Clowns: ‘Just Play It Loud’

Riffing on classic hardcore and a cult John Carpenter film, Melbourne punk quartet Clowns have turned in an action-packed debut album that goes by quick. Interview by DOUG WALLEN.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Both live and on record, Clowns claw and brawl their way pretty immediately to our full attention. Formed just out of high school, the Melbourne quartet released a row of self-released 7”s that showed off both their punchy vitality and natural intelligence. Despite the DIY origins, they were smart enough to link up with veteran producer Lindsay Gravina (Cosmic Psychos, Magic Dirt) at Birdland Studios and – for their debut album I’m Not Right – teeming local label Poison City.

They’re wise but also wiseass, spiking the scream-fuelled record with samples from the 1988 film They Live, starring wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. They come off like any shrugging early-20s dudes but have already toured Southeast Asia and played everywhere from water parks to car parks to flea markets. Most of all they feel like a throwback to older, purer days of punk rock, when songs were short and funny and band members went by their first names only.

Cornered before a gig at their frequent destination of the Karova Lounge in Ballarat, Stevie (vocals), James (bass), Joe (guitar) and Jake (drums) chatted openly about keeping the voice strong, the music simple and the songs dynamic.

So the record starts with a sample from They Live [“I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass … and I’m all out of bubblegum”]. Is there a story behind that?
James: It was just a movie that obviously … [Laughs] it’s a bit of an eye-opening movie in terms of society and a perspective of the world that a lot of people don’t see. It has this overall theme and belief that we all agree with. So when we were writing the album, we realised that a lot of the songs on it coordinated with the theme of the movie. So we thought we’d just roll with that idea and we wrote a couple more [in that vein].

Stevie: Plus it’s just a really badass line. [Laughter]

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] A lot of people would hear it and not know the movie and just think it’s funny.
James: We used the line at the start and we used a sample [from it again] in ‘Asleep’ at the end. There’s also a bit of influence in the artwork as well.

The whole thing about seeing what things are really like, through the glasses. I can see that as a theme.
Stevie: “Put on the glasses.”

In ‘Eat a Gun’ there’s funny references to things like MasterChef and skinny lattes and Kings of Leon.
Jake: All the things we love. [Laughter]

There seems to be a lot of that in the album. Maybe not bitterness, but dissing…
James: There’s a few satirical elements to it, which goes well with any punk elements. A lot of those things we mention, especially in ‘Eat a Gun’, are based on things that actually happened.

And ‘Rat’ is based on Ballarat?
Stevie: Yeah, I think it was the first time we played here?

Jake: Yeah, it was the first time we came down. It was just based on a funny story that happened while we were down here, with one of our previous members.

James: You can say it. He had an incident with another girl, who he shouldn’t have been with. [Laughter] So we wrote a song about it. I’m not gonna beat around the bush about it! He’s out of the band now, so…

Stevie: So it’s just fine. [Laughter]

“It was a hard-working Aussie band. It changed my life, really. I was 17.”

You guys just supported The Hard-Ons, right? That seems like it would have been a big deal for you.
James: Yeah, it was. They’ve been one of our favourite bands for many years. They were one of the first real punk bands I ever saw, that wasn’t like a Slayer or Megadeth. It was a hard-working Aussie band. It changed my life, really, when I saw them. I was 17. It put me onto underground Australian music and then obviously I started a band influenced on those sort of bands. So to get that gig was a bit of a dream come true. We had a really awesome time.

Stevie: Tell him what you did.

James: Oh, I joined The Hard-Ons for their last song, ‘Just Being With You’. Ray [Ahn] passed me his bass and let me play. Luckily I knew it. [Laughter] I just saw this crazy, shirtless Asian guy charging at me through the darkness with a bass while I was, y’know, 15 pots down. He just chucks it at me.

You guys started the band out of high school, right?
Stevie: Yeah, fresh out of high school. Had a few member mix-ups and now we’re all here. Us three are original and Joe here just started at the start of this year.

