Frenzal Rhomb and Loudmouth Cough Up A Storm - Issue 6 of REBEL RAZOR Magazine
Jay and his Sling - by Baxter Stone
Meet Frenzal Rhomb - from Massive! Magazine (can't remember which issue)
Frenzal Rhomb in the FUTURE OF MUSIC cover story - JUICE Magazine #80
CLEVER DICKS! - Massive! Magazine Dec '98/Jan '99
Frenzal Rhomb and Loudmouth Cough Up
A Storm
Frenzal Rhomb singer
Jason Whalley found an interesting take on the old showbiz saying
"break a leg" when he stage dived during a show in
Brisbane by NOFX, who he was supporting.
Jason broke his collarbone. But fate forgave him for injuring the
wrong body part and good luck was forthcoming anyway.
"We've been signed by Fat Wreck Chords, which is the label
owned by NOFX lead singer (Fat Mike)," Whalley dubbed in
Frenzal Rhomb CD liner notes as "Long Boy", told Rebel
Razor.
"Now, we wouldn't want to be signed to any other label in
the world. It's just tremendous."
Another progeny of the burgeoning Sydney (well Newtown actually)
punk scene, Frenzal impressed Fat Mike with their performances on
tour and a CD they handed him.
Until now they were best known as the band who sung I Wish I Was
As Credible As Roger Climpson, thereby getting them into TV Week.
But bigger things are on their way.
"Well, I'm looking foreward to getting back into
gardening," Jason says.
Huh?
"No seriously. We're going to have a bit of a break and I've
just moved into a house at Erskineville that has a big garden. So
I'm looking forward to that."
What about world domination and all that?
"Oh. Well, Fat are looking at releasing an EP and we haven't
decided if we'll release the current album, Coughing Up A Storm,
over there or use it as a demo and go and record over
there."
"So that's pretty cool."
Jason has his arm in a sling at the moment - he was told Medicare
doesn't cover broken collarbones because they are classified as
"cosmetic" injuries.
He considered workers' comp'.
"But I wasn't singing at the time, which is a bit of a
problem."
"I could sue the venue owners. Hehe. But I don't that would
be good for us in the long run." - SM
Jay
and his Sling
Frenzal Rhomb had a
few mishaps following the April release of Coughing up a Storm
when vocalist Jason Whalley broke his collarbone. This however
didn't stop him from performing. The accident happened while the
Frenzal's were playing with American band NOFX on the Gold Coast.
In Sydney he was seen singing in a sling which was, as one
concerned St John's representative said "not only
inappropriate for the type of injury, but actively detrimental to
the long term health of the patient". But what can you do if
you have got to sing? It may not be the singing that the
Ambulance man was concerned,but about the manic performance
associated with it.
The Pope being impressed with Frenzal Rhomb's excellent stage
sound stole the bands sound man for his sell out tour of
Australia and wanted to take him to Asia as well, but the band
kipnapped him and saved him from the holy cult and took him on
the road with them to play with Offspring. Apparently Offspring's
guitarist Noodles has been causing some concern in the US media
for still wearing Frenzal Rhomb's T- Shirt months after their
Australia Tour becoming both a cultural and microbio-hazard.
The band were asked to record a track for the recent AC/DC
tribute album by BMG only to suffer threatened legal action for
infringing copyright by using sampled "Oi's" from the
original version. The band is pooling all their creative
intelligence to find a suitable way of adapting the song without
using the infringing samples. They have been around for a few
years, their previous CD was called Dick Sandwich, they are
highly popular in N.S.W and lately they have become very popular
here in Victoria. Be ready for the Frenzy when Frenzal Rhomb
appear at Push Over '95.
Meet
Frenzal Rhomb
WHOSE FAULT IS IT IF
PEOPLE LIKE YOUR BAND? WELL, IT'S YOURS IF YOU INSIST ON WRITING
CATCHY SONGS. SO SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES....
