Fair warning: it’s a long one. Dan chatted to Jack from Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, for an in-depth convo about the creative process, their latest release ‘Tally Ho’, visual art inspo, and a lot of other musical artists and their best (and worst) bits. We’re talking The Beatles, Oasis, Queen, Ariel Pink, King Gizz, the lot.

Dan: Let’s talk about the single first. I read that Tally Ho is a song that springs from Pseudo-ground-breaking late-night conversations, ideas that seem great in the heat of the moment but aren’t quite that solid later. On that note, what's the most 'Tally-Ho' idea you've had on a night out?

Jack: Man we’re always coming up with them. We had one the other day wanted to create a football fantasy league for bands. Went into like the whole thing how it could be paired with Spotify streams and get Taylor swift up front, Kanye in defence or something. Then we were like, but people would be competing on music and we were like should we make music competitive? We passed on that one. We wanted a voting app idea, so every morning you wake up, rather than having parliament, which is like fifty people to do it, whatever goes through parliament that day you’d have to basically say yes or no to which bill you’d want to go through. You can’t start work without doing like five…I reckon that one would work.

D: To me the song sounds like a hybrid between the vulnerability of 'high visceral' and the classic rock and roll of 'whatchamacallit'. What influenced the song from a sonic perspective?

J: We listened to a lot of t rex on the road, a lot of Creedence as well. It started off kind of cheesy and then we just started getting hell into it. We put together all these playlists, after a while we listened to all of the albums of Yousef Gamal, Flying Lotus, and we couldn’t show each other any new music so we were like what old school bangers have we got? And then it just went full zeppelin, t rex, kinks. So that kind of chuggy beat, the triplets, we listened to that for a while, so as soon as we got home that was just drilled into my head about writing an old school rock record but adding some modern elements to it, getting kind of glitzy with it on Ableton, get those guitars sounding strange enough so it doesn’t kind of relate to those bluesy records.

D: What inspired the digitally abstract cover for Tally Ho?

J: This guy was called Sergeant Slaughter Melon. He’d done some stuff with Sam and Matt designs as well, they’re really cool. They look new age; it’s almost got this style that feels contemporary. You watch it on sports now, all the players will come on and do their pose and it’s almost mainstream? It’s hell weird. I was playing around in Ableton and sort of randomly ran the guitars through the DJ patches at the bottom. You can transpose it up a few octaves, but you leave it in beats rather than keep it in complex. I just ran with that and made an album of it. Rather than be like that sounds bad I thought let’s use that as sort of the main instruments, like the guitar tone. It sounds like spaceships a lot of the time, almost like a Mario kind of style. Had a real arcadey vibe to it, going back to old school games like Atari and stuff, the eight-bit kind of tone. Got really carried away with that probably more than I should of.

D: who are some visual artists that you enjoy?

J: I watched that Van Gogh documentary, Loving Vincent? That things so sick.  I really liked Scanner darkly and Richard Linklater when he did Waking life. But actual artists? oh man diving deep, jean Michael Basquiat has his old head crashing’s on art and stuff, but also like Alfonso Mucha, I think he’s French? He had all those old women on cigarette tins, has that cool style that flows really well…I follow those Instagram pages that are like abstract (@minute6) so many people on there that are doing weird stuff. It’s gone back to paintbrush strokes which I suppose is the same idea as what a guitar distortion is. Rather than having one paintbrush it’s like let’s add this to it or that, it’s like a pedal I suppose. Also the collage art, Winston hacking, I think he did Andy Shauf the magician and I think he did one for flying lotus as well. So that kind of vibe.

D: Did you record the entirety of the upcoming album in iso? If so, what effect did doing that have on the overall project?

