Thunder Fox | West Underground Connect | #26 |

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hello and welcome to another episode of west underground and this is a very special episode

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guys i'm i'm happy to be doing this and today we have none other than thunder fox joining us

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thank you guys cheers guys guys just straight off the bat like how did you guys start as a band

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so i think we've been together i mean in theory a long time now i started the band with my best mate

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sam another sam um in high school we were just um just sort of in different grades but we knew each

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other and that we played guitar and there's not many kind of people in our school that were very

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like very interesting in terms of their musical output you know because we're on the beaches so

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everyone wants to play angus and julia stone stuff and we wanted to play like funk music

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and rock music and stuff so yeah we were like oh that's it was kind of a running joke oh we should

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start a band we should start a band and we used to laugh about it every time we saw each other and

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one day i went over to his place and we wrote a song together and we're like oh this is sick

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we're so excited because we thought we'd written the best song of all time and um yeah we kind of

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just coast along as the two of us and did some little acoustic gigs and then one day my friend

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jack who i used to live with who now plays in sings in mansion air which is another band

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who are doing quite well he asked us to play to support his old band he said we needed a band

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to do it and we wanted the gig so we found whoever we could that played instruments at

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the time one of them was my ex-girlfriend on the drums and um yeah just a couple of other people

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and yeah and we just came up with the funniest name we could think of and um the rest was history

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and as time has gone on the members have kind of grown and changed and i think the band probably

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solidified as an entity when jesse and travis joined the band it's kind of when we found our

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sound got some horns in there because we wanted to be different and that was that was the moment

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and so i would say we've been to we've been thunderfox for like six or seven years but we've

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been this band for like maybe two years or three years found our sound especially in the last uh i

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think about a year ago our current bass player joined manza monster trends on the bass and on

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the synth bass and i feel like there's five of us now in the band and when casey our current

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bassist joined really feels like we've locked in and kind of found our fate and our sound and

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found what to build off from which is really exciting yeah wow that's amazing boys one

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question i just want to ask like that's off topic completely where are you boys it looks like you're

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in a studio slash aquarium behind this is my this is my home studio and i keep my pet's necks in

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here as well because ah snakes here man it looks like a fishing aquarium like i was that's you can

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see a little lump down there that's one of my snakes it's a little white snake oh yeah wow

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wow not so much a fish tank but a reptile tank yeah it wasn't like an intentional backdrop like

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this is just the best place to do the zoom well dude you've got you you you've

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won the award of like the best backdrop of all these zoom interviews we've done

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how was that a snake tank in the background for sure you can imagine so this is the first but

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dude i want one thing i also wanted to say um which is you know completely off topic a

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little bit is the name thunderfox like him you know i was having conversation before

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we started this interview with my editor and he goes oh who are you guys interviewing and i said

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i said thunder fox and he goes are they are they a metal band and i said no the opposite actually

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have a listen and he's like oh oh you know it was one the name i think the name

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is like one of those things where it it's it's misleading but it kind of takes you down

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you know um you know a rabbit hole of going oh wow oh wow this is not what i was expecting but yeah

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like pick your interest be like oh yeah and then you start listening to something

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he's like oh not what i expected but cool anyway yeah it's one of those

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things we're like teenagers when we came up with the name and years down the track like

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so who gets the name credits who was the mastermind behind it

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well i think it was me it was back when sam and i were writing and and i think we came

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up with maybe 10 names that were way better than thunder fox in retrospect sam really

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wanted to be called stank face which i thought looking back i think it was such a cool bad name

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but we were like oh we should go with something that's easy to spell and that was kind of the

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whole point we just wanted to be easy to write out but people still manage to [ __ ] it up

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yeah people always write it as one word there's two words thunder box

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it's not the proudest achievement of the band but we love it anyway oh it's a name you got to

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stick with the name represents you represent has anyone said it in reverse to you guys has anyone

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been like oh you guys fox thunder fox i don't think we've had that we got thunderbox yeah

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we got thunderbox we always get off on the box it's under [ __ ] that's kind of all the time

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which is a compliment yeah i'm interested in the names that you said