Newtown was once Frenzal Rhomb's town. They were the epitome of
what a Newton band would look and sound like; ugly, fast, funny,
but not very serious at all. But while they've been out selling
thousands and thousands of copies of Not So Tough Now and playing
their poppy chops in front of thousands of kids in Australia and
Japan, Newton has changed.
Gentrification is very much the flavour of the month and so, it
would seem, it is earnestness. And while their town has changed,
Frenzal Rhomb haven't. It is almost impossible to keep them
collectively on the same train though for more than a few
sentences. But that's cool, they don't take things seriously, so
why should you? Right? Right.
Sitting in a Newton cafe, or hardworld as they've re-christened
it, I suggest that there's a kind of a
family theme going on with this new record, Meet The Family. The
first single is called There's Your Dad....
"Yeah, I don't know how that came about really. There's 3
songs that fit that theme," says vocalist Jay, " the
first single is a really unfunny band joke that we seem to be the
only people who find funny. It never fails to get a chuckle from
someone in the band but everyone else we've told it to go,
"Uh, yeah."
"The first song on the record is called Oh My God, Mum's
Changed The Locks," says Lindsay, continuing however briefly
with the same thought, "but we were gonna call it the album
Oh My God, I just Ate Shit," he adds, destroying any sense
of cohesion.
"When we were recording we were looking through this really
crap sound magazine, with all the latest technology and there was
this picture of these guitar legends...", continues Jay....
"Steve Lukather was one of them," chimes in band
manager
Chris.
"Toto!" hoots Lindsay.
"Yeah, anyway..." perseveres Jay.
"I believe you were drawing penises on them and sticking
pens through their eyes?" asks Chris.
"Yes, they were all standing there with their guitars
and we did really, really humorous things like that..."
"They looked really good," adds Chris.
"And the caption on the page was Meet The Family", and
we figured,'Well, we're not gonna come up with anything better
than that without a swear word in it," says Jay, and he is
probably right. Swearing, it would seem, is second nature to the
band."
"One of the first album titles we came up with,"
continues Lindsay (or Dr Lindemans as he is known) on a theme
that he obviously finds very mirthful indeed, "was Oh My
God, I Just Ate Shit."
"We had a picture of Lindsay picked out for the front
going..." says Jay, pulling a rude head.
Well, good move because people could've confused you with Sdistik
Exekution, but I disgress.
To record and engineer Meet The Family, Frenzal Rhomb employed
the services of Donnell Cameron, a man whose name would be
familiar to fans of early Bad Religion and other Epitah releases.
So, I ask, tell us about him.
What advice did he have for Frenzal Rhomb, particularly for Lex-
who has now joined us at the table- as Lex has worked in a studio
for a number of years?
"'Double-up Donnell Cameron'," says Jay.
"'Deal Me In Donnell', says the Doc.
"Donnell's a gambler."
"Or 'Me and The Doc Are Going To Vegas Donnell',"
laughs Jay.
"Donnell's a cool cat, the coolest of all felines,"
says Lindsay.
"He'd heard of the band before he got here," says Jay a
little sheepishly. "I think we'd sent him a couple of things
that he liked, but we were really wary of ending up sounding like
another Californian punk band if we used him to produce the
record."
But as far as his efforts in making the record sound as it does,
that's best left to Lex. Although Lindsay needsto speak first.
"In fact, he had every idea and every suggestion. It took 4
days just to get my amp to sound right."
"Separation, I think was the best advice . I know," Lex
stresses. "I know you're supposed to do it. Normally you are
supposed to separate all the sounds so that you can hear them on
the record, but he's just got the skills to do that I didn't
have."
Well, you can hear that on the record can't you? "You can
actually hear what's going on. What all the instruments are
doing. I reckon when you listen to it you can hear
everything," agrees Jay.
It also sounds for some reason to be typically Australian, I
offer in an attempt to continue down this relatively sensible
path. But drummer Nat has now joined us and he demands to know
why cafes don't offer any other soup other than pumpkin. Very
loudly he demands to know this, very loudly and in the direction
of my tape recorder.