Allows us to develop on it more. There was a point basically were we had to hand over all the finished stems and get the mixing and mastering done by either April or May. And the album at that time, I don’t think one song that is on that record now was on it…. We had all this heavy music. I was listening to loads of Korn and slipknot, and there was so much Nine-inch nails. There were all these heavy guitars and fucked up sounds. But then there was also like Mr prism, so I had to go back and sort of find what the album was about and run with it that way. It’s almost worked out now that I’ve got a couple of different projects on the go. Rather than working on it for one record, it’s like I put it onto this bank, rather than make the one album sound so all over the shop, it needs that flow, it needs that sort of theme.

D: As artists it’s what we leave out as much as what we put in. Hardest lesson I‘ve ever had to learn.

J: Still trying to learn that. You’ll hear all these guitars fighting for places and I’m like why did I leave them in?

D: What's the best place you've played, and if you’re feeling it, the worst?

J: Oh man…All the ones we had in Melbourne were really cool. The early shows seemed to be really good, when we were just sort of coming up and getting our name out there. Over in England we did one at electric ballroom, 1200 people which was so sick…Japan was so sick. We got told they don’t clap or cheer or anything and then as soon as we went there the fans were like, mate, it looked like an apocalypse zombie movie. They were crowd surfing, just a wall of people, and no one would of heard of us there and it was like eight thousand people in this huge stadium.  The worst? We played a gig in phoenix were we were all sick and it had taken us 20 hours of driving to sort of make it to the middle of America and we rocked up to this pub and we were so dead. All of us were on antibiotics and we got there about six hours too early for load in, so we were like fuck it let’s have one beer which turned into the messiest we’ve ever been. All of us on antibiotics. All of us so drunk. I couldn’t even remember a word or how to play my guitar and it turned into one of those Jim Morrison sort-of moments. It was bad and I felt really bad for the 30 people in the room. Frankie and the witch fingers probably played the best set of their tour and then we went on after them so it was just like, oh god…yeah I still have cringe moments about it aye.

D: It’s always either when someone’s sick or when you’re playing to like three grandmas in the back isn’t it…do you find that playing a show is just as exciting as when you started or has that feeling changed?

J: Definitely...we just played a run of shows here. Did Badlands bar. It’s a 400-cap room and I think the last time we played there was like three years ago. It almost felt like being a band again (this has been the longest time we’ve ever had without touring or playing). When we came to it we were so keen. The nerves came back…even though we sold it out we were still nervous no one would show up and it was just some elaborate prank that our parents were pulling, that it’d get to there we get to the point where they really think they’ve made it and they’d be like ‘surprise, you’re actually shit’.

D: You guys just keep getting bigger and bigger. Is there a pressure to put out a certain kind of sound?

J: I thought that for ages. There was sort of a moment when I was writing whatchamacallit where I was like do you chase what people wanted and I was like nup. I record the music and then we learn it as a band so sometimes there’s a strange sort of mix over part when we’re like shit this doesn’t sound as good when we play it. Cause recording you can go so many different ways of being like just basically drums fill the room but when you’re jamming they don’t at all…now I just really want to focus on the heavy music side again rather than writing slower stuff and getting into that kind of mode. Even though I do like writing those kinds of pieces I still don’t feel I’ve cracked really good psych rock yet. Rather than being like I’ll change now I might give it five years to find that perfect riff and then we can go off. I feel like we’ve got more to explore in that genre before we move on.

D: What made you become a musician in the first place?

J: I always remember playing guitar. There’s not really a memory I have without playing music. Even at year five at school in England we had a band, and I was playing bass. My parents would go to the pub and then their friends would have kids my age that I would go to school with…and we were pretty good for like nine years old. Did a song called Peterphilia. It was a riff man, it was a big riff, at the best of our abilities on one string. But it was about this paedophile that was chasing kids and we had this thing where we were like “you gotta ruuuun” and it was so hectic. I’ve listened to it sometimes and I’m like what the fuck was going through our ten-year-old brains.

D: Have you ever thought about doing a cover of that song?

J: oh man...it’s a definitely a positive song?

D: What would you do if you weren’t a musician?

