Shownotes
An absolute must watch! Hamish and Paul sat down with the lads from Thunder Fox to talk all things then, spin crazy yarns, and learn a few lessons along the way.
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Transcripts
00:13
hello and welcome to another episode of west underground and this is a very special episode
00:19
guys i'm i'm happy to be doing this and today we have none other than thunder fox joining us
00:26
thank you guys cheers guys guys just straight off the bat like how did you guys start as a band
00:39
so i think we've been together i mean in theory a long time now i started the band with my best mate
00:46
sam another sam um in high school we were just um just sort of in different grades but we knew each
00:53
other and that we played guitar and there's not many kind of people in our school that were very
01:00
like very interesting in terms of their musical output you know because we're on the beaches so
01:05
everyone wants to play angus and julia stone stuff and we wanted to play like funk music
01:10
and rock music and stuff so yeah we were like oh that's it was kind of a running joke oh we should
01:17
start a band we should start a band and we used to laugh about it every time we saw each other and
01:21
one day i went over to his place and we wrote a song together and we're like oh this is sick
01:27
we're so excited because we thought we'd written the best song of all time and um yeah we kind of
01:34
just coast along as the two of us and did some little acoustic gigs and then one day my friend
01:38
jack who i used to live with who now plays in sings in mansion air which is another band
01:45
who are doing quite well he asked us to play to support his old band he said we needed a band
01:52
to do it and we wanted the gig so we found whoever we could that played instruments at
01:58
the time one of them was my ex-girlfriend on the drums and um yeah just a couple of other people
02:06
and yeah and we just came up with the funniest name we could think of and um the rest was history
02:13
and as time has gone on the members have kind of grown and changed and i think the band probably
02:22
solidified as an entity when jesse and travis joined the band it's kind of when we found our
02:27
sound got some horns in there because we wanted to be different and that was that was the moment
02:34
and so i would say we've been to we've been thunderfox for like six or seven years but we've
02:39
been this band for like maybe two years or three years found our sound especially in the last uh i
02:47
think about a year ago our current bass player joined manza monster trends on the bass and on
02:52
the synth bass and i feel like there's five of us now in the band and when casey our current
02:58
bassist joined really feels like we've locked in and kind of found our fate and our sound and
03:04
found what to build off from which is really exciting yeah wow that's amazing boys one
03:09
question i just want to ask like that's off topic completely where are you boys it looks like you're
03:14
in a studio slash aquarium behind this is my this is my home studio and i keep my pet's necks in
03:21
here as well because ah snakes here man it looks like a fishing aquarium like i was that's you can
03:28
see a little lump down there that's one of my snakes it's a little white snake oh yeah wow
03:38
wow not so much a fish tank but a reptile tank yeah it wasn't like an intentional backdrop like
03:43
this is just the best place to do the zoom well dude you've got you you you've
03:49
won the award of like the best backdrop of all these zoom interviews we've done
03:54
how was that a snake tank in the background for sure you can imagine so this is the first but
04:01
dude i want one thing i also wanted to say um which is you know completely off topic a
04:06
little bit is the name thunderfox like him you know i was having conversation before
04:11
we started this interview with my editor and he goes oh who are you guys interviewing and i said
04:15
i said thunder fox and he goes are they are they a metal band and i said no the opposite actually
04:22
have a listen and he's like oh oh you know it was one the name i think the name
04:30
is like one of those things where it it's it's misleading but it kind of takes you down
04:35
you know um you know a rabbit hole of going oh wow oh wow this is not what i was expecting but yeah
04:42
like pick your interest be like oh yeah and then you start listening to something
04:46
he's like oh not what i expected but cool anyway yeah it's one of those
04:49
things we're like teenagers when we came up with the name and years down the track like
04:58
so who gets the name credits who was the mastermind behind it
05:02
well i think it was me it was back when sam and i were writing and and i think we came
05:08
up with maybe 10 names that were way better than thunder fox in retrospect sam really
05:13
wanted to be called stank face which i thought looking back i think it was such a cool bad name
05:20
but we were like oh we should go with something that's easy to spell and that was kind of the
05:25
whole point we just wanted to be easy to write out but people still manage to [ __ ] it up
05:30
yeah people always write it as one word there's two words thunder box
05:36
it's not the proudest achievement of the band but we love it anyway oh it's a name you got to
05:41
stick with the name represents you represent has anyone said it in reverse to you guys has anyone
05:46
been like oh you guys fox thunder fox i don't think we've had that we got thunderbox yeah
05:52
we got thunderbox we always get off on the box it's under [ __ ] that's kind of all the time
06:01
which is a compliment yeah i'm interested in the names that you said
06:06
were better than thunder fox what were the names there well yeah i think my favorite was stank face
06:12
another front runner was buffalo pete i thought that was cool
06:18
i haven't heard these options before and i'm i'm more and more glad that we went with thunderbox
06:22
actually well you guys could always be song names as well there could always be song names if you
06:26
ever yeah that's true or album album names as well they're pretty good so at least nothing misses out
06:31
yeah like them face would be a great song then that's a good idea yeah i like buffalo pete would
06:38