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were better than thunder fox what were the names there well yeah i think my favorite was stank face

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another front runner was buffalo pete i thought that was cool

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i haven't heard these options before and i'm i'm more and more glad that we went with thunderbox

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actually well you guys could always be song names as well there could always be song names if you

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ever yeah that's true or album album names as well they're pretty good so at least nothing misses out

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yeah like them face would be a great song then that's a good idea yeah i like buffalo pete would

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certainly get your interest you'd be like what are they writing about yeah for sure that was

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a sick name you know buffalo pete almost sounds like a name of like a you know a pokey machine

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that hasn't been invented yet you know yeah oh yeah yeah he's got the shotguns going off

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yeah like a sick western movie or something

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yes it reminds me like aussie pub rock you for sure yeah too much too much anyone watching that's

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in the process of starting like an aussie um pub rock band there you go i don't know yeah boys want

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to have copyright of that or you again i don't know i reckon they can have it go for your life

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all right you haven't been successful they get we might come after them later down the track

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yeah start winning grammys litigation here and there remember when we said that you could

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have that name really now we want it back come on exactly but boys you recently put out a new single

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and i'm like when i heard it i was like whoa this is very very different um but like who are you

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boys inspired by like who are you individually listening to it's pretty um it's really mixed

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actually so there's five of us in the band and we all come from pretty different musical backgrounds

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but um so there's me i play the trumpet and we've got a sax player as well so we've got

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a lot of background in like jazz and kind of wind orchestra stuff but also

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i grew up listening to like the red hot chili peppers and our sax player loves his hip hop

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sam's into like jeff buckley yeah i mean yeah it's definitely definitely the origin of our

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sound is the fact that we don't try and go for anything we just get all our influences and mix

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them together so i was yeah i was losing to like when i was growing up into like folk music and

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and soul music like jeff buckley and stevie wonder and marvin gaye yeah as well as like

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guns and roses and led zeppelin on the rock kind of side of things

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um as well as obsessed with and so when when we got together it wasn't a case of like oh you like

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you know funk music that's that's horrible it was like oh everything everyone bought into the band

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completely like expanded our uh vision and our kind of desire to embody all of that i thought my

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singular goal personally and i guess for everyone else too maybe was was to write something that was

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unique or to be something that was unique which can seem sort of impossible until you realize that

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to be unique you just have to like amalgamate everything that you like and put it into one place

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because there's lots of bands out there that want to sound like i don't know red hot chili peppers

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or sticky fingers there's not a lot of bands that are just kind of going well i like all of

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this stuff i'm not even gonna think about it and just write whatever comes to mind because all that

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stuff's like bubbling in the back of your head subconsciously i think you guys have definitely

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done a good job of putting all that in a blender and creating a new flavor you know yeah you know

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like i you know the jeff buckley influence i could hear that a little bit but i mean it was just very

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different like um as i said like i discovered you guys amongst um a bunch of you know new australian

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music and whatnot and even then i found you guys in a playlist and you kind of go from what else

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is in there to you guys and it's like oh this is this is worlds apart almost yeah yeah for sure

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that's been like both a blessing and a curse for us because for sure well we're really proud

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of our last album especially and everything we create and like love how it sounds and often when

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people listen to it they'll like really like it but they'll struggle to put their finger on what

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it is yeah when it comes to like playlisting and stuff people the feedback we'll often get if it's

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like not a go they'll be like oh we really love it i love the production but it doesn't quite fit the

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vibe with the playlist all right all right so if people want people want you to be able to define

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what you're doing and especially in this kind of musical landscape people want to say like i

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are you a rock band are you a r b band are you a soul band or whatever genre and like i've never

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been able to say really what we are yeah it's like we're definitely something like adult contemporary

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easy listening it's like yeah but i i love i love that about us but it has made it kind of

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tricky to kind of get people's ears pricked up before they actually listen to our music because

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they're like well what are you you know well you are good so that that that's a good starting point

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yeah very good but um you know like look i i think you guys will you know if if if you guys

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don't get picked up in a big way in the next like you know 10 years i feel like the next generation

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will be looking back and going oh i remember have you heard of these guys