Thankfully, Jay steers his ship of fools back on course.
"Yeah, we do sound Australian, even though we don't try to.
But using words like 'Cockhead' will always make you sound
Australian."
"There's alot of bands who don't sound Australian,"
offers Lindsay, can of worms at the ready and looking around for
an opener.
"Yes, true enough, but let's not name fingers or point
names..."
"Wankshaft is a good one," reckons Nat, getting back to
the topic of Australiana.
"Fucknuckle too! Rough sack even," laughs Jay.
"Youse go sick, eh! If that's not Australian I don't know
what is," adds Nat with a tone of finality.
Aside from the family theme we talked of and the theme of fluent,
uptempo, easy to digest tunes contained on Meet The Family, there
is a of a hell of alot of swearing, as we mentioned earlier too.
Is swearing tough, I ask, or is it a want of better education?
"Get fucked, ya cunt," says Lindsay.
"I happen to be University educated myself," says Jay
proudly, although like many good Newton residen'ts he only
completed 2 years of his BA degree at Sydney Uni.
"I think probably - and I've said this in interviews before
- we just try and say things how we'd say it, if that makes sense
. We don't try to embelish the things we say to make them seem
like something that they're not.
It's a little pretentious, I reckon, to start using too many
metaphors when it's just as easy to say, ' Well, as a matter of
fact, you're a fuckhead! It could be put a lot more eloquently ,
but you still get the point across."
Do you see that as a reason for some of the antagonism between
yourselves and some of the other bands around the place? That you
don't see the need to prove yourselves to be intelligent....
"Or hard," offers Jay.
And in fact you are quite happy to wallow in this self-imposed
idiocy. "Do you say mediocity?" challenges Nat.
"Talent imposed mediocrity, more like," says the
Doctor.
"I like to think of it more as a tall poppy syndrome, for I
am indeed a tall poppy," believes Jay.
"We played a show at Gosford on the weekendand these kids
were complaining to me that they thought it was bad Frenzal were
selling out shows and that people wanted to come andsee the band.
I was like,"Surely anyone who wants to see the band should
be allowed to? Don't you guys like the band? What separates you
from other people who like the band?'." Jay tells me later
that someone did call a bomb threat in on the venue that they
played.
"Someone who couldn't get in," he laughs. "I think
our general plan of only doing demos and giving them away at
rallies went quite soothly..." he continues."Yeah, we
had quite a big impact on the rally scene," laughs Lex.
"Rally! I don't mind car racing," says Nat. "That
Sega-Rally[TM] is pretty good, too," says the Doctor and
thankfully our lunch arrives.
Frenzal Rhomb on THE BUZZ
For over three
years now Frenzal Rhomb have been well known for their blazing
speed, questionably 'offensive lyrics' and wild 'in your face'
on-stage antics. What would the interview be like, we wondered,
as we waited on the other end of the telephone line for our
interview with Romb frontman Jason X.
Recently the 'hype' over this Sydney band has been moving into
extreme mode. We quote from the official bright orange history of
Frenzal Rhomb that landed on The Buzz's desk.
"Frenzal Rhomb's history is about to catch up with them. On
the band's last visit to Melbourne, their
arrival was greeted with a phonecall. The police had arrived with
a warrant for the arrest of Jay, mild
mannered showman with F.R. Two weeks later a pair of burly thugs
arrive at Nat's home, with a view to
repossessing furniture and personal effects on behalf of Telstra.
The communications giant had not accepted Nat's claim that he was
deceased and therefore not available to pay his anonymous
telephone debt. The band has been on the move since, lurking in
the shadows, staying away from main roads and living on beans and
the generosity of passers-by.
Daniel Johns of silverchair was threatened with failure by his
high school music teacher after he expressed an interest in
performing the FR song Genius for class assessment. Jason set his
house on fire. Ben's dad has him committed to institutional life
and Molly Meldrum was heard to remark "yeah. Good band. Like
'em. The country is getting nervous.
