The Boys performing on Balcony TV
THE BOYS
With the girl power of the Spice Girls, the grunge stylings of the Smashing Pumpkins, the feminist attitude of Kathleen Hanna and the visceral energy of Joan Jett - The Boys are an all-female grunge band hailing from the shores of Brisbane who are cause for excitement on the music scene! This coming Wednesday (October 5th) they slay one of Brisbane’s most beloved venues “The Zoo” alongside Novella Beggars and Willows. I spoke with the fabulous Sophia (drummer) about douchelords, Riot Grrrl and the benefits of six talented females joining forces.
Where did the idea for “The Boys” come from and how’d you get together?
It all started with one drunken night at The Beat where singer, Jordan and I met. After every other band we’ve ever tried to create failed, we got into contact with each other and exchanged the idea of starting an all girl grunge band. Soon after, we met at Ric’s Bar and discussed further with keyboardist, Kat. That’s when the name, “The Boys” just came to us. A couple of weeks went by and we decided to advertise for a lead guitarist and bassist through street press. Through fate, we met guitarist Rachel. She left behind her wallet in a café and had to go back to retrieve it where she picked up RAVE magazine and saw our ad. After jamming at Rachel’s house we met Rachel’s sister Ariana and her girlfriend, Ella who happened to play rhythm and bass guitar. And the rest is history! We are six girls with an incredible instant connection and passion for music.
A lot of people I know that have witnessed your shows have compared you to the early 90s Riot GRRRL sounds/performances that artists such as Kathleen Hanna created, are you influenced by bands such as Bikini Kill etc? If so, do you have any favourite Kathleen Hanna moments? (Does my obsession with Kathleen Hanna come across at all….chill, gurl)
We LOVE Kathleen Hanna and Bikini Kill. She is an absolute saint for her influence on the Riot Grrrl movement which called on the involvement of women in the music scene. P.S. Bless you for keeping zines alive!
What kind of stuff did you ladies grow up listening to?
Our main influences are The Smashing Pumpkins, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Placebo, Garbage, Nirvana, The Breeders, The Cranberries, Bikini Kill and Jeff Buckley. We draw from these artists and create our own unique sound that we like to think is a fusion between 70’s girl rock and the best of 90’s grunge.
And if you could all have one CD on rotation for the rest of your lives what would it be?
I think the CD we hear most is The Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Thanks to Jordan Ayres’ unbelievable obsession with Billy Corgan. Billy, if you are reading this – please dump Jess and make beautiful grunge babies with Jordy!)
Where can readers of our blog catch you in action next and what can they expect from a live “The Boys” show?
We are playing next month at The Zoo with Novella Beggars and Willows on Wednesday 5th October. If you catch any of our live shows you’re in for lots of girl power (Fuck Yeah Spice Girls!), passionate music and a little bit of naughtiness ;)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120176574749159
What’s better about all-girl bands? It’s apparent that there is a serious lack of all girl bands in Brisbane, do you guys have any local favourites?
We share a strong connection as female musicians that I think is vastly different amongst males. That, and our periods all sync up at the same time. (I’m totally kidding!) There is definitely a lack of good all girl bands in Brisbane, and that’s why we’ve come along – to shake it up!
You recently entered the RATE MY BAND competition and came third which is an awesome result? Are you guys still on a high? What was the competition like?
I think we are still a little shocked that we even made it to the finals of Rate My Band? That was the second show we played, so to have such a huge crowd response was remarkable. And coming third in the finals was nuts! We are definitely still on a high from that competition. We played with amazing bands like Blackwood Willow and The Royales who placed first and second and we are lucky enough to be playing with those lovely boys again at Alhambra Lounge on Friday the 21st of October.
Are there any places/events in Brisbane that you hold close to your heart?
Definitely Ric’s Bar because that’s where we all met and hold all of our important band meetings. Plus, the cute boys that work there aren’t too bad to look at as well. Also Jordan’s house is where we normally hang and our studio at Stafford (The Drum Cartel also known as ‘Greg’s Place’).
