You Beauty: Dead Set Legends

You Beauty have made one of the most idiosyncratic Australian albums in recent memory with ‘Jersey Flegg’, inspired by the National Rugby League. They’ve also given it away for free. TROY D COLVIN talks to singer/lyricist Will Farrier about those risky decisions and others. Below photo from a video by JACLYN PATERSON.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] You Beauty – Kino Verzosa (drums), Flyn Mckinnirey (bass) and Joshua Phuah (guitar) – began life as a jam band in Sydney before asking Melbourne-based Will Farrier (Absolute Boys, Home Travel) to pen lyrics and sing. What eventuated was Jersey Flegg, a conceptual hard-luck tale of a “washed-up, mushroom-eared” former NRL star trying to find meaning in the hopeless wreckage of his life. “The one rule in this band is you only do what you want to do,” explains Farrier. “There’s no getting pissed off if someone wants to go to their girlfriend’s uncle’s birthday party.”

How did You Beauty come about?
No one wanted to do a serious band. Those guys were jamming on the weekends then going to watch the footy on the oval. They had a conceptual idea of what they wanted the music to be like, and what they wanted the vibe to be like, which gave me the idea about slacker hopelessness. But I’m trying to be a professional in this world; I don’t want to encourage myself to be a slacker by writing another 10 songs that concern that, so I thought it’d be fun to do it about something else.

“[Instead of] girls coming up after the show, it’s just guys who want to know what pedal you use.”

It must be freeing doing something less serious.
Yeah, definitely. Especially live – if you can get people out to see live music at the moment then the least you can do is entertain them and not complain that your guitar amp isn’t working properly. When you’re playing in serious bands, everyone thinks that heaps of girls are coming up after the show and they’re not – it’s just guys who want to know what pedal you use. When you’re doing a band like this, you think maybe we’re making music for both sexes instead of just nerdy boys, but then guys come up to you after the show and ask, “What do you think about the [Cronulla] Sharks?”

Is there a risk it won’t be taken seriously because it won’t be perceived as actually being serious?
If you’re too serious you’re not having fun and if you’re not having fun then you’re missing the point. It’s definitely not a joke. We’re just enjoying ourselves. If it’s funny for people then that’s good; I was trying to be funny.

Was it an intentional part of the narrative to keep the songs so short?
The songs were already recorded when I started writing lyrics so there was no going back to the band and saying, “Would you mind putting in another chorus?” That’s why a lot of the songs start with lyrics, because they didn’t think about writing intros.

What effect did that restriction have on your writing?
You have to use every part of the song. I can’t speak for the other guys, but I know that I’m no longer trying to make music for other people because you need to be over 28 to get the lyrical references. If you’re 30 then you’re in prime position. But the funny thing is there’s still young people listening to it without a clue what’s going on. Kino did an experiment at his work with these girls that were listening to Nova FM. He slid ‘Ann-Maree’ on one day and they were bopping. It passed that catchy test.

“I don’t really like revisiting things that I used to listen to. I have this weird anti-nostalgia.”

All your projects are so different. Is this something you aim for?
I’m always doing different things. I wouldn’t say I get bored, but my listening habits change radically in a very short space of time and I don’t really like revisiting things that I used to listen to. I have this weird anti-nostalgia. I’m definitely no master of any kind of instrument, so there’s only so much you can do with limited tools. A lot of people would master the instrument or a style of writing, that’s how bands get that kind of cult status. Shellac has been writing the same songs for 20 years, with the same tone, the same microphones and everything.

Why put the whole album up for free?
When you’ve been sitting on something and recording and mixing, you just want it to be out there. It’s about keeping that energy going. You give it away for free and people listen to it. I don’t think you devalue music by giving it away for free anymore, because that’s what people are used to. If anything, making people pay for music is a barrier, unfortunately, to wider success.

What are the parallels between this character and yourself?
I didn’t play footy but regardless of whether you followed it, loved it, hated it, it was part of your childhood. In ‘Scent of my Youth’ his Dad yells at him from the sidelines: “You don’t want it bad enough.” My dad yelled that at me once during a soccer game, but he wasn’t drinking. I’m about to move back into my parents’ place – they came to a show and in the middle of ‘Mennal Mondays’ when I sing, “That’s where I live now, back with her, the old sow,” I had to stop and say, “That’s not about my real mum.”

Do you play it chronologically live?
It’s fun playing it in order. We mixed it up the other day; it’s a bit difficult because there’s a lot of flashbacks. For the first few shows I explained that if I was wearing sunglasses that meant it was a flashback, if I wasn’t it was present-day but actually in the late ’90s.

Why did you give it such an upbeat conclusion?
It was actually quite difficult to pull the ending together because I only had one song and it’s quite short. He swallows his pride and resigns himself to doing the best with what he’s got. When they were first together Ann-Maree’s looking down on him from the VIP section and by the end she’s looking down from the grassy knoll on the suburban reserves team. It’s realistic, y’know; it’s how it goes.

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‘Jersey Flegg’ is out now as a free download. Read Mitchell Judge’s review. Remaining launch dates below.

Thurs, March 13 – Boney, Melbourne, VIC [w/You Yangs + Mighty Boys]
Sat, March 15 – Trainspotters, Brisbane, QLD [w/Step Panther, Thigh Master + The Bear Hunt]