certainly get your interest you'd be like what are they writing about yeah for sure that was
06:43
a sick name you know buffalo pete almost sounds like a name of like a you know a pokey machine
06:48
that hasn't been invented yet you know yeah oh yeah yeah he's got the shotguns going off
06:55
yeah like a sick western movie or something
07:00
yes it reminds me like aussie pub rock you for sure yeah too much too much anyone watching that's
07:07
in the process of starting like an aussie um pub rock band there you go i don't know yeah boys want
07:14
to have copyright of that or you again i don't know i reckon they can have it go for your life
07:18
all right you haven't been successful they get we might come after them later down the track
07:22
yeah start winning grammys litigation here and there remember when we said that you could
07:27
have that name really now we want it back come on exactly but boys you recently put out a new single
07:35
and i'm like when i heard it i was like whoa this is very very different um but like who are you
07:41
boys inspired by like who are you individually listening to it's pretty um it's really mixed
07:47
actually so there's five of us in the band and we all come from pretty different musical backgrounds
07:52
but um so there's me i play the trumpet and we've got a sax player as well so we've got
07:57
a lot of background in like jazz and kind of wind orchestra stuff but also
08:02
i grew up listening to like the red hot chili peppers and our sax player loves his hip hop
08:08
sam's into like jeff buckley yeah i mean yeah it's definitely definitely the origin of our
08:15
sound is the fact that we don't try and go for anything we just get all our influences and mix
08:20
them together so i was yeah i was losing to like when i was growing up into like folk music and
08:26
and soul music like jeff buckley and stevie wonder and marvin gaye yeah as well as like
08:33
guns and roses and led zeppelin on the rock kind of side of things
08:37
um as well as obsessed with and so when when we got together it wasn't a case of like oh you like
08:43
you know funk music that's that's horrible it was like oh everything everyone bought into the band
08:49
completely like expanded our uh vision and our kind of desire to embody all of that i thought my
08:59
singular goal personally and i guess for everyone else too maybe was was to write something that was
09:04
unique or to be something that was unique which can seem sort of impossible until you realize that
09:10
to be unique you just have to like amalgamate everything that you like and put it into one place
09:17
because there's lots of bands out there that want to sound like i don't know red hot chili peppers
09:22
or sticky fingers there's not a lot of bands that are just kind of going well i like all of
09:28
this stuff i'm not even gonna think about it and just write whatever comes to mind because all that
09:33
stuff's like bubbling in the back of your head subconsciously i think you guys have definitely
09:38
done a good job of putting all that in a blender and creating a new flavor you know yeah you know
09:45
like i you know the jeff buckley influence i could hear that a little bit but i mean it was just very
09:52
different like um as i said like i discovered you guys amongst um a bunch of you know new australian
10:00
music and whatnot and even then i found you guys in a playlist and you kind of go from what else
10:06
is in there to you guys and it's like oh this is this is worlds apart almost yeah yeah for sure
10:12
that's been like both a blessing and a curse for us because for sure well we're really proud
10:16
of our last album especially and everything we create and like love how it sounds and often when
10:21
people listen to it they'll like really like it but they'll struggle to put their finger on what
10:26
it is yeah when it comes to like playlisting and stuff people the feedback we'll often get if it's
10:32
like not a go they'll be like oh we really love it i love the production but it doesn't quite fit the
10:37
vibe with the playlist all right all right so if people want people want you to be able to define
10:43
what you're doing and especially in this kind of musical landscape people want to say like i
10:48
are you a rock band are you a r b band are you a soul band or whatever genre and like i've never
10:57
been able to say really what we are yeah it's like we're definitely something like adult contemporary
11:04
easy listening it's like yeah but i i love i love that about us but it has made it kind of
11:11
tricky to kind of get people's ears pricked up before they actually listen to our music because
11:16
they're like well what are you you know well you are good so that that that's a good starting point
11:25
yeah very good but um you know like look i i think you guys will you know if if if you guys
11:32
don't get picked up in a big way in the next like you know 10 years i feel like the next generation
11:39
will be looking back and going oh i remember have you heard of these guys
11:45
pulling them apart yeah yeah yeah it'll be like a fishbone thing like the band fishbone
11:50
who are like this american scar band some people have heard of them some people haven't they never
11:55
really got that massive but they it's if you there's this documentary about him they interview
12:02
like flea from the peppers and um a bunch of other super famous musicians that came out of the same
12:08
movement and they were like well they were easily the most influential band on the scene but no one
12:13
cared about them like when they were there so that's not that's not that's not gonna be us
12:19
it's not what we want that's not what we want but it's crossing mine oh dude it just sounds like the
12:25
future you just uh you know and and like there's songs of yours which i'm like oh that's kind of
12:30
r b and that's kind of i don't know i think once our generation
12:35
learns not to not to love labels as much as we do i feel like it'll be very easy more more
12:42
people are able to get around it more yeah yeah yeah even in the mainstream now it's becoming
12:48
less of a thing like still got a ways to go but you can see people branching out like billy
12:54
allison [ __ ] pop punks on like everyone's doing what whatever they want when they get when they
13:01
get the popularity that they get and then no no one mines yeah so that's the whole goal we just
