Chrome Dome: Sarcastic Nihilists

Melbourne’s Chrome Dome may hate everything, but that hasn’t stopped them from taking the piss out of it in a classy way. They discuss the finer points of their self-described “sarcastic nihilism” with TIM SCOTT.

I first came across Chrome Dome founder Shaun South playing saxophone in punk thrashers Pathetic Human in a small room above the Fitzroy Bowls Club. Though many in attendance were dressed in de rigueur hardcore band shirts, they certainly weren’t prepared for the kind of hardcore they were about to witness. A few songs into Pathetic Human's set a tall guy with a shock of hair got up and blasted his sax like a cross between James Chance, The Stooges’ Steve McKay and napalm. It was a brutal and in-your-face performance to say the least. Although the sax has gone, South’s energy and punk rock mindset live on in Chrome Dome.

Their debut 7” 'Negative Vibes' had a rawness and weirdness to it that went beyond your typical Suicide rip-off band. Underneath the droning synths and drum machine was a damaged and cold vibe. Like sex without any of the drunken foreplay, it left an impression, albeit an odd one. With the addition of Pathetic Human’s Bryce Sweatman on drums their upcoming CD on Lexicon Devil promises more of that harsh synth energy.

After a recent performance at Melbourne's Bus Gallery, I caught up with the trio – South, Sweatman and Andrea Blake – in a nearby car park.

Tell us about the formation of Chrome Dome?
Shaun: It came out of Bleak Infinity which was a project for me, Tommy Gun (Pathetic Human), Hanna Schiefelbein (Acid Casualty) and Adrian Trajstman (Talkshow Boy). I guess that was the first incarnation of me saying, “I want synth punk!” So we were listening to Nervous Gender and the Screamers a shitload.

Was this music a new discovery for you at the time?
Shaun: Half and half. I sort of knew who they were but then I was getting right into it.

Bryce: In Sydney, Shaun is known as “Crust Warrior”.

Shaun: Yeah, I was totally into crust (laughs). I used to put on punk picnics and shit. I had a big bum patch. I didn't have a leather jacket, just a denim jacket with a whole bunch of crust band patches.

Andrea: You didn't have a mangy dog as the accessory du jour?

Shaun: No, I wasn't a hippy who happened to just fall into things. I actually liked the music but the beginning of Chrome Dome was me just getting pissed off with Bleak Infinity and palming those shows off into Chrome Dome which was me and Ben Woodward.

Andrea: With Shaun and Ben it sounded good recorded but always ended fucked-up live. I remember we played an absolutely disastrous show at Shaun's house where I was assaulted by a tambourine.

Bryce: Dan and Leon from the SSEX label, who put out our first record [‘Negative Vibes’], rolled down to check out the show one with one or two of their mates. I could tell they weren't expecting what happened at that show. The lineup of Chrome Dome changed right in front of their eyes [drummer Ben quit the band mid-set].

Shaun: As soon as he [Ben] walked off we were all like, “OK, what songs next? He's gone!” But the band has become a lot more sorted now.

What was your musical background Andrea?
Andrea: I come from a punk rock background I guess. The first kind of music I listened to was Riot Grrrl and I got really into that and the whole DIY thing and started doing stuff in Brisbane. I initially met Shaun when one of my bands played with his old band Deaf! Deaf!.

What was Deaf! Deaf! like?
Shaun: No wave. We were just no wave even though we didn't really know what it was when we started. I guess at the start we were a bit more post punk. It was me and Kieran from Superstar with just guitar and drums. Then I got a saxophone and the No New York comp around the same time and I was like, “Yeah, this is what we are! Dark no wave.” [Laughs] But we were kind of learning about that shit as we were doing it. It wasn't like we started out trying to be obnoxiously no wave.

So there is no chance of the sax making an appearance in Chrome Dome?
Shaun: Hell no!

Bryce: Even when Shaun was playing sax in Pathetic Human half the time he was playing it without a reed [laughs].

Your music is considered dark and cold but speaking to you, well, you all seem fairly funny and upbeat.
Bryce: It's easy to write about how much Chrome Dome are wasted and bummed and shit but really at the end of the day we are normally laughing and taking the piss out of everything.

Shaun: Yeah, I’m happy now, but half the songs have come from when I was in a really dark fucking place and I find it really hard to write lyrics when I'm happy. A lot of the lyrics are about sitting in my room and being sad about what I was doing. It's an outlet. I'm pretty happy hanging around my friends and playing shows but I was pretty fucking dark when I wrote those words.

Lyrics are important to you then?
Shaun: I like to sing about what is fucking me up at the time. So it's an outlet.

Andrea: I guess on some of the newer songs where we have started to do lyrics together they are not so fucked up.

The song 'She Said'. What did she say?
Shaun: That's about my ex-girlfriend. Most of those really bummed out songs are about my ex-girlfriend.

Bryce: Yeah she’s a goldmine for timeless classics. This is about someone wanting to sleep with you still after a relationship when really you know it's bad news.