J: I did graphic design at uni, so something art based, I think. But even then, I was working on a building site as well, so doing all sorts. Bit of carpentry. My brothers a sparky, we were just basically doing the groundworks for a lot of stuff. I managed to make a surveying degree from my graphic design course to get myself a surveying job. Then I was like from there...I dunno, I was working at a bar. I think something with beer would be good, maybe starting a brewery.

D: A lot of celebrities do that. Matthew McConaughey has a bourbon.

J: He’s always on the whiskey, isn’t he? I have no idea. I would always do music though. It was a hobby; it’s always been my sort of escapism. Now it’s almost ironic that that escape is almost becoming a job, well it is a job I suppose, but I don’t think about it that way cause it’ll just lose its fun.

D: Was there a point specifically where you said okay, now, I can sort of not work bar or carpentry, and when was that?

J: It kind of coincided with me getting fired from indie bar

D: Generally does…

J: It was kind of serendipitous. Yeah, I basically got kicked out of an open mic night for trying to trying to sing Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody and they just turned the mic off and I was like fuck no! I was so sloshed. You know when you wake up in the morning just like fingers in eye sockets…I had that and I was like well I’m not going to look for another job I’m going to really try and do music now. I just gave myself the time to sort of write. Doing that I was like sweet this is what I’m going to try to attempt to do at least.

D: Would you recommend that to other aspiring musicians? Maybe not with Queen?

J: I was pretty poor for a long time. Yeah if you really wanna do it though then you’ve gotta give yourself a chance. That’s what someone said it’s like there’s no point taking a safe option and failing at that so you might as well take the hard option and fail at that and then go back to whatever.

D: A lot of people are focused on a sense of security but even now with Coronavirus and how it’s affected the workforce that security is less than it ever was before. If there ever was a time to be creative, it’s now.

J: The bar I worked at everyone was at uni there was like lawyers and whatever and we were like we’re all working at a bar, what’s going on with the world?

D: Do you think that as a musician you have a certain responsibility on how you influence your audience?

J: I dunno I think on one hand if you think about what you’re saying or what you’re doing or what you’re writing it’s almost not worth saying? If you’re thinking about it too much. It’s way better I think just being like here’s the song and then think about it, that sort of train of consciousness or stream of attacking a song will sort of lose its grasp and you’re always thinking in the back of your head about how people will perceive it before you’ve finished it. Muse is a great example. What a solid band doing music for the first two or three albums, but they’re kind of going back through their catalogue going like ‘that works’ and re using this and this and this…It’s cheap, it’s not honest. Me and Sam (the guy at tone city) we were talking about honesty in music and it’s something like maybe if you’re like ten you can’t hear it but as soon as you start getting older and you listen to a lot of music you can really hear how honesty kind of comes through. As soon as we had that it all made sense it was one of those opening moments where I was like that’s it that’s exactly what I need to do, just write honest music.

D: I was writing my own stuff and thinking well I need to shred this way or rap that way or do a certain thing, but what sort of came down to what a good song really was, at the end of the day, was honesty. If someone’s being sincere or being themselves even if they’re wacky, it works. Plenty of artists are weird and strange until they become commercial.

J: It’s like when everyone heard Conan Moccasins first record and it was honestly strange. There’s so many Conan Moccasin rip off bands where it’s like you’re doing it cause you heard Conan.

D: Same with Ariel Pink, some songs you never would have expected it to become commercial.

J: I don’t think anyone expected psych rock to become mainstream. We started making it six years ago when we were recording at home, and it was almost because it was the underground thing not many people were doing it, I think there was like Oh sees, tame impala, king gizzard was sort of getting into it but even before then it was like Wolfmother was the last rock band. It was a weird time where rock music had hit a strange stagnant wall. And it really was almost like Kevin parker that was like ‘and here’s this ep and here’s this record’ and it opened the door for really honest rock again, even though now what he might be making is the complete opposite to what he first did. And from that you’ve got the entire L.A psych scene with Wand, fuzz, Frankie and the witch fingers, levitation room, Vinyl Williams, Morgan Dealt. Even here king gizzard have their little group, but then was babe rainbow and orb, bits and pieces. I suppose Melbourne had a lot of bands coming up. Now (in Perth) it’s gone back to jazz and hip hop.