13:08
i i think we just stick to our guns do whatever we want yeah what happens happens i think a big
13:13
part of like what we're talking about or what sam suggesting is like there's still like definitely
13:18
that trend of people wanting to be putting boxes already or only playing things that fit a certain
13:23
taste that still exists but like sam was saying i think it's changing a little bit i reckon a huge
13:29
part of that is down to like the accessibility of production because you've got all these like
13:33
16 17 year old kids they've got a laptop a free version of ableton maybe it's cracked and like
13:39
kids are getting so good at producing music so young these days which just like opens
13:43
up the world like people are limited to being contracted with a label for example they can just
13:49
make something and then suddenly they'll blow up through like tick tock and there's all these yeah
13:54
you can access millions of songs at the touch of a button so that's it's like no restriction
14:01
in what you're exposed to so i think it's you know there's societal kind of implications of
14:07
being you know assigned to a genre that still really kind of runs through the whole thing
14:13
the industry but as yeah i think i think there is some little signs of moving away from that
14:20
kind of knee need to label people yeah i think so you brought up sticky fingers before and i thought
14:29
that was really interesting because i met when the first time i was a kid and i heard sticky fingers
14:34
i was like whoa this is really this is really different and then and then i like really got into
14:40
it and then kind of watch those guys blow up but in the most kind of unconventional way where they
14:46
kind of made their own you know audiences got by just going from coast to coast to coast and then
14:52
overseas and coming back but um you know it definitely shows that you know it is possible
15:00
you know and especially with you know the heart of technology and that kind of stuff
15:04
but what's it been like for you guys gigging i mean imagine at the moment it's probably been
15:09
quite hard but you know in before well we're like we definitely see ourselves as like a gigging band
15:16
the best feedback we've gotten about our music has been after live performances like people see
15:21
our shows we're like very high energy and we've got a lot of different personalities on the stage
15:26
and we all come from a background of like as performing musicians like some of us have gone to
15:31
music uni others haven't but we all love playing music like at the end of the day so gigging is
15:36
like it's so important to us it's everything too yeah i think i think it's where you find that's
15:40
where you find the most kind of dedicated fans of your music is when you can connect with them on
15:48
a personal level because it's like all you're doing at the moment in this kind of you know
15:53
modern musical age everyone's trying to get fans by posting really hot pictures of themselves or
15:59
posting heaps of songs on spotify and trying to get playlisted and stuff but there are certain
16:04
types of fans that you can gain from that you know you can get a million players on spotify and have
16:09
no one that will go to your gig and no one that will buy your t-shirt and stuff so i think that's
16:14
been the most valuable thing about trying to grow as a band has been gigging because we meet people
16:20
there and when when we meet them we'll see them at the next show the next time we go to their town
16:24
and you kind of build this relationship with people and those are the people that
16:28
stick with you and that really care about what you're doing that's why it's so inspiring to to do
16:33
gigs especially yeah and we've gigged a lot it was like it's a big part of us as a band is yeah we're
16:39
releasing and then we'll like work towards a tour we'll really try to make it a big tour we're like
16:44
we're very familiar with the the long drive from sydney to melbourne or sydney and back again yeah
16:51
which is great we love it yeah yeah i feel like you guys have got both the online and the gig
16:59
um personality got like a lot of fans following you because online you guys got this thought of
17:04
you or hugging each other yeah i think you guys got that hot stuff as well going on as well
17:10
yeah you got to play the game that's yeah let's see yeah yeah i guess that's kind of just like
17:15
how we have always taken photos i mean we're a bunch of we're five guys in a band and that's
17:22
becoming like you know more and more a less popular thing um and there's nothing wrong
17:27
with that necessarily but we're also as five guys we're all like really close we're really touchy
17:33
feely we love to like hang out and speak about our emotions with each other and cuddle so like
17:39
we kind of like to translate that across so we do like silly photo shoots just push the
17:44
boundaries you know keep everybody guessing like was it a boy is it a girl i'm not really sure
17:51
oh yeah yeah i saw that vibe as well this is great
17:55
i think we're gonna be who we are like exactly you know try try and translate that without really
18:01
trying to no we don't want to put a filter trying to fit any sort of trend or anything no no i yeah
18:06
i agree yeah so like oh sorry paul i'm sorry i was going to say a bit off topic about speaking
18:12
about emotion i'm getting anxiety from that candle lighting up on your left jesse yes what is that
18:18
it's it's some i don't know it's some electric doesn't it look like a candle that you know those
18:22
prank cameras that went on and off it looked like that curtain's gonna go on fire i was like
18:29
we don't want the flyers in here it's okay breathe sorry for interrupting hey michelle it's all yours
18:34
now mate look i was before before paul asked about the about the candle i just want to ask like how
18:41
do you boys like commute in as a five piece band like are you going around in two cars or you gotta
18:48
ride you ask this question well yes that's that's a question you got a two off camera guys
18:54
uh for a long time we're um we're doing exactly that we're commuting in two sometimes three
18:59
cars because like sometimes we'll have to take back line like drum kits yeah yeah
19:03
um so yeah it was like two or three cars a lot of money on fuel but um between the two lockdowns