Have you acquired groupies as yet. Because that’s why people start bands, right? To get laid n paid!!!!
Exactly! Haha, but yeah we do have groupies. Well, I guess they are really just called a fan base but we like to think of them as groupies. We’ve also got an loyal entourage who are beside us at every show including a sound engineer, roadie, photographer and videographer. You’d think we think we’re famous or something?
I watched an interview with you gurls where you said the band was formed/inspired from dating douchebags etc. What are some of your worst experiences dating in Brisbane?
Our song “Chelsea” is actually written about a boy ejaculating on a band members leg without knowledge or consent, so yeah, there are a lot of jerk offs in Brisbane. However, we get A LOT of great lyrical content from going on dates with douchelords, so it’s not all bad.
If you could describe “The Boys” in three words what would they be?
Loud, Empowering and Loving.
And if “The Boys” was an actual boy, who would it be?
We would love to create a musical super human comprising of Billy Corgan, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Joan Jett!
Sounds pretty sweet to me, can you link us to some music/videos?
We are recording our demos next week but for now check out our acoustic version of “Chelsea” filmed for BalconyTV. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UeqC66IQro&feature=player_embedded
Catch The Boys in action next week! Wednesday the 5th of October at The Zoo with Novella Beggars and Willows! Find the rest of the event details HERE.
BREAK AND ENTER
Break and Enter starts tonight y’all. Zachary Miller answered a few of our queries about the event. For free music and possibly some dick riding action head out tonight. xx
So, Break and Enter kicks off this evening - how would you describe the event for those who have little to no idea of what it is?
Basically its a free showcase for Brisbane bands to strut their stuff while all the Big Sound Suits are in town. A lot of the bands on the Big Sound lineup are artists with labels and booking agents, we’ve made a point of putting on fresh local bands that don’t have those luxuries
What are some of the acts that punters can look forward to over the next two nights?
Keep On Dancin’s, tonight at Barsoma! They’re fucking awesome.
And Blonde On Blonde who make me wanna take my underwear off.
What are some of your favourite Brisbane artists?
Hard to say dude, I have so many favorites, I’m a fangirl for a new brisbane band each week. Vauxhal Arches, Cardhouses, Hunz…WOLFWOLF (dude just got announced to play the Brisbane parklife… hes the next motherfucking Daft Punk).
Just to name a few.
Who will you be heading out to see tonight?
I’m going to be at Barsoma all night making sure everything runs smoothly. But I wish I could check out Tiger Beams tonight, I hear they’re playing as a four piece tonight!
What do you think sets the Brisbane music scene apart from the rest of the pack?
This probably gets said a shitload but I suppose purely the geography of our town affects the nature of the Brisbane music scene a lot. If you head out to see a gig 90% of the time its in the Valley, and it makes it easy for club crawling but I think it creates a shitfight when you inevitably get timetable clashes of bands you wanna see on a night out. That said though, we have a very small music community and its good to see lots of people interested in music and playing in bands etc.
Which Brisbane venue do you hold in your heart/what are some of your key stone Brisbane gig memories?
drinking the $10 Clubhouse cocktail (it had egg yolk in it…lol) when the old Clubhouse was open….. and dancing to Someday by The Strokes.
I can’t choose a brisbane venue that I like the most… Black Bear Lodge is a new favorite haunt of mine…. A lot of my memories are faded because chances are I was off my face at the time!
Describe Break and Enter in three words!
fairyfloss and unicorns
Killer Brisbane band Velociraptor just released this superfuhnkee video for their single “Sleep with the fishes” this week! It involves pretty girls hanging themselves, shootings, blindfolded musicians, dinosaur figurines, burials and one dude gets his head chopped off. SooOoOo SAD! But also rivetting to watch. Check it.