D: Sort of like we’re going back to the eighties now in 2020; everything goes in cycles.

J: It does go in cycles.

D: I guess if you’re thinking about the audience…I guess it’s about putting that aside and giving them something pure otherwise you might not release it. 

There’s so many tracks we’ve recorded where there’s like one tiny bar phrase of word of a four minute track and it’s so good until this one little shit part but you can’t change it because it’s almost like you enjoy that change. Music’s weird. if you keep it to you, like you’re saying, if you keep it sincere and honest then it’s gonna work. We sound like Hemmingway talking about it.

D: Good.

J: I saw him on what do you call it? Midnight in Paris.

D: Do you think those small intimate and vulnerable parts, that leaving them is essential despite you thinking okay it needs to sound perfect? That leaving them in is what gives you character, right?
J: Yeah for sure. I think that now it’s funny. If it wasn’t the fact the record has been pressed to vinyl and it’s sitting there waiting to go I’d just keep working on it man. There’s bits I just wanna do this and this and this, but I don’t know if that’s because I’m at a point where I wanna make it perfect and you just almost have to…I remember there was a time where we finished it and I was like that’s it. And I probably didn’t listen to it for a week or two. When I bought different pairs of headphones, I’d been switching around my headphones, so the left pan was in the right ear and I was like this oh god this is so different now! That’s why I was like maybe we should release these really bad headphones with all the vinyl so I could be like listen to it! It sounds good through these headphones!

D: Have you ever achieved perfection? Now I’m wondering have you ever sat down, given it a week or two and then said; ‘I wouldn’t change a thing?’

J: I don’t think that’s ever happened.

D:  That’s a very comforting thing for our readers to find out, I think.

J: The closest I got to that was when we had about three months to mix, we spent a month and a half working on Mr Prism to the point where I wanted to re-record all the drums again and Danny was like well you two are going mad, it’s fine, it’s absolutely fine. And now I can’t listen to it anymore. It was 99% there. I’d get home and listen to it and be like alright that’s the song that’s it and in the morning we’d be like no we’ve got to put cymbals in, oh god, we gotta change it all around. It almost got to the point where I didn’t wanna record guitar anymore…I think that’s with everyone. Sometimes I feel you get a happy medium. Ty Segall I always go back to. He’s brilliant. But do you think he realized he was aiming for lofi or do you think he happily wandered in there and that’s the way the song sounded good and that’s his first attempt at recording it?

D: Yeah well, it’s garage. There’s a whole different set of ‘rules’ that go into making that kind of music.

J: It’s almost better to find something that you’re good at doing. Some people are aiming for Rick Ruben-esque production on everything and you’re not going to get that. You might as well be like I want my record to sound like Ty Segall because you probably can do that in your bedroom cause he did it in his bedroom.

D: I realized recently with my band and our budget that we needed to look at bands like GIzz and the way they did 12 bar-bruise among other low budget recordings. That really helped us.

J: It would just be so cheap. I’d say he gets someone to mix it but then they’d probably just be like nah chuck it all back through like, the master’s an iPhone.

D: Garage sounding records are back in fashion.

J: I think it’s always been there. Lofi just got swept under the rug for ages. There’s always been like Fugazi or whatever. Even modest mouse’s first couple of records, all kind of diy stuff and it sounds great. Every band finds their sounds through that but then they go back through or get better. If you’re not learning or trying to progress, then it is going to be more difficult. It’s probably why bands first records are the best they just didn’t think about it and they were like ‘sweet that’s what I can do.’

D: Those bands as well probably think fuck, if they can’t listen to their fifth record they certainly can’t listen to their first.