19:09
actually like it's a thing we love touring we're gonna keep touring so actually we invested in a i
19:15
invested in the band invested in a in a care carnival which is like an eight-seater car
19:20
so we actually haven't had the most use of it we've only been on like two quick tours but it
19:25
means that once lockdown's over we can fit all of us in one vehicle with all our gear top drivers
19:32
it's so so exciting that's a classic classic way of touring as a band yeah sure
19:39
yeah that's awesome but that would have been a that would have been [ __ ] uh heaps of you
19:44
know heaps of money and just so much effort because if you're a three piece you can get
19:49
away with cramming everything into a little van and you know going driving around a smelly van
19:53
but if you're a five piece you've got to get two cars and an entourage oh for sure yeah
19:58
yeah it's always been a logistical challenge but it's worth it you know and we just uh
20:03
yeah i mean we've only just kind of started in the last year or two traveling with a sound guy
20:09
and things like that prior to that it was always just the band members and like if
20:13
we were lucky to bring a girlfriend along or something well you need to buy a bus
20:27
and now you've briefly touched on you know kind of relentlessly touring and trying to play shows
20:33
but where have you guys been um everywhere east coast yeah we're really familiar with
20:41
the east coast of australia so like sydney is our hometown we got the biggest following here biggest
20:45
listenership and yeah good fans but we've done a lot of shows in brisbane melbourne also byron
20:51
south coast new south wales is kind of a random oddball one where we got a bit of a following
20:56
yeah and of course in:21:04
which was just like you know the best few weeks of our lives i reckon did 22 dates in europe and
21:11
like what eight countries yeah and it was just yeah 20 25 days or 26 days and 22 shows
21:18
and it was like the best yeah that's what we wanted to do forever so were you guys working
21:26
with a label or anything at that point like you know when you did that or did you just
21:30
take life in your own hands and be like we're going to do this and we're going to book it
21:34
all ourselves and we're going to it was off option b all the way we saw we saw bands like
21:41
um for example we saw bands like ocean alley doing europe tours and other other bands like
21:46
that like from the similar scene from the northern beaches and like that looks like so much fun like
21:52
is it actually feasible to do that what's actually required we'll just like let's just make it happen
21:57
so we spoke to the boys promotionality yeah we got some tips and advice i did
22:01
we first before oceanelli kind of hit the hit the big time before they took anyway
22:08
yeah we found like a little bit boutique booking agency in italy just like through
22:12
friends and friends and he got us a bunch of shows in like italy and spain and i just like
22:18
um i have like hundreds of venues in in germany and in france and in the uk just like hoping for
22:25
a bite like casting out a thousand reels and like a few of them responded and we ended up
22:31
putting a show together and funded it ourselves and pretty jam-packed yeah we just did it it was
22:36
really really fun like pretty challenging but but totally doable and like if there's any there's any
22:43
fans out there listening to this who want to do it like it's doable you just got to do it really
22:47
sir i i'm i'm sure there are and like one question that i want to kind of get at is how did you get
22:55
all your back line of instruments and all that stuff over there logistically or did you have
23:00
to kind of borrow and yeah we hired yeah there was like there was a touring company there that
23:05
hired out a van and gear yeah yeah abandoning gear for a specific period of time so we did that for
23:13
whatever it was for four weeks or five weeks and um yeah just had this whole back line with us the
23:18
whole time which was kind of sketchy because we got we got robbed in italy luckily they didn't
23:25
get to the back line they robbed um robbed our car when we were out like about to play a show but it
23:32
got rained off because now like a lot of the shows in europe were outdoors because it was the summer
23:37
and yeah we went and they said well you can't play this show but we bought all this beer so you might
23:42
as well just drink it while you're here and we're like okay all right and so we did that but we got
23:46
back to the car and it was broken into something because [ __ ] travis and our sax player and our
23:53
bass player of the time connor had left their phones and wallets on the dashboard which is
23:59
sort of like the first thing not to do yeah i was like that was like the rock bottom of the europe
24:04
tour we come back to our van and there's like a window smashed and a wallet and a phone yeah
24:10
and a week or so left another like 20 hours of driving at least with just a plastic bag
24:16
yeah the repair we told the repair company like we got broken into and they're like
24:21
oh can you guys go get that fixed at a smash repair but like we didn't have any time because
24:25
every night we had a show so we had to drive like five hours every night we also figured out
24:30
that part of the contract was like every every um piece of damage to the van would cost like i think
24:36
it was like 150 euro well like it'd actually be cheaper to not get it fixed and take it back and
24:42
get them to fix it so yeah we would have bought a thick piece of plastic and just duct taped it to
24:47
the window we just filed a police report as well remember it was a bit of a language barrier though
24:54
so it didn't really work out but yeah but hey we survived it was all good and it's a good story
25:00
yeah man you'd like at least you've got some war stories from it as well yeah now if in 50
25:06
years you guys become the biggest band in the world you can all you know retire and write off
25:11
autobiographies and be interesting yeah yeah yeah but don't take that as an invitation to rob us
25:19
stories please don't realize i think that's like like a like a great attitude and i don't think
25:27
that we've had any fans like on here so far paul that have you know taken that approach and really