With the momentous new album So Tough Now the band have blown
their cover, bringing you the tunes, the breakneck speed and the
brutal sense of the ridiculous that the kids have been queueing
up for since they started
The band toured with NOFX, released a single through Fat Wreck
Chords, played Livid, Big Day Out, The Push Over, sjows with
Offspring, Propagandhi, SNFU, The Meanies, injured themselves,
injured fans, got attacked by the TRG and finally put their hands
up in defeat and signed to Shock..
Phew!!!!!
Hype in most cases far exceeds reality and it was a surprise to
learn that these Sydney 'hardcases' met while studying physics at
a Sydney University. Inspirationally the name 'Frenzal Rhomb' was
coined or maybe still exists deep down in some of those mythical
physics books that Ben aned Jason were studying prior to their
miraculous conversion forum physics nerds to punk purists.
Perhaps truth is stranger than fiction after all!
The Frenzal Rhomb guys are about to release another album Not So
Tough Now! which features 17 short, punchy songs. Those with semi
advanced CD players might fall for the 53 tracks display on their
CD dials, but 17 there is just one secret track.
Describing themselves as 'pretty young at heart', Jason is pretty
proud of the fact that he can write songs that the kids can
relate to or as he proudly puts it "K.I.D.S. spells
R.O.C.K.' Have the guys changed over three and a half years?
"We've been writing the same kind of songs for ages. I think
we developed not at all in the past three years.' Hey wait a
minute, we've read a couple of reviews that have described
Frenzal Rhomb as developing enormously eg. "Where there was
first tack and bad jokes, now there's tack, bad jokes and lots of
great hooks."
"We those reviewers, well, they're all wrong. Many reviewers
say we're shit, we've only got about two good reviews that can be
sent to you. When the last album came out we had a string of bad
reviews, then the record sells heaps, then you get another string
of reviews that say it's really good."Taking a serious note
for a few seconds, Jason admits to The Rhomb refining their
skills. It's something they've been aiming for and he hopes that
it's pretty evident in the new album. "Ben is a lot better
as a guitarist. Lex has stayed on an even keel." Having
toured with US punk legends No FX had this affected the Rhomb
guys with the new release? Jason didn't seem to think so, but
mentioned English band 'The Toy Dolls' as something that he was
right into describing
them as a "pretty seminal punk band" as compared to
what he felt was the generic brand of punk pop coming out of west
coast bands such as Blink-182. "There are a lot of bands
doing the same thing at the moment and it's pretty difficult to
stand apart from getting boxed in with these bands. I prefer
listening to jazz."
Frenzal Rhomb's thematic approach to teen life comes across in a
number of numbers: 'Parasite, Now Is Not Your Thyme, Wrong Is
Right, Disappoinment' are just three.
'Disappointment is something I wrote when I left school. We
re-worked it for this album. That one is a bit more naive, if you
will, since I wrote it so early on. Wrong Is Right, though you
can't really tell is about capital punishment in all its forms.
The problem with these lyrics is that I wrote most of these
lyrics on the days that we recorded them. The new album was just
really rushed this time around. We wrote most of the songs really
quickly. Most of the songs were written two weeks before the
recording and I wrote most of the lyrics two days before we
recorded.
It was a good thing really as it ended up sounding really live,
even though we had to do about twenty different tracks in about
fifty different takes. Don't read much into the lyrics. The last
record had a strong anti-violence theme. This one has a little
bit of that with Punch In The Face and Wot Not. We realized that
we hadn't put out a record in about a year, that we should get it
together to do another one. We didn't have any money, so we
decided to cut our losses and sigh with Shock. It seems to be
working out pretty well. We've got a good deal with them. They're
going to try and set up deals overseas."
Punch In Your Face features some pretty interesting
sound effects to grab your intentions with. Where did
you get these samples?
"These were recorded after the song when we thought
we should put in the sound of someone getting punched.
It was off one of those old vinyl CD's, you know 'Punch
Face One, Punch Face Two. It's actually called "Two Men
Fighting in an Alley.'