Andrea: She wanted the milk but didn't want to buy the cow. [Laughs]

Bryce: Coming from a more hardcore punk background the lyrics to me can sometimes feel unimportant. The overall droning sound is more important than the lyrics.

How has the sound changed with the addition of Bryce?
Bryce: The ‘Negative Vibes’ EP sounds so rich and deep and big, but it was difficult portraying that live especially because a lot of the shows that Chrome Dome were doing were in like art galleries and DIY spaces. They couldn't really project as loud as they could.

Shaun: One of the good things about having Bryce as a drummer is that, while he comes from a hardcore background doing rolls and blast beats, he’s now doing a slow “bam bam” in Chrome Dome. That can be really hard for a lot of drummers that mainly play fast music.

“It's easy to write about how much Chrome Dome are wasted and bummed and shit but really at the end of the day we are normally laughing and taking the piss out of everything.”

Describe the set-ups you are using.
Shaun: Analogue ’70s and ’80s synths and lots of reverb through vocals.

Andrea: The samplers I'm using are 202 and 303 which are probably mid-’90s, but replicating an older sound. Basically a digital version of analogue stuff.

Bryce: I’m just using my drum kit and a tambourine. No electronic drums as of yet. When I started it was about following the sampler and having it more primitive. But half the reason Shaun wanted a drummer in the band was to be able to evolve from that, so sometimes the sampler is working around me.

Shaun: I'm a little bit funny sometimes when the drumming is not matched with the drum machine. Because Bryce is such a rad drummer it's hard to match or complement the machine.

Bryce: Yeah, it's easy for me to take it past the line of what it's meant to be about. If I over do it then it makes it more “rock”, so I have to be careful not to infect it with anus.

What has interest been like overseas?
Shaun: We got a review in Switzerland And he dug it. Also one in Maximum Rock’n’Roll. Oh, and Drop Dead, an LA goth kinda mag, are kind of interested in us. It's glossy and kind of weird but they seemed to like us. Also John Waters, the movie director, got a hold of our 7” [when he was in Australia].

What’s your favourite Chrome Dome song?
Andrea: My favourites would have to be 'Topped', which is the first single (it's a song that Shaun and I wrote in his loungeroom one day), and the song now called 'CMA'. I like it for the fact that I actually sing in it. In all my other bands I've just been yelling and screaming. But I really like Daisy Chainsaw and I've always loved the vocals of KatieJane Garside. When she sings high it's cracking all over the place. It's great.

Bryce: My favourite song is probably 'Life's a Party'. It has minimalist drumming, real drowning, real hypnotic and I think Chrome Dome is all about sarcastic nihilism. Hating everything but taking the piss out of it in some sort of classy way.

Shaun: That would be my favourite too. There are lyrics about my ex and how I felt really bad at the time. It's just venting: “She isn't there/So why should I care?”

While the music of Naked on the Vague, Repairs and Chrome Dome is not exactly the same, would you say it forms from the same dark crevices?
Bryce: I think it's that Repairs are really influenced by Chrome Dome and vice versa. We are fans of them as a band as people. We are all friends.

Shaun: As far as Naked on the Vague goes the only reason Chrome Dome started playing music was because they invited me to play years ago. They basically invited me to play because they heard something on MySpace. Their encouragement was very important.

Andrea. Mentors!

Shaun: Definitely, Naked on the Vague were my mentors. They were the first people who cared about the music I was making on my own. Before that I had no confidence. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't be even here talking to you.

I guess as Naked on the Vague gets more exposure and interest overseas people start looking at bands they like and play with in Australia.
Bryce: Yeah, Lucy [Phelan] released a Chrome Dome cassette on Near Tapes but we intend to do stuff off our own backs. Europe is where we really want to go. But our short term goal is to release the record and play as much as we can.

You seem to have a pretty busy release schedule coming up.
Bryce: Yeah, we've got a seven track album coming up that Dave Lang on Lexicon Devil is putting out. Then we have an A- and B-side 7”, also a song from the album that is coming out on a four-way split with Primitive Calculators, Repairs and Naked on the Vague. Leon will be releasing that on SSEX.

Bryce: When we play live it's very stripped back compared to how we recorded. Obviously we are not going to have 20 synthesisers.

Shaun: But that's the beauty of it. The fact you can hear our recording, which is so full, then you can see us play in some small art gallery were we are all over the place.

Who did the recording?
Bryce: Steven Fraser who run's Irene's Warehouse [in East Brunswick, Melbourne]. He has a studio there, well, you record in the room where the band's play. He's recorded Pathetic Human, our first two releases and Shaun's side project Young Romantics. We all live in that area. He's a bit of like a father figure for us.

Andrea: He is really good at directing us. He let's us do what we want but is good at giving us guidance.

Shaun: Part of that is all of his analogue gear. It’s thousands of dollars worth of stuff and is free for us to use. Finding someone who wants to record us and match our ideas and then letting us use their equipment is heaven for us.

Bryce: His studio is like a candy shop for us.