J: I was listening to Deerhunter talking about how they can’t listen to micro castle. And I was like that’s one of the best albums ever, start to finish it’s amazing.

D: Just goes to show how different our perception is to our audiences’ perception.

J: Exactly. I don’t know what you can do. There’s nothing you can do

D: Release whatever? Do something I suppose…What's your view on the current state of music?

J: Man, it’s the best it’s ever been to be honest. Every festival we go to there’s always ten bands I wanna watch, usually not on the main stage. We went to desert daze when we played there in 2019 and every single band was a bucket list band, it was insane. Stereo lab, wand, flying lotus, black angels, temples…krrum played, so many bands that I’ve wanted to see forever playing on two stages and I was like, maybe it’s cause I grew up recently with that kind of style of music like tame Umo king gizz or whatever but this is like for me this is the best music’s ever been cause they’re taking on an older artist and making it contemporary.

D: It’s a resurgence.

J: Exactly. And even If I had the choice of watching king gizz or grateful dead or something I’d go watch king Gizz. Pink Floyd are obviously brilliant but because everyone’s sort of ripped of their sound over the years it’s almost like that twelve minute extended jam thing they do you’re almost just like come on boys…It’s not dated well. But there’s bands like Beatles and shit…that music doesn’t age, it’s so weird. There’s nothing else like it’s horrible. The Beatles are like what the Simpsons are to all other animators.  

D: Yeah except The Beatles didn’t suck towards the end.

J: Exactly they got better.

D: Who’s your favourite Beatle?

J: All of them combined apart from Ringo..

D: Do you ever watch someone on stage and find it affects your recording because you start to compare yourself to someone else?

J: I definitely find people inspiring. When I watched tool recently, I was like oh man…it just made me want to go back, drop d again and get back into all that sort of heavy music. Probably more so when I was younger like now, I have the opposite where I watch someone and I’m like oh god I hope I don’t look like that. Even though that’s probably a bad way to go about it but you kinda get cringed out sometimes. People doing something that you know doesn’t work. Even if they’re not whole heartedly into it, it’s gone kind of gimmicky when they’ve got a four year old bass player, do you know what I mean?

D: It can sort of bleed into your own work

J: Just a really misplaced band that are there for the wrong reasons. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if they’re getting together and playing live but they’re always like ‘we’re the best band in the world’.

D: Are you a fan of Oasis…

J: Dude…I  never used to be. I sort of went back into it. It came almost from nostalgia cause it wase everywhere in England. They are absolute dicks but I dunno I love them for it. I reckon Noel Gallagher would be a great night out.

D: I loved the Claymation in Mr Prism. What are some of your favourite animations, and can we expect to see more of this?

J: Yeah man we just got the trailer for the new one from Ollie, so that’s coming with tally ho. It’s like a movie. It’s literally like Wallace and Gromit ins pace. Wallace and Gromit meets star wars. It’s fucking nuts! Claymation is something you don’t see a lot of people doing, one it’s kind of time consuming but also I had a point ages ago where I kind of wanted music videos to be scrapped altogether, like unless they’ve got a sort of budget or whatever, telling a band, especially when they’re up and coming it’s like sweet, you’ve got this really great song then no money to put together a music video and then everyone judges you your shit music video. Why is a music video still a thing? It shouldn’t be. It should be once you have a thought or something and you want to release a music video-cause there’s no such thing as MTV anymore or V where you used to go and watch great videos…When we first started out I was like don’t need do a music video, and then obviously everyone’s like you have to. It’s a thing; you’re literally throwing five grand at something. But then as soon as we got a bit bigger and there was budget for it we could afford to be like sweet we have this idea to do this animation or something that then it became more interesting.  We can actually afford to do Claymation or pay like Mike who did the cornflake video and it’s just like fuck that’s actually movie worthy. It’s sick. Now we’re at that fun stage where we can create what we want whereas before it was budget oriented and a bit annoying. I’m not really a fan of bands in the music videos. When they’re like playing guitar and strumming.