Uncle Ken has to be based on someone you know? Jason admitted he
built it around his very own Uncle Ken "a very nice guy
whose politics leave a lot to be desired. He's a Sunshine Coast
developer and inclined to want to put up big high risers and
isn't concerned with the natural flora and fauna of the region.
He believes that mangrove swamps are swamps and should be
destroyed." Well we thought are you sending good ol' Uncle
Ken a copy? "No. I don't think so. He's heard abnout the
song, but he hasn't heard the lyrics. It will probably cause a
terrible family rift.'
Frenzal Rhomb's reputation for confrontational lyrics means you
don't play it in front of your grandparents (or maybe you do). We
wondered whether this was deliberate, how you feel at the time or
just plain angry all the time.
"Maybe I don't have a particular good command of the English
language, I prefer to use swear words. I think that in lyric
writing you may as well say what you mean in the simplist terms
rather than try to dresss it up and make it self indulgent. I
think it is pregeable for this style of music. I prefer to say
'You are a knob' rather than say 'There are various aspects of
your personality that I am disatisfied with."
'Not So Tough Now' will be out this week, so walk down to a good
indie store and pick up a copy before Uncle Ken buys them all up.
The Melbourne launch will take place July 12th at the Palace of
Punk Rock, Oxide in Prahran.
FRENZAL RHOMB Australia's Favourite
stench-core quartet prepare to meet their destiny
Who represents the
future of music according to Frenzal Rhomb guitarist Lindsay
MacDougall? "Goodness there's so many isn't there," he
begins. "At the risk of making other bands feel cheap, with
the arrival of the new millenium comes Frenzal Rhomb's inevitable
domination of the world."
"We're gonna become the biggest band in the world, if
onlyfor the blink of an eye, then fade into the obscuritywe
deserve. Then we'll resurrect ourselves two years later to play
to ten people in an out-of-the-way beer barn. Then we'll retire
from the music scene ladling blame for our failure on everyone
around us, rather than those who most deserve it, ourselves.
And we'll end up shrivelling fr om the bloated infections
associated with second-hand needle use."
With their A Man's Not A Camel album now released in the
US and a slot on the '99 Vans Warped shows to keep them out of
trouble through the middle of the year, there could exist some
semblance of truth in this brash claim. In the meantime look to
Sydney hardcore stalwarts Toe To Toe, underground Sydney bands
like Flyspeak, Nancy Vandal, Skulker, the Del Emmas...
"And us again," MacDougal concludes. "Anyone who
can step bravely into the new millenium and say, "We are the
best thing that you're ever gonna hear!"
CLEVER DICKS!
FIVE minuters after
finishing an interview with Frenzal's Jason Whalley and Dr
Lindsay Lindemans, Jay calls back sounding somewhat aroused. He's
failed to share the exciting news that he's recently engaged in a
sexual encounter with American pop sensation Jewel. Lindsay is
quick to point out that the missionary position wasn't even so
much as a brief consideration. It's this sort of obvious
disrespect for the female gender that makes the humble female
journalist quake at the thought of interviewing these heaving
temples of masculinity. The ever-suffering Cathy Sexton continues
regardless.
Massive!:
Last time we spoke to you, you had just replaced that young
fellow with the small dick with Gordy, how's that all working?
Jay: Well, he's
a young fellow with a large dick.
Lindsay: He's got a
really massive, massive penis. But yes, it's been very good and
he's been a joy to tour with and to work with. We recorded eight
songs for our new record over in LA and Gordy came up trumps.
Jay: He put them all
down one song after another with no headphones on, in one take,
just like that!
Massive!: Unwritten Law were
telling us that the American Warped Tour is far more comfortable
than the Australian leg, is that the case?
Jay: Maybe for Americans!
Massive!: Surely they've still
got you Frenzal boys in tents?
Jay: We
couldn't actually afford a tent. We got to sleep under
the Bad Religion bus that was kinda nice once.
