Metal-Roos: How did you become a band?
Adam: Nick, go back to the womb!
Nick: Back to the womb… my mom scolded me with hot tea in the womb but that’s irrelevant… Gordy and me have been friends since primary school. Then Gordy went away to rich kids’ school and I cried. We lost contact.
Gordy: He actually cried.
Nick: Yes, I did. Then we reunited through a mutual friend at the Townie where we realised that we had devolved into metal heads. We started jamming at each other’s house regularly. One time we went out for the screening of the Big 4 in Paddington. We got drunk and met this ridiculous Finn guy in the toilet.
Gordy: He was at the urinal, standing there all by himself. So I was drunkenly growling something like “Oi, how good is Megadeath! How good is Chris Broderick?” And Onni was like ya, ya, he’s very good.
Onni: It was after the show. I saw you guys in front of the theatre and asked if you want to get a couple of beers. And we started talking… “oh yeah, we play guitars and want to put together a band”. So I said that I used to play bass back in Finland and would be up for a jam.
Adam: I was sitting at home bored one day, looking at drum media, texted Nick… and the rest is history.
Gordy: That school thing is our USP.
Adam: What’s the USP?
Gordy: Unique Selling Point.
Nick: Oh yeah, somebody knows marketing.
Metal-Roos: How do you describe your style?
Adam: We can’t really…
Nick: We call ourselves Atomic Circus Thrash…
Onni: We do?
Nick: Ok, I called us that once. That’s why our first EP was Atomic Circus. It means a bit stupid, circuslike, bit wacky, doesn’t take ourselves seriously but still we aim for brutality… we also aim for melody, don’t we guys?
Gordy: Yes, it combines heaviness and fastness… and fun. The point is having fun.
Onni: Technical prowess.
Nick: Fun! Technical prowess is not fun. It means practise and practise but practise is no fun.
Gordy: Do we want to say that in the interview? (Well, they did.)
Metal-Roos: Which is your biggest influence?
(Discussion about if they should name one each or one for the whole band. Decision to name one each.)
Nick: Probably Gama bomb.
Onni: Quiet! Megadeth!
Nick: I know people probably bash me up for saying that because Gama bomb is a modern thrash band but they are very much the type of band we would like to be in terms of silliness but also…
Adam: … crowd numbers.
Nick: … the crowd numbers. And they are also very much in the same way like us in terms of appreciating wacky horror things, comics,… crazy shit like that.
Gordy: We just have a man crush on them.
Onni: Gordy, who do YOU love?
Gordy: Someone else already said my band. Now I have to think.
Nick: Who is your biggest influence, Adam?
Adam: Maaan,… it’s gotta be Opeth.
All: Ahhh.
Adam: Crazy drumming.
Nick: We sound heaps like Opeth.
Adam: A bit of everything in there. It’s slow, it’s fast, it’s got it all.
Nick: It’s got it all. It’s got the tasty package. Onni, you can’t say Opeth now.
Onni: No, it’s got to be the good old YUP – Finnish punk, pop, rock… weird rock.
Nick: What’s YUP?
Onni: Young Urban Perverts.
Nick: Really? Onni can really relate to them. Alright, Gordy, time is up. You have to decide now.
Gordy: If I have to go with an artist who influenced me the most it would be Weird Al Yankovic. He plays everything; he is multi-instrumental.
Adam: He has got loud shirts, so that’s good.
Metal-Roos: What are you currently working on? Album, video, tour, international… Finland?
Nick: We are pretty lazy and we are currently recovering from the album making process. We are writing new songs. Gordy is back from overseas, so we are excited to writing new material again. We spoke about making another EP and doing that like a heaps good one. And I’m keen on doing another film project. Making the film clip was ridiculously funny and we are fucking good at making films. (They are!)
Onni: Yeah, it is alright.
Nick: Anything to add on the plans front?
Gordy: Basically everything!
Onni: And what’s with the labels?
Nick: Yeah, we should send stuff out to labels. (Everybody laughs.) Well thought-out plan!
Adam: Basically we are boys, not business men. Maybe that’s coming across here?
Nick: Maybe we are the laziest thrash band in Sydney…
Metal-Roos: You play a lot of shows though.