25:33
just you know grabbed it and went for it yeah we've had bands who've been like organized from
25:40
obviously second third party and honor but we've never had a band like you guys actually took it
25:44
in your own hands and just took the risk and did it yourselves i find that really amazing you guys
25:49
knew how to find the right places to make you guys go there i think i think yeah we definitely take
25:54
pride in that we've worked really really hard to get to even this level that we're at now
26:01
we're lucky enough now we've just got some booking agents since early this year
26:08
um who well haven't had much of a chance to do any work but would be booking us gigs in australia
26:16
yeah um yeah i don't think we've never had any interest from anybody else anyway we've
26:20
never really had interest from external labels or managers or anything so we don't have a choice we
26:25
haven't necessarily reached out either i guess that no yeah it's one of those things like there's
26:30
a bit of a stigma with labels you hear so many horror stories about like bad contracts and that
26:36
but at the end of the day like it's all uh it's all a compromise like if you sign up with the
26:41
label you might give up some creative freedom but you might get the funds to like record an awesome
26:46
awesome album so like get some good publicity if someone from sony was like hey here's two million
26:51
dollars we wouldn't say no well we might think we'd think about it think about it we read the
26:57
phones on the contract i definitely don't love the idea yeah definitely go for the professional way
27:02
stripped away yeah we'll think about it and he's jumping up and down in the background
27:08
well i think i think you're probably really smart not not not have tried to jump on that bandwagon
27:13
because you guys have did you know i was before before we did this i was just having a look at
27:18
some things to just kind of you know refresh you know my mind and you know think of some little
27:24
things to talk about but i was having a look you guys have then created a fan base organically
27:30
and not just the fan base of a couple you know a couple people but you know thousands you know so
27:36
i think you keep going your way and you don't give a sign that 360 contract and you don't get it yeah
27:41
i agree with you you gotta say yeah for sure i think people don't realize that when a label gives
27:45
you a you know a hundred thousand dollar contract they're just loaning it to you yeah yeah until you
27:53
make a hundred thousand dollars from your recordings and touring which is
27:57
not an easy feat although easier if you had label backing i'm sure like until
28:02
you've made that money back you won't see your [ __ ] sent so i'm happy without a label until
28:10
if if a label comes up and gives us a contract that is you know workable and fits what we want
28:16
but it's so doable without that there's so many amazing independent artists that have
28:22
had really solid careers and have really solid fan bases without any backing as well so it's
28:28
definitely doable and it's not anywhere near the top of our list of priorities to do that
28:33
yeah definitely i studied i'm drawing parallels between you and sticky fingers not necessarily
28:39
in the genre of your music but just in the in in terms of your story i i i when i studied music
28:46
uh tafe i had sticky fingers manager was like our business teacher and you're saying like when when
28:53
the boys like you know kind of came to him and said oh you can you manage us and he said yeah
28:58
um the idea was to just send the boys along the you know north up up north down south
29:04
up north down south and just relentlessly touring over there until they kind of made
29:09
like an organic enough people to start making a bit of you know noise about yeah yeah and
29:16
you guys seem to have that same kind of story and i just well yeah i mean those we
29:21
definitely have seen success stories like that obviously i mean we don't
29:27
condone sticky fingers behavior necessarily but they're certainly an inspiring band to um
29:34
in terms of their success and i always i draw parallels as well to ocean alley and i suppose
29:39
that's more obvious to us all i'm cordial although we don't you know see them as musical inspirations
29:46
necessarily we certainly um can look up to them in so much as they've done what we've done and
29:52
gotten to a point where they've got a really sustainable career and oceanelli were mates
29:56
of ours when we when we started out they'd been going for you know four or five years
30:01
when we put the band together and did a couple of supports with them before that kind of went crazy
30:06
but they did just that as well they just toured non-stop they went crazy i knew their manager from
30:13
from way way back just just by kind of meeting him at a at a youth center or something like that
30:20
and yeah they they just busted their asses and and so did lime cordial and i i guess sticky fingers
30:25
did as well and that's um so much more inspiring to me than than just um landing a little record
30:34
deal and getting high rotation on triple j and yeah yeah i definitely have stuff should come
30:39
later yeah for sure i i definitely have a lot of respect for bands like for example lime cordial
30:45
because they're break they're having a break now they're like getting big and getting really good
30:49
airplay but i saw one cordial 11 years ago at like a under 18's thing in french's forest on
30:56
the northern beaches playing shows to like a pretty small room that was 11 years ago they've
31:01
been a band for like 14 years or something and they started residency in the opera yeah
31:05
and only now are they like starting their break and it's like it's cool to see a band from similar
31:09
routes as ours like from the beaches it just goes to show that like at the end of the day you got
31:14
to be persistent you got to keep trying and what's going to make you keep trying is enjoying it and i
31:19
think luckily we do enjoy it we enjoy touring you gotta really [ __ ] care about it and i think lime
31:25
is a good example of a band that just cares a lot about the songs they write and they're real solid
31:30
musicians and like love the art of it committed you can't you can't come into this game and expect
31:38