Massive!: At least you got to sleep under the stars!
Jay: That guy from Bad
Religion he was cool, and that guy from No FX...he was OK.
Lindsay: Did he talk to
you?
Jay: I think he looked
at me once.
Lindsay: Yeah, I saw
them play but I couldn't get backstage but it was pretty cool.
Massive!: What's the American
crowd response to you guys been like, we hear you've been going
down a treat?
Lindsay: It's been going
very well, I have absolutely no idea why we've been getting
really good crowds each day on the Warped tour, but it took us a
while to get used to it because they actually clapped in American
accents, it was hard to understand.
Massive!: Who were the really big
party animal-type bands?
Lindsay: Us.
Jay: Everyone else was
too old, we tried to get some of these Americans into like
drinking and stuff but...I must admit they were all taking the
party drug heroin in abundance but...they really couldn't keep up
with us.
Massive!: So what about groupies,
do they have a quality groupie in America?
Lindsay: Oh yeah,
they're a very high standard, we'd probably have more luck with
women if we were carpenters.
Massive!: Or the
American president!
Lindsay: That was funny
actually 'cause we were there while that was going on.
Massive!: I thought I saw you in
the background while he was giving that speech?
Lindsay: Yeah, that was me sucking his cock...trying to get a
job.
Massive!: So what have
you guys been doing in your spare time over there, has there been
much strip club action going on?
Jay: You're
really digging here, aren't you?
Massive!:
Absolutely!
Lindsay: Well,
Gordy was actually asked to star in a Japanese porno. Alexis,
Jason and myself are all back here now whereas Gordy has dropped
off in Japan to do the post-production.
Jay: He didn't want to
do it at first because in Japan they digitise out all of your
genitals so you can't actually see the specifics of what's going
on and Gordy obviously wanted to show off.
Lindsay: But when he
actually took his pants down in Japan we found out that they
don't actually do it digitally, in Japan automatically all of our
genitals are digitised.
Massive!:
I'm curious about the pin-up boy status that you lads have
obviously reached, how does that sit with you?
Lindsay: Well I've always considered myself a bit of a
pin-up boy since I was very young...but I don't think anyone in
their right minds would want to pin us up on the wall, imagine
waking up every day and seeing a picture of us.
Massive!: We actually received a letter from
a young lady the other day in New Zealand, and she was a bit
concerned because she had seen pictures of you, "especially
the sexy dreaded one," and she wasn't able to get a copy of
any of your albums over there.
Jay: Oh, that
sux...you didn't happen to get her phone number at all?
Massive!: Tell us a bit about
this new album that you've been recording, is there much of a
departure from the Frenzal Rhomb that we know and love?
Lindsay: Apart from the fact that we're not playing any
instruments, it's all spoken word and whistling. The album is
going to be called "Frenzal Rhomb: Spoken Word And
Whistling" and it's just going to be us talking about going
to the shops, buying some ciggies, having a couple of beers.
Jay: It's going to be a really good buys, for the market price of
$53.75 at your leading record store.
Lindsay: W'ere actually putting out a live recording of a show we
did in Chicage which we're going to put out with another single
from "Meet The Family" hopefully before Christmas. The
new record is basically the Frenzal Rhomb that we all know and
love but it's got its fair share of fucking rock'n'roll...
Jay: Yeah, good old-fashioned fuckin' rock'n'roll!
Massive!: Finally, Lindsay, can
you tell the country what it's like being the second-best
guitarist in Australia (Massive! Reader's Poll, June/July '98).
Lindsay: It's
quite frankly not enough, God dammit. Somewhere Daniel Johns
pulled a swiftie on me. It's my fault really, I gave him a riff
for...what was it called? "Pure Massacre" or
something...some song I wrote a while ago and I didn't really
like it, I said he could have it and - what do you know - it
becomes a hit. It was one of the songs I wrote in the band I used
to be in - the Innocent Criminals - which I left to join Frenzal
Rhomb which was, quite frankly, a huge mistake.