Nick: We do!
Metal-Roos: And you didn’t think of going somewhere else?
Nick: Oh yes, we do. We thought of going to Melbourne…
Metal-Roos: You have released your album “Downtown Meltdown”. How did you do that? Who produced your album?
Onni: Mike “The Magic (Mundane)” Miller
Gordy: A friend of ours from a band called Dubious Company. He is the drummer slash vocalist and he produced both, our EP and album. We recorded most of it in a cupboard in his home when his brother wasn’t studying for his helicopter exam.
Adam: That’s not even a joke.
Onni: Did he ever get it?
Nick: Probably not – because of us.
Gordy: I think he got it but not at the first time.
Adam: And it was mastered…
Gordy: … it was mastered by Harris Johns who produced several thrash classics such as Pleasure to Kill…
Adam: Namedropper!
Gordy: … by Kreator and albums from Sodom and Tankard.
Metal-Roos: Who writes your songs?
Onni: Yeah, I’ve done all. So, I am the grand master of that. All the glory is mine.
Gordy: That’s not true…
Nick: … not true at all.
Gordy: There are various writing styles. So either Nick, Onni and I will write a song entirely on our own. Or we chuck in riffs – collaborative work.
Nick: Generally, I think the best songs we have are the collaborative ones because they get their tasty base from us all. And Adam even wrote one bit in The Nuclear Strike On The Vatican it went like dum dum dum dum (imitating drumming)… he suggested that. He writes all the bits…
Gordy: … all the drum parts. He says that’s not rhythm, this is.
Nick: He goes like (imitating ferious drumming) and says that’s what the song should be like.
Metal-Roos: Who did your album artwork?
Gordy: Andrei Bouzikov and he lives in San Fran.
Onni: Doesn’t he live in LA?
Gordy: He lives in the states. And he doesn’t like us. He has done artwork for Municipal Waste. And Toxic Holocaust and Hellbringer.
Metal-Roos: What does the artwork mean?
Adam: Oh, it really has a deep meaning for all of us; an emotional meaning.
Nick: When I was a young child, I was attacked by a pope with a machine gun. All of the tattoos on my buttocks represent something, so does the artwork. The nuns on the front represent, I guess, innocence of all of us. The dinosaur in the back represents the desire to fly away.
Adam: We decided to put chest hair on it. Really sexy.
Nick: Sometimes I cry when I look at it.
Onni: And Christians don’t believe in evolution.
Nick: That’s the sweet layer in the artwork for the Christians.
Gordy: It’s also visualizing the tracks on the album…
Onni: And it’s commentary on the contemporary society.
Gordy: … and we thought it would be funny.
Metal-Roos: Which band would you most love to support?
(Quick discussion of several names.)
Nick: Gordy and I go with Gama bomb but what’s with our rhythm section over there?
Onni: Why not? I wouldn’t be against it.
Adam: Anyone with a crowd of more than 20.
Nick: 21? 22?
Gordy: We played for a crowd of 30 people already. Possibly even 35. (They keep discussing numbers.)
Metal-Roos: What do you do if you don’t make music?
Gordy: I collect retro game consoles from the 80s.
Nick: I collect horror movies. And horror comics… when I can but they are really expensive so it’s a bit restrictive. I like to go fishing… and I’ve done online dating… unsuccessfully. I thought about writing to them and saying that their website is broken because nobody answers my messages… it seems that my messages are not getting through and the website is actually broken…
Onni: I watch ice hockey and drink beer.
Nick: No, you don’t.
Onni: It’s my old reputation I’m talking about. What else? I philosophize (He actually does that professionally). Nick: He is going to be a doctor soon. How terrifying is that?
Adam: I like to hang with my friend Craig Fisher and we steal cars… and… no, really, I am a dad and play with my son in my downtime.
Nick: And you brew beer.
Adam: I brew beer to feed Onni’s alcohol issues.
Metal-Roos: Thanks, guys!
These guys are as silly on stage as they were in this interview. That’s why they are so entertaining! They also play some really good thrash. So, check out their new album “Downtown Meltdown” and their video clips in youtube and go to see them live!
Interview Date: 2013-11-13
Interviewer: Anja