SLUTEVER 4EVER
What have I learnt over the years from being a reader of the infamous sex/life/gurlpower blog Slutever? It’s okay to squirt during sex, deaf guys are totally hot, fetishes are OK, it’s okay to be a slut as long as you’re sassy about it and making out with your hand in the shower whilst masturbating is totally acceptable.
Karley Sciortino has been somewhat of a mentor in my life without being a physical presence. She’s the kind of luscious woman you cherish like Beyonce or Oprah but she’s white, super horny and lived in London squats for five years. For the past two years I have religiously typed “slutever.org” into Mozilla Firefox every day. Although the blog sometimes scares the shit out of me (yes, she posted an interview with a dude who got his dick shot off in Vietnam…yes, she included photographs) it’s always worth reading because of the ruthless way Sciortino deals with “taboo”. (by the way she is totally dating that cute, gaunt dude from Vice that writes about LSD a lot…HaMiLtOn MoRrIs)
I emailed Karley because I’m slightly deranged and in lust with her and this is what happened.
Which post has made your parents the most ashamed of you/disgusted?
In 2008 I wrote an article for Vice called Cum Taste Test, where I fed my boyfriend different foods every day for a week, then gave him head each night and took notes on the differing tastes of his cum. My mom was pretty annoyed about that one. She actually stopped reading my blog after that, so she’s sort of clueless about what I write about now.
You’ve blogged about your ongoing obsession with Hamilton Morris, Vice writer and fellow blogger, do you have any other internet crushes/people you’d like to bone y’all? (please say me).
Well my obsession with Hamilton has been taking up a lot of my crush time. Like have you seen him? WTF?! I’m convinced he’s the single most beautiful person on the face of the earth! Aside from him I’m pretty into the wheelchair kid from Glee, and Paz de la Huerta. And you, obvs.
I’ll totally admit to facebook stalking you, do you think that Internet stalking benefits society (future employers, future relationships) or does it more oft result in drunkenly admitting to someone at a bar that you’ve seen their families Christmas 2003 album?
I think internet stalking is amazing and that people should do more of it. I’ve met the most amazing people in weird internet trolling sessions, via FB or random sex fetish websites, BDSM forums, wherever. It’s great if you want to meet a certain kind of person that you aren’t necessarily exposed to in your daily life. I guess for some people FB is bad when they are trying to get a good, “real person” job, but I’ve never had to deal with that so I don’t know.
If you were a tattoo: where on the body would you be and what would the shitty banner around you say?
Hmm, I’m not that into tattoos. Well I am sometimes, but I don’t want one for myself. But if I were a tattoo I would probably be my own name on Louis Garrel’s chest.
You’ve been known to squat from time to time, what is the most amazing thing you’ve come across when squatting?
I squatted in London for five years. The time that sticks out the most in my head is when I came back to London from a vacation in Spain to find that my squatmate Simon had moved a homeless Romanian family into the house. I came in and they were all playing Nintendo Wi in the living room, and I was like “Hey who are you?” and they just like stared at me not being able to speak English for ages until I just gave up and walked away. They stayed for three months.
Annnnnd what is the most wretched thing you’ve come across when squatting?
One time my roommate put a skinned goat’s head on the floor outside my bedroom door as a joke, but I didn’t notice it and stepped directly on it and crushed its skull with my bare food. That was pretty gross. Also once my squatmate Hannah decided to clean the house one day after it had gotten like beyond gross, and in her cleaning she found a mysterious bag of human feces in the living room. No one knew how it got there, but presumably it had been there for days totally unnoticed.
What tips could you give us to ensure that we get regular dick in the near future?
Don’t be boring! Being boring is the absolute worst. Do you want to sleep with someone who doesn’t do anything interesting and just blends in with the background? No! So the came applies to you! (And by ‘you’ I mean all of us.)
What traits in a human being make you want to ‘put out’?