any sort of financial ex financial success yeah or popularity definitely not right off the bat
31:45
yeah work hard and get somewhere but if you're not coming into it with the entirely pure
31:51
um kind of purpose of making sick music and doing cool shows and having fun then you're not gonna
31:59
have you're not gonna get make it very far at all because it's it's it can be if that was the only
32:05
thing on our minds i think we'd just be so sick of it by now for sure we've i've we've seen bands
32:12
over the years where's my mooing goals yeah we've seen bands over the years who like
32:16
have really great potential in my opinion like fantastic musicians and sometimes people get
32:22
like disenfranchised because you do it for a long time and you don't see any like monetary gain or
32:26
you're not making bank and like to some people that's an issue but that's why jj is not playing
32:31
yeah whatever guy's not playing you yeah but like sam says that's it's the wrong approach you got to
32:35
do it you got to start doing it because you love it you got to keep doing it because you love it
32:39
and you can't really do it because you want some kind of like monetary gainer saying which might
32:45
come or it might not but it's not it's not really relevant it shouldn't be the focus yeah yeah
32:50
well acdc once said it's a long way to the top um and i mean it certainly it certainly is
32:58
yeah and um yeah most of us yeah and if you guys you know if you guys make your yeah your own
33:04
you know if you guys make enough noise on your own then then triple j comes knocking at your door and
33:09
turns up and says hi we we oh we love you sorry about the last time you emailed us oh we changed
33:17
our mind yeah that's happened to a bunch of people too i think that happens ocean alley really
33:22
um not to keep going back to them but you know they used to always we used to always talk about
33:26
triple j and how we'd love to get played by them but it never it was just not happening for us for
33:30
some reason and then next thing they're winning the hot 100 hottest 100 and they were just like
33:35
yeah we like them now yeah yeah it's it's it's quite bizarre but if you do it on your own then if
33:41
they try to say oh we don't like him anymore piss off you've still got all your fans and you can go
33:46
back and still have a career yeah yeah so that's what cursor did the rapper and he they've started
33:52
playing him after like 10 years of him trying to get played and he just told him to piss off
33:58
his social media players he's like don't play me i don't think we'll go quite so drastic i reckon
34:03
if they played our i'd be music thanks guys don't stop now i think cursor went to another
34:10
level i saw a video where he had a did a show somewhere and he had the whole audience on like
34:15
a live stream yelling out f u triple j but they can be controversial amongst amongst the artist
34:23
circles anyway yeah for sure yeah then i mean yeah triple j's it's it's a gatekeeper like not saying
34:32
that's necessarily a good thing or a bad thing but it's definitely a thing within this aussie music
34:37
industry at least like people perceive it as the thing you need to get on to make it as an artist
34:42
and there's an element of that that's true but it's not entirely true either um but yeah yeah
34:47
i think the australian music scene would benefit a lot from having way more independent music outlets
34:54
podcasts like what you guys are doing for example i think is the last or you got like fbi and in
34:59
sydney video and stuff and i think i think there needs to be more focus on things like that as well
35:05
yeah you just touched on what what why we started this is we had finally we had the time to do it
35:10
and i think finally we did like you know i was playing music at the time and just seeing so many
35:15
like making friends with so many different dudes and i was just like you're [ __ ] great you know
35:19
and i just was seeing stuff that the the jays were doing and i was like there's just no secondary
35:25
media coverage just like yeah there's no way and i was like how did this happen like you know there's
35:30
always a pepsi to the coke or you know yeah yeah person i was like well this doesn't exist
35:35
and then all of a sudden the time came and we're like i had all these people around a you know at
35:40
the house getting drunk in the garage and i was like the joe rogan experience in the bankstown
35:46
bankstown love it that's fresh it's true i mean you can feel you can feel like it's a bit a bit
35:53
of a monopoly sometimes and um yeah artists no artist wants to call a big company i like that out
36:03
and be like [ __ ] those people because they're you know gatekeeping or they're monopolizing the
36:08
industry or they prioritize you know record label submissions over independent artists
36:13
no one wants to do that because we we all need or want at least yeah to to have their support
36:21
um when they're that big because you know their support would would likely mean that we you know
36:26
get a get the exposure we need to quit our [ __ ] jobs and stuff like that
36:33
but you know you can't you can't put all your eggs in one basket we certainly don't you know
36:39
we certainly don't place all of our hopes on something like triple j we place our hopes in
36:44
ourselves and making good music making good music doing good shows yeah and um
36:51
like one i just want to go back to live shows what's it like for you guys when you play with
36:55
other bands right like do you have to like are there are there any bands that are like similar
36:59
to you in your your scene or are you kind of going on after a rock or punk band and it's just like
37:05
whoa world's apart very it was like that at first like especially when we first started doing shows
37:10
we'd be opening for like uh anything from like a solo folk singer to like reggae bands
37:18
to like we opened for gordy one year i think it was before you were in the bandwidth for gordy and
37:23
like i think her everyone was that that was that her show were like what the [ __ ] i was doing
37:28
yeah we've gotten to a point now where we sort of are lucky enough to be able to headline a few
37:34
venues so we get to select the bands that play before us in some cases and we like we like to
37:39