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pulling them apart yeah yeah yeah it'll be like a fishbone thing like the band fishbone

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who are like this american scar band some people have heard of them some people haven't they never

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really got that massive but they it's if you there's this documentary about him they interview

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like flea from the peppers and um a bunch of other super famous musicians that came out of the same

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movement and they were like well they were easily the most influential band on the scene but no one

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cared about them like when they were there so that's not that's not that's not gonna be us

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it's not what we want that's not what we want but it's crossing mine oh dude it just sounds like the

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future you just uh you know and and like there's songs of yours which i'm like oh that's kind of

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r b and that's kind of i don't know i think once our generation

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learns not to not to love labels as much as we do i feel like it'll be very easy more more

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people are able to get around it more yeah yeah yeah even in the mainstream now it's becoming

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less of a thing like still got a ways to go but you can see people branching out like billy

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allison [ __ ] pop punks on like everyone's doing what whatever they want when they get when they

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get the popularity that they get and then no no one mines yeah so that's the whole goal we just

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i i think we just stick to our guns do whatever we want yeah what happens happens i think a big

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part of like what we're talking about or what sam suggesting is like there's still like definitely

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that trend of people wanting to be putting boxes already or only playing things that fit a certain

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taste that still exists but like sam was saying i think it's changing a little bit i reckon a huge

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part of that is down to like the accessibility of production because you've got all these like

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16 17 year old kids they've got a laptop a free version of ableton maybe it's cracked and like

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kids are getting so good at producing music so young these days which just like opens

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up the world like people are limited to being contracted with a label for example they can just

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make something and then suddenly they'll blow up through like tick tock and there's all these yeah

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you can access millions of songs at the touch of a button so that's it's like no restriction

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in what you're exposed to so i think it's you know there's societal kind of implications of

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being you know assigned to a genre that still really kind of runs through the whole thing

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the industry but as yeah i think i think there is some little signs of moving away from that

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kind of knee need to label people yeah i think so you brought up sticky fingers before and i thought

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that was really interesting because i met when the first time i was a kid and i heard sticky fingers

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i was like whoa this is really this is really different and then and then i like really got into

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it and then kind of watch those guys blow up but in the most kind of unconventional way where they

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kind of made their own you know audiences got by just going from coast to coast to coast and then

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overseas and coming back but um you know it definitely shows that you know it is possible

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you know and especially with you know the heart of technology and that kind of stuff

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but what's it been like for you guys gigging i mean imagine at the moment it's probably been

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quite hard but you know in before well we're like we definitely see ourselves as like a gigging band

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the best feedback we've gotten about our music has been after live performances like people see

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our shows we're like very high energy and we've got a lot of different personalities on the stage

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and we all come from a background of like as performing musicians like some of us have gone to

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music uni others haven't but we all love playing music like at the end of the day so gigging is

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like it's so important to us it's everything too yeah i think i think it's where you find that's

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where you find the most kind of dedicated fans of your music is when you can connect with them on

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a personal level because it's like all you're doing at the moment in this kind of you know

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modern musical age everyone's trying to get fans by posting really hot pictures of themselves or

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posting heaps of songs on spotify and trying to get playlisted and stuff but there are certain

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types of fans that you can gain from that you know you can get a million players on spotify and have

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no one that will go to your gig and no one that will buy your t-shirt and stuff so i think that's

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been the most valuable thing about trying to grow as a band has been gigging because we meet people

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there and when when we meet them we'll see them at the next show the next time we go to their town

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and you kind of build this relationship with people and those are the people that

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stick with you and that really care about what you're doing that's why it's so inspiring to to do

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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

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releasing and then we'll like work towards a tour we'll really try to make it a big tour we're like

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we're very familiar with the the long drive from sydney to melbourne or sydney and back again yeah

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which is great we love it yeah yeah i feel like you guys have got both the online and the gig

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um personality got like a lot of fans following you because online you guys got this thought of

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you or hugging each other yeah i think you guys got that hot stuff as well going on as well

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yeah you got to play the game that's yeah let's see yeah yeah i guess that's kind of just like