D: Well I can already hear the song and I know what you look like…

J: Exactly. It’s almost like a chance to put a movie together or something.

D: Do you write the script or a bunch of ideas and give it to the Claymation guy?

J: We usually have a skype or a zoom and throw together ideas. The last one with prism me and Ollie we were back and forth about how it should go, It’s a lot easier when working with someone that creative to let them go to town on it. If he’s got an idea and he’s really excited we rarely say no. When someone is in that mode it’s gonna be a lot easier for them to work till eleven/twelve at night when they know it’s their idea rather than being like oh now I’ve gotta do whatever jack wants and all these changes…you’re gonna pretty quickly give up because you’re not enthusiastic anymore. It’s much better if you work with people to let them do what you know they do and you just stick to being like ‘sweet’ and when it comes back in the end say it’s shit! Nah…

D: Yeah if there’s too many cooks in the kitchen it can cause issues. What’s your fave animation? (besides Wallace and Gromit)

J: Tim burton was kind of cool…He had a style going. Now animations got to the point where it’s fucking nuts like Pixar or whatever the studios creating it. There are some really cool independent stuff on YouTube. I really don’t like the cartoony side of it. There was a Claymation one where it’s the Simpsons and they’re at home and they get hacked up by the bullies, have you seen it?

D: Can’t say I have…

J: that’s where we got the idea for prism. The Simpsons are like Claymation cows and I think like moonlight sonata is playing in the background and it’s hella dark. All the bullies are there in Halloween masks and machetes. They literally hack off homers hands and marge ends up with a rifle and just scalped...it’s so gnarly

D: Very happy tree friends.
J: Yeah all that cartoon gore. it was terrifying but funny as fuck. So we were like we gotta try do that with prism…but now It’s with almost like with dog the bounty hunter. But he’s old now and he’s got this beer belly hanging out, so that’s the new video.

D: What hobbies do you have outside of music?

I literally do everything. I love sport, like football, soccer. We were able to watch the local league here cause that was the first thing to come back up and they do beers and they got a stand. I was like why does no one go and watch the local teams anymore? It’s brilliant. The level of football is pretty good the beers are exactly like they are in the pub but they’re cheaper. You go and sit in at three o’clock and you can go out afterwards. Going to play golf tomorrow, enjoy playing a game of golf.

D: Yeah it’s back up. I’m trying to get a golf membership just to have something to do.

J: Golfs sick. It’s like the most annoying sport.  And then I kept thinking about it too much I’m going to get really good at golf and the only thing I could potentially do is get to the point where I’m like good enough to beat someone else? I can’t be professional anymore…I have this thing where if I can’t get to the stage at being the best at it then sometimes I don’t try, but I play it as a hobby?

D: Have you heard of John Daly?

J: Yeah. He is good. I mean it’s funny watching all the old 80s opens and they’re all drinking and smoking. But yeah I like all sorts of things, also movies, beers…

D: Finally, what’s something u can tell us about the next record that you haven't told anyone else?

J: The whole idea of it was it to the be the same time as a line of coke. It starts slow, gets to the point where it’s like aaaah! and then it comes down again just at the end. It was supposed to be Shyga the sunlight mound, but the album cover was just a giant mound you know like with jack black when he’s in tropic thunder? We had the other labels like you probably shouldn’t do that and we were like alright…. It’s a Coke and alcohol record where it’s just gonna be fast paced and kinda back down. I really like the intro track cause I haven’t wrote anything like that before and it’s fucked up. I don’t know if I should have put it at the start. It’s almost like a weird nursery rhyme with a really scary guitar tone

D: Well people who have never heard of you guys before are in for a treat

J: I love how they’re gonna put it on and it’s just gonna be this weird like…There’s a Russian simpsons with that song at the start, it’s like all these weird soviet sounds, it’s nuts. So if everyone can get past the intro track and onto Tally Ho then sweet, we’re away.

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