album was even out.

So we should actually be grateful for the internet leaking music this time?
Yes, just this once though [laughs]. It’s impossible to keep anything away from people these days.

Were you guys surprised that a non-English speaking record was able to connect with so many people in English speaking countries?
When we started the band it was just for fun and we never had any ambitions to spread outside of Norway, so we never even thought about singing in English, so yeah, it’s definitely surprising. It’s cool to see people in other countries still singing along even if they don’t know what they’re singing about, it’s great that they’re just making the effort.

For those of us not fluent in Norwegian, are we missing out on the complete Kvelertak experience given that we do not fully understand the words we’re belting out?
Even people in Norway don’t understand what I’m singing, so people keep bugging me on Facebook for lyrics, so I might have to publish the English translation in the next album for you all.

Are you writing for a new record yet? When are you recording and when do we get to hear it?
We’re working on it now actually and we start rehearsals very soon. I’m already writing lyrics. I don’t actually know where we’re going to record but hopefully it’ll be shortly after Soundwave. Either way we want it out by the end of this year or very early next year.

Will you guys be recording with Kurt again?
Looks like it. I think we’ll do it together again for sure. He did a great job last time so why not!

A little while back you were recognised for a gold record in Norway, which is obviously great, but the part of the story that had everyone talking was Dave Grohl actually presenting you with the awards, surely that was a “what the fuck” moment for the band? What did you all do to celebrate?
We actually didn’t get to celebrate because we had to leave an hour later to play a show in Sweden the next day, which is usually how it is for us.

Well we were going to ask who could put away more booze, yourselves or Dave, but that takes care of that…
I think he was pretty busy anyway, he had his whole family on tour, but at least we got to say hello to his kids.

You’re obviously coming to Australia as part of Soundwave and supporting Mastodon on their headline shows, did you ever think this was a possibility for a Norwegian band blending rock’n’roll with extreme metal?
Yeah, we warmed up for Mastodon in Europe last year and we met them after the shows and just got to know them a bit. When we toured America last time Brent [Hinds] came out to the show and hung out a bit, so it’s cool to have the chance to play with them in Australia. I heard those shows are sold out too, so we’re especially lucky to be playing with them again.

What are you and the rest of the band looking forward to most from Australia?
I’ve never been there so I don’t know what there is to do. Any ideas?

We drink heaps and go to the beach if that helps?
That sounds like a good start. Hopefully we can see some exotic animals like everyone else, but it’s going to be the most comfortable tour ever, like, we play a show and then have a day off, which is very rare for us.

You’re in possession of a three-guitar assault a la Iron Maiden, just how heavy is your live show?
It’s going to be really loud and it’s going to be great. I can promise a lot of sweat and high volume.

You’re a sharing a stage with a lot of heavy hitting bands (Meshuggah, Lamb Of God), so who will emerge victorious in the heavy-stakes on the day?
I don’t know if we’re the heaviest band but I’m confident we’ll be one of the loudest and most energetic, that’s what we’re going for!

And finally, what are your favourite heavy records of all time and why?
Oh man that’s the hardest questions ever, I don’t even know if I’ll get to five! Sabotage by Black Sabbath is one of my favourite albums; it’s just the one that got me into metal really. Man, this is tough [laughs].

No token Pantera entry?
I’m more into Down actually.

Controversial…
I know right. Add in the first Bathory record and then Ass Cobra by Turbonegro, that’s pretty solid I think?

Very solid. You’ll score a lot of brownie points with the Turbonegro call.
Excellent!

Catch Kvelertak at this year’s Soundwave Festival!

~~Saturday 25th February – RNA Showgrounds – Brisbane~~ – SOLD OUT
~~Sunday 26th February – Showground – Sydney~~ – SOLD OUT
~~Friday 2nd March – Showgrounds – Melbourne~~ – SOLD OUT
Saturday 3rd March – Bonython Park – Adelaide
Monday 5th March – Claremont Showgrounds – Perth

Soundwave Edition Poster Mags On Sale!

Amy — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 02:53:20 +0000

With Soundwave just around the corner, we’re sure you’ll be keen as mustard to get your hands on the latest issues of Twisted and Blunt Posters. On sale today, both mags feature an epic selection of the bands on the festival for you to feast your eyes on before it all kicks off later this Feb. Hey, you can even take the mags along to the signing tents so all your faves can scrawl their names all over their own pics. Enjoy \m/

Featured in Blunt we’ve got:

Angels and Airwaves

Tonight Alive

Enter Shikari

Four Year Strong

A Day To Remember

Black Veil Brides

Dream On, Dreamer

Plus more!

Featured in Twisted we’ve got:

Marilyn Manson

Trivium

Meshuggah

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Machine Head

Lamb Of God

Mastodon

Plus more!