try and put together a show that's cohesive stylistically yeah but also we just love so
37:45
many different types of bands there's so much good talent on the scene so we'll you know we'll fit
37:51
any bill best we can yeah essentially it's just yeah it's like like we were saying earlier it's
37:56
a bit hard to box our music into a specific genre so if we're looking for like support acts we just
38:02
find music that's really cool it has to be like really good and original is like very good things
38:07
to us and also um we're like if people can dance to it yeah and danceable so like we're pretty
38:13
high energy band in live setting so some something else that's pretty high energy definitely starts
38:20
we got like there was a run where we were doing some really cool shows in sydney with bands
38:25
which weren't like necessarily similar musically but which really fit our vibe one that comes to
38:29
mind was a band called majin buu and i don't think they've been kicking anymore but they're all like
38:35
so topped here like there's so so much good music in in cindy in australia which doesn't always get
38:40
the exposure that it deserves it was binges as well i think binge is still doing things
38:46
here and there but they were always my favorite band on the scene by a long shot i love binges
38:53
yeah yeah look i've never tried it personally but i'll take it and walk right into that one
39:02
i didn't think of that one i image bro done that was a good one buddy
39:06
that was a good one that that one was just set up by like the name binge
39:10
it just creates such a like disturbing image in your head doesn't it the music doesn't really
39:16
sound like their name i don't know i could it's because it's kind of grimy like funky and
39:23
i've got i [ __ ] love binges oh man i just had an ibis in my head next to the bin bag
39:33
uh you know has that name been taken yet is there any bands around sydney called
39:37
the ibis i haven't heard of yet but chickens the ben chickens yeah oh yeah
39:42
close enough i suppose yeah i don't think the bean chickens exist but again like if anyone's
39:48
listening and they need a band name i reckon that is a band yeah i think it is too isn't
39:52
it yeah right i don't know if i've heard of it like if it is
39:59
a band or it's just like a running gag somewhere on yeah it's a thing
40:07
but um you know what you know i imagine for you boys and for us too i mean we can see that the
40:13
light at the end of the tunnel of this kind of covered hard you know four months lockdown
40:19
um what's coming your way scene like what are you looking forward to well like you said we released
40:25
a single recently we've released two singles recently and both of those are part of an album
40:29
which we recorded recently so the album's called sanctuary and that's dropping in like a month
40:35
from when this podcast will probably come out and so that's like that's our thing that we've been
40:40
pushing towards we've spent the last six months mixing it and coming up with creative ideas and
40:45
then also like coming up with you know marketing plans or social media plans and all those things
40:51
business business you know the behind the scenes but um yeah so i guess it's culminating in an
40:56
album release and then we're going to be doing a tour next year which is going to be like february
41:00
march which um we're so excited for like we haven't we haven't even rehearsed for like
41:07
three months or two months and man we miss it we miss just jamming together and miss touring
41:12
together and performing on stage and all these great things that we we started off being a band
41:19
to do these things and we haven't really been able to do them so personally i'm just i'm so keen to
41:26
get at it again yeah same awesome man and um who did that album like the the single artwork
41:33
for like your last single uh there was a guy called chris anderson um he did a
41:40
artwork for our bassists like solo project once and we're kind of trying to think about is and i
41:45
saw that and i was like that's sick i really like his style let's get him to work on this yeah yeah
41:51
yeah i really like it i was like i like this yeah it's at chris keith anderson suss it out everyone
41:59
make it famous i hope the editors put up a little tag there yeah oh yeah you'll
42:05
see it right here in the corner make that noise make the noise very good
42:12
sorry well i think you did a perfect noise there so we just would just leave that with that anymore
42:22
oh man and um like when i saw your the artwork for it i was like that's really nice like i like it i
42:28
even had to like you know you know how you can you make it full screen on your on your spotify yeah
42:34
um you know just to go ah yeah yeah it's gorgeous nice nice yeah it's so so beautiful yeah i love it
42:42
he's got a really cool painting style yeah man it's just one of those ones you have to stare
42:47
at for a couple of a couple of minutes and then every time you open up the track you just kind of
42:51
go into stair mode for about yeah for sure it's so bright yeah i'm actually going to i've been
42:57
able to meet up with him because we've covered but he's got all the canvases like the original
43:01
painting so that's it i have to go pick those up still in the auction sell them as an nft man
43:09
what all the kids are doing and you reckon you guys will um you know get digital artwork for the
43:17
for the you know coming projects in the future or you like the traditional
43:21
you know painting yeah we're not even thinking about it like we just who knows yeah yeah that
43:26
was just for this one thing that we did that for and i mean it's cool it's it'd be kind of cool
43:32
in one hand to like continue the aesthetic or continue a trend but also any new projects we're
43:37
gonna do are gonna be that they're gonna be new projects so yeah who knows really we've always
43:42
we've always found it tricky well i personally anyway i've always found it tricky to kind of
43:46
get get a hold of some cool visuals and stuff and have a consistent aesthetic which is what people
43:51
like you to have these days although looking at our instagram now you wouldn't be able to tell
43:55
because we really worked hard on for this album to get some good photos and stuff yeah but yeah
44:03
i mean we don't really think a lot about album art until it really comes down to the crunch