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how we have always taken photos i mean we're a bunch of we're five guys in a band and that's

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becoming like you know more and more a less popular thing um and there's nothing wrong

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with that necessarily but we're also as five guys we're all like really close we're really touchy

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feely we love to like hang out and speak about our emotions with each other and cuddle so like

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we kind of like to translate that across so we do like silly photo shoots just push the

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boundaries you know keep everybody guessing like was it a boy is it a girl i'm not really sure

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oh yeah yeah i saw that vibe as well this is great

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i think we're gonna be who we are like exactly you know try try and translate that without really

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trying to no we don't want to put a filter trying to fit any sort of trend or anything no no i yeah

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i agree yeah so like oh sorry paul i'm sorry i was going to say a bit off topic about speaking

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about emotion i'm getting anxiety from that candle lighting up on your left jesse yes what is that

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it's it's some i don't know it's some electric doesn't it look like a candle that you know those

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prank cameras that went on and off it looked like that curtain's gonna go on fire i was like

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we don't want the flyers in here it's okay breathe sorry for interrupting hey michelle it's all yours

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now mate look i was before before paul asked about the about the candle i just want to ask like how

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do you boys like commute in as a five piece band like are you going around in two cars or you gotta

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ride you ask this question well yes that's that's a question you got a two off camera guys

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uh for a long time we're um we're doing exactly that we're commuting in two sometimes three

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cars because like sometimes we'll have to take back line like drum kits yeah yeah

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um so yeah it was like two or three cars a lot of money on fuel but um between the two lockdowns

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actually like it's a thing we love touring we're gonna keep touring so actually we invested in a i

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invested in the band invested in a in a care carnival which is like an eight-seater car

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so we actually haven't had the most use of it we've only been on like two quick tours but it

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means that once lockdown's over we can fit all of us in one vehicle with all our gear top drivers

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it's so so exciting that's a classic classic way of touring as a band yeah sure

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yeah that's awesome but that would have been a that would have been [ __ ] uh heaps of you

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know heaps of money and just so much effort because if you're a three piece you can get

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away with cramming everything into a little van and you know going driving around a smelly van

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but if you're a five piece you've got to get two cars and an entourage oh for sure yeah

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yeah it's always been a logistical challenge but it's worth it you know and we just uh

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yeah i mean we've only just kind of started in the last year or two traveling with a sound guy

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and things like that prior to that it was always just the band members and like if

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we were lucky to bring a girlfriend along or something well you need to buy a bus

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and now you've briefly touched on you know kind of relentlessly touring and trying to play shows

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but where have you guys been um everywhere east coast yeah we're really familiar with

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the east coast of australia so like sydney is our hometown we got the biggest following here biggest

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listenership and yeah good fans but we've done a lot of shows in brisbane melbourne also byron

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south coast new south wales is kind of a random oddball one where we got a bit of a following

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yeah and of course in: 2018

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which was just like you know the best few weeks of our lives i reckon did 22 dates in europe and

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like what eight countries yeah and it was just yeah 20 25 days or 26 days and 22 shows

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and it was like the best yeah that's what we wanted to do forever so were you guys working

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with a label or anything at that point like you know when you did that or did you just

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take life in your own hands and be like we're going to do this and we're going to book it

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all ourselves and we're going to it was off option b all the way we saw we saw bands like

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um for example we saw bands like ocean alley doing europe tours and other other bands like

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that like from the similar scene from the northern beaches and like that looks like so much fun like

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is it actually feasible to do that what's actually required we'll just like let's just make it happen

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so we spoke to the boys promotionality yeah we got some tips and advice i did

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we first before oceanelli kind of hit the hit the big time before they took anyway

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yeah we found like a little bit boutique booking agency in italy just like through

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friends and friends and he got us a bunch of shows in like italy and spain and i just like

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um i have like hundreds of venues in in germany and in france and in the uk just like hoping for

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a bite like casting out a thousand reels and like a few of them responded and we ended up

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putting a show together and funded it ourselves and pretty jam-packed yeah we just did it it was

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really really fun like pretty challenging but but totally doable and like if there's any there's any