James: The band started when we were all just 18 years old. Now we’re all 22. 21, 22. Still doin’ it.

And did you [James] do the artwork for the early 7”s?
James: Yeah, I did all the 7” artwork, and the occasional poster or flyer. But for our album I didn’t feel confident doing that so we passed the reins onto Ben Brown, who’s a fuckin’ amazing artist. Anything with Ben’s stamp on it is usually pretty good, so we entrusted him with the artwork. There wasn’t anyone we wanted to do it more.

And you worked with Lindsay [Gravina], who you worked with on the 7”s…
Jake: Yeah, we’ve been recording with Lindsay and [engineer] Rob [Long] for the last two or three years. It was the first time we ever worked with a producer. It was, I suppose, at first pretty confronting, but we got used to how they work. Lindsay was very tough on us, which is kind of what we need, because we would piss-fart around in the studio a lot. It was good, having them on board. I felt really comfortable with them by the end, and really natural.

James: Lindsay actually scared the shit out of us when we first went there. We eventually figured out how he ticks and what he expects of us. By the end we had a good mate with Lindsay there.

“The way [Lindsay Gravina] works just kind of scared us.”

When you say he was tough, do you mean keeping you to schedule or making you do takes again?
Jake: All of the above, basically. Kept us on schedule and gettin’ stuff done so we could afford it. Didn’t have to pay for extra days.

James: With any other producer we’ve worked with, if we did a shitty take they’d be like, “Yeah, that was alright. We’ll move on.” If we did a shitty take with Lindsay he’d just go, “Nah. Crap. Do it again. Nah, do it again. Don’t like it.” He wouldn’t settle for anything that wasn’t perfect, which is awesome.

Stevie: It’s all well and good to tell us to do new takes, but the way he works just kind of scared us. Like, “That was so crap. Are you even a musician? Do it again.” That kind of stuff.

James: I think he does that with everyone.

Stevie: Yeah, yeah. I mean, the album is the best recordings we have to date, so there’s method to the madness.

He’s got a great sound. It’s very distinctive. It’s a very inky, saturated, really dark, full sound.
Jake: It almost resembles the studio [Birdland] itself. Dingy…

James: And him as person. He’s a very dark, weird person. [Laughter] He’s a bit shrouded in mystery too. He doesn’t drive, but he just gets there. We don’t know how he gets there. And he works really weird hours.

Stevie: The first time we went in there we brought a video camera, because we wanted to do a little document. We filmed him walking in the door. Before we’d ever met this guy – we knew who he was because he’d done all these previous records we liked, and we were so psyched to meet him – the first thing he ever did was look at us and go, “Is that a video camera? Turn it off!” [Laughter] We were like, “Oh shit!”

James: Pissed him off already, on day one.

“If we could go back in time and rename the band we would.”

Obviously you did something right, because you’ve kept working with him.
Stevie: And he really helped us out. By the end of it, we became quite accustomed with him. We have nothing but thanks for Lindsay and Rob.

I was gonna ask about the band name, but you probably get asked that all the time.
James: It’s a crappy name.

Jake: That’s all.

Stevie: If we could go back in time and rename the band we would, but it’s too late. We’re stuck with it.

Like any band, when you start associating it with the music, you kind of forget the word’s original meaning.
Stevie: Exactly.

Listening to the record, some of the guitar reminded me of ’80s metal and ’80s hardcore. Is that accurate, do you think, as an influence?
James: Well, we used an SG through a Marshall. That’s probably where the ’80s thrash comes from.

Obviously you guys like the older stuff. Just the aesthetic of your early singles was a throwback to early hardcore.
Stevie: Definitely.

James: Joe, answer this question about your guitar playing.