44:08
so could be even your like even your instagram like those you know how you've made that uh
44:15
what do you call them the massive post like you know like the terminology's just gone
44:19
but um it looks sick i was like oh these guys might must be art students or something oh cool
44:25
i just just learned photos yeah i just came up with a little cool thing in photoshop and then
44:31
just playing around with it i was like oh that's kind of cool let's make it a thing
44:36
yeah good photos by tom wilkinson as well yeah tom wilkinson tom wilson
44:44
nice guys and um like i think you should stick with the canvases but i was just wondering if
44:49
you're gonna you know if you go down the realm of digital artwork well then you can you know
44:53
go in the future and auction off all your you know nfts yeah you're not wrong you're not wrong
44:59
hamish has got a canvas over his shoulders if you guys can see the black
45:04
yeah at the back yeah he's eating him it doesn't look very nice i haven't turned
45:08
the lights on tonight i like it i read that book i read that book this year actually i've seen the
45:14
movie a bunch of times but i only just read the book this year and it's a banger hunter s thompson
45:25
we might use that sound effect every time someone swears now i reckon
45:28
yeah true oh yeah we haven't really killed today yeah we're supposed to swear
45:32
no no it's it's all good now but just because we can like we're only on youtube and we're
45:36
called west underground so you know there's been plenty of swearing in the past i think
45:41
we've toned it down today paul usually yeah i haven't i haven't heard you guys class
45:49
but when he's interesting something but now it's been good you should censor words that aren't
45:54
swear words didn't they do that in the styles like they did like a montage in one of the star
46:00
wars movies where they just censored in certain parts of the movie yeah i remember that classic
46:07
yeah i i think i haven't sworn today because you boys have got your legs crossed i feel like i
46:23
alternating i've been doing some of these ones and then like a little bit of this yeah
46:27
i got the i got the backrest so honestly i'm winning
46:31
guess he's the most comfortable he's got the snake next to him as well yeah
46:34
and that's saying something he'll be comfortable for long as long as he stays in there he's all
46:39
right yes you look very comfortable for a man who's next to a snake tank yeah there's
46:44
glass next to me hopefully there won't be a dudley dudley oh yeah look in harry potter
46:55
have you been have you um been attacked like bitten by the snakes many times are they pythons
47:00
yeah i have yeah i mean they're pythons yeah um so they're not
47:04
deadly but like you know they pack a punch it hurts when they bite you and
47:09
you bleed a little bit but they're actually when they get older and these two
47:13
adults now usually really dozer and they just chill out i wouldn't that one's not so dirty
47:24
that one's asleep okay but yeah they're nice there's a baby one behind me and he's he's the
47:30
[ __ ] at the moment he's also got a tarantula we have a transfer as well jesus man all right look
47:37
man i'm from dubbo before i moved down to sydney i i've moved down from the bush i am [ __ ] scared
47:42
of snakes like snakes are scarier ships and snakes come into our swimming pool like in the
47:47
house and to kill the chickens like snake yeah how did you tame yourself to the to the you
47:54
know to the beasts well i think you know they're misunderstood creatures they're never aggressive
48:00
you know they're just they just don't want to be touched most of the time and so or anyone's
48:06
getting bitten by venomous snakes and stuff or people that have accidentally stepped on them
48:10
or have gone to try and kill them with a shovel or something because they'll defend themselves but
48:15
if you don't bother them they'll just run away or slither away i should say
48:19
yeah there's nothing harder than walking in long grass like long dead
48:23
country grass and and and nearly stepping on a snake and just [ __ ] staying still
48:28
while this brown snake just kind of slithers away because you're like one bite i'm dead
48:38
venomous i would never i would never put a venomous snake in my house
48:41
although some i know some people who do that but i wouldn't do that
48:46
i'm glad man i prefer like small dogs you know like maltese schizos and stuff really yeah well
48:52
at least a big dog compared no i mean compared to snakes oh right no the snakes are really nice
48:57
the best thing about snakes is that they're predictable like not not to be mean or anything
49:01
but actually they're so dumb they don't have any like like reasoning types of brains they work
49:07
off pure instinct so you'll know if it's gonna bite you and you know if it's gonna like slither
49:14
away like their body language is really easy to read so that's why i like them they're simple
49:21
they don't hurt me they're just like warmth and food they might hurt me physically but
49:25
never emotionally well they say it's the simple things in life so you're doing well man yeah
49:31
that's a good point that's what they say now guys i we're gonna have to start wrapping
49:36
the interview up but um would you guys like to steer it in any directions and also paul have
49:41
you got any kind of questions to ask before we start like no i think it's been covered
49:46
i just want to if you guys got any shout outs or plugs you want to do feel free to say them
49:50
yeah well i guess yeah we'll plug we just dropped a single called uh love you too just
49:56
forgot the name of it so kind we just totally met we love you too i mean you didn't say it first but
50:03
we assume you do um and yeah so we've got an album coming out in um october or in november
50:10
and it's called sanctuary obviously we're called thunder fox check us out on instagram
50:17
um yeah so yeah if you if you can dig in this then please go check out our music
50:22
because we think you'll probably like it yeah awesome man i reckon that's a great place to
50:29
finish here boys like yeah cool sounds good yeah this has been this has been an absolute blast like
50:35
i've i've quite enjoyed this thanks to yeah for sure it's been really nice thanks for having us
50:56
you