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fans out there listening to this who want to do it like it's doable you just got to do it really

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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

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all your back line of instruments and all that stuff over there logistically or did you have

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to kind of borrow and yeah we hired yeah there was like there was a touring company there that

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hired out a van and gear yeah yeah abandoning gear for a specific period of time so we did that for

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whatever it was for four weeks or five weeks and um yeah just had this whole back line with us the

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whole time which was kind of sketchy because we got we got robbed in italy luckily they didn't

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get to the back line they robbed um robbed our car when we were out like about to play a show but it

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got rained off because now like a lot of the shows in europe were outdoors because it was the summer

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and yeah we went and they said well you can't play this show but we bought all this beer so you might

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as well just drink it while you're here and we're like okay all right and so we did that but we got

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back to the car and it was broken into something because [ __ ] travis and our sax player and our

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bass player of the time connor had left their phones and wallets on the dashboard which is

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sort of like the first thing not to do yeah i was like that was like the rock bottom of the europe

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tour we come back to our van and there's like a window smashed and a wallet and a phone yeah

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and a week or so left another like 20 hours of driving at least with just a plastic bag

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yeah the repair we told the repair company like we got broken into and they're like

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oh can you guys go get that fixed at a smash repair but like we didn't have any time because

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every night we had a show so we had to drive like five hours every night we also figured out

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that part of the contract was like every every um piece of damage to the van would cost like i think

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it was like 150 euro well like it'd actually be cheaper to not get it fixed and take it back and

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get them to fix it so yeah we would have bought a thick piece of plastic and just duct taped it to

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the window we just filed a police report as well remember it was a bit of a language barrier though

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so it didn't really work out but yeah but hey we survived it was all good and it's a good story

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yeah man you'd like at least you've got some war stories from it as well yeah now if in 50

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years you guys become the biggest band in the world you can all you know retire and write off

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autobiographies and be interesting yeah yeah yeah but don't take that as an invitation to rob us

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stories please don't realize i think that's like like a like a great attitude and i don't think

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that we've had any fans like on here so far paul that have you know taken that approach and really

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just you know grabbed it and went for it yeah we've had bands who've been like organized from

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obviously second third party and honor but we've never had a band like you guys actually took it

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in your own hands and just took the risk and did it yourselves i find that really amazing you guys

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knew how to find the right places to make you guys go there i think i think yeah we definitely take

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pride in that we've worked really really hard to get to even this level that we're at now

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we're lucky enough now we've just got some booking agents since early this year

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um who well haven't had much of a chance to do any work but would be booking us gigs in australia

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yeah um yeah i don't think we've never had any interest from anybody else anyway we've

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never really had interest from external labels or managers or anything so we don't have a choice we

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haven't necessarily reached out either i guess that no yeah it's one of those things like there's

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a bit of a stigma with labels you hear so many horror stories about like bad contracts and that

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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

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phones on the contract i definitely don't love the idea yeah definitely go for the professional way

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stripped away yeah we'll think about it and he's jumping up and down in the background

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well i think i think you're probably really smart not not not have tried to jump on that bandwagon

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because you guys have did you know i was before before we did this i was just having a look at

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some things to just kind of you know refresh you know my mind and you know think of some little

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things to talk about but i was having a look you guys have then created a fan base organically

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and not just the fan base of a couple you know a couple people but you know thousands you know so

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i think you keep going your way and you don't give a sign that 360 contract and you don't get it yeah

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i agree with you you gotta say yeah for sure i think people don't realize that when a label gives

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you a you know a hundred thousand dollar contract they're just loaning it to you yeah yeah until you

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make a hundred thousand dollars from your recordings and touring which is

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not an easy feat although easier if you had label backing i'm sure like until

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you've made that money back you won't see your [ __ ] sent so i'm happy without a label until

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if if a label comes up and gives us a contract that is you know workable and fits what we want

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but it's so doable without that there's so many amazing independent artists that have

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had really solid careers and have really solid fan bases without any backing as well so it's

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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

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the boys like you know kind of came to him and said oh you can you manage us and he said yeah

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um the idea was to just send the boys along the you know north up up north down south

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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

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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