Joe: Yeah, ’80s metal, ’80s hardcore – that’s a very big part of what I listen to. Bands like Gang Green, Jerry’s Kids and X – I definitely tried to put that all together someway in my guitar playing. In terms of guitar sound, I just plug into a Marshall and make it loud. I don’t use any effects. I don’t bother with fooling around with knobs; I just get it sounding the way I like it and just play it loud. Just the AC/DC approach, I guess.

Do you ever throw in a reference in something you’re playing, genre-wise or sound-wise?
Joe: I think the style of music we play … we play a few more than three chords, but at the end of the day it is a basic style of music and does follow in the tradition of just punk and rock ‘n’ roll bands. I think Poison Idea is a good example when it comes to guitar work; I think we have similar approach to how we use guitar in the band.

And keeping the songs short: is that something you think you’ll keep doing for a while, or do you think you’ll eventually push that out?
James: I’d say with our next release you’ll probably find even more shorter songs than on this one. With the album, all the shorter songs were the ones we’d written last.

Stevie: It’s definitely not something we plan to phase out. It’s definitely part of the Clowns sound. Our shortest songs are some of my favourite songs, really. But we like to keep a pretty big dynamic between the music. We have those really short hardcore songs, but we also have our longer sort of punk rock songs. Which is part of the band. What you might find is some songs getting shorter and shorter and some songs getting longer and longer.

That contrast…
Stevie: Yeah. Hopefully we can be a band that can do both. We used to only do three-minute songs, for the first year or so. We were like, “Fuck it, let’s just do some short songs.” But we didn’t want to ditch our old stuff.

James: We had one short song, then two, three. It ended up being about half and half, which is where we’re at right now.

“I’m still yet to really fuck a gig by screaming [my voice] out.”

Do you ever have problems with your voice on tour, with screaming? You sound a little scratchy…
Stevie: Well, my voice is always a little husky. I’ve got asthma. I do, from occasion to occasion, if I have a really big night and we’re playing an afternoon show the next day … I always beat myself up pretty hard about it, because I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to that stuff, but I can’t picture a time where I thought I screwed up a gig in some way and someone else has told me that. There’s a bit of leeway.

Well, it would just be rougher, right? It wouldn’t be off…
Stevie: I don’t know. I’m still, touch wood, yet to really fuck a gig by getting too fucked up the night before or screaming it out or whatever. I have good days and bad days but hopefully the bad days don’t get so bad that I really fuck it.

Is this the longest headline tour you’ve done?
Stevie: Yeah, definitely. So it’ll be a bit of a test. In Asia I was fine. I think that might have been because it was so warm and the air is quite humid. Trust me, I’ve studied up on how to prolong vocal chords, and warm, humid weather is awesome because it keeps them hydrated. But I don’t know, I guess we’ll see.

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‘I’m Not Right’ is out now through Poison City. It’s being launched nationally with an extensive tour.

Fri, Oct 18 – The Public Bar, Melbourne, VIC
Fri, Oct 25 – Yahoo Bar, Shepparton, VIC
Sat, Oct 26 – Gasometer, Melbourne, VIC
Thurs, Oct 31 – Phoenix Bar, Canberra, ACT
Fri, Nov 1 – The Lab, Wollongong, NSW
Sat, Nov 2 – Riverfest, Moruya, NSW [all ages]
Wed, Nov 6 – Prince of Wales, Bunbury, WA
Thurs, Nov 7 – Newport Hotel, Fremantle, WA
Fri, Nov 8 – Amplifier Bar, Perth, WA
Sun, Nov 9 – Blood Rock Festival, Perth, WA
Fri, Nov 14 – The Royal Oak, Launceston, TAS
Sat, Nov 15 - The Brisbane Hotel, Hobart, TAS
Fri, Nov 22 – Hamilton Station Hotel, Newcastle, NSW
Sat, Nov 23 – Black Wire Records, Sydney, NSW [all ages]
Sat, Nov 30 – Crowbar, Brisbane, QLD
Sun, Dec 1 – 4ZZZ Car Park, Brisbane, QLD [all ages]