I really like smart, funny people! Those are two necessary qualities. In terms of general physical appearance I tend to like really tall, pale, deathly thin guys with dark hair, sunken eyes and big noses. I guess I have a pretty definite “type.” For girls I’m into natural looking girls with big boobs and big lips. I also like South American girls. When I was a younger I used to wish I was Brazilian.
You openly speak about drug use on your blog and I imagine your squatting experiences would have revealed some pretty traumatic drug use experiences, what’s the scariest illicit drug encounter you’ve had?
Well at one point I was living with 3 different ketamine dealers, which I know sounds unbelievable and gross, but it’s true. At any given point there would be about 100 grams of K in the house. Then one night one of the dealers got arrested and the cops came and raided our squat. I was so scared that we were all going to be arrested because there were definitely drugs all over the entire house. However the house was so enormous and so insanely messy that after about an hour of digging through trash and finding nothing the cops just gave up and left. It’s funny in hindsight but it was really un-lol at the time.
I was recently harassed by a lesbian for some play in a seedy nightclub toilet, should heterosexual girls take at the vag before deciding on their sexuality? Do you think a same-sex experience helps us to grow?
I think people should do whatever they want. I believe that no one is entirely gay or straight, and that everyone has the potential to be sexually attracted to either sex if they open themselves up to that. So I think experimenting is a good thing, but I don’t think it should be forced, or that it’s necessary for sexual growth.
How do you find time to blog and maintain relations with your slaves?
The slaves don’t take up too much of my time. Just emails really. Although saying that, I’m going to meet my original slave—the one who paid my rent—for the first time this weekend! Ahh! I think I’m going to pee on him. He’s into that. (And so am I?)
What is your favourite rainy weather movies/ music?
I really love rom-coms. Can’t help it! Or I could watch The Dreamers over and over again and never get bored. A regularly masturbate thinking about having a threesome with Louis Garrel and Eva Green. For music, my default is always The Pixies.
What do you believe are the main benefits of blog writing?
Well I started writing the blog before I was a paid writer, and the blog was pretty vital in getting work at the start actually. I started writing for Vice because one of the editors thought my blog was funny, and I’ve been offered other writing jobs off the back of Slutever. But in general writers are paid pretty shit, just FYI!
You interviewed Harmony Korine and I’ve read that you’re a huge fan as am I, what draws you to his work and what would you consider your favourite Korine moment?
Weirdly, this morning on the subway I was sitting across from James Ransone—the guy who in Ken Park (which HK wrote) strangles himself with a tie and jerks off until he cums, which is one of my favorite Harmony Korine moments. Or at least it’s one of the hottest. I was literally staring at him thinking “Weird that I’ve seen you cum like 100 times.”
THNX KARLEY, YOU’RE AWESOME. Luv Lizzie xxx
I love you too Lizzie, maybe one day I’ll fingerbang you and we can listen to the Pixies together?*
*may or may not have made that last line up.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
SORRY SOCRATES - FANGS
Check the guys out on Facebook, check them out at Trashwolves on the 30th of April and make sure they get 100 likes on FB so Tommy wears a dress to Trashies.
SORRY SOCRATES
Sorry Socrates are a refreshing/exciting/bat shit Brisbane band who are playing a gig and getting trashed at Brisbane’s beloved Trashwolves club night with you on the 30th April. If they get to 100 likes on their Facebook page Tommy will wear a dress to their Trashies gig, so let this majestic occurrence happen, folks! I spoke to Tommy and Pawan about getting trashed at Trashies, Brisbane, their ideal Splendour line ups and more.
BUTTHOUSE: Give us the details for your Trashwolves show…
TOMMY AND PAWAN: 30th April, Stepp Inn in Valley. $10 on door. Glass towers! And cheap beers!
Have you been to a Trashwolves club night before?
Tommy: yeah! Pawan: Yup! It was pretty hectic.
Describe the loss of your Trashwolves virginity…
Tommy: After a painful day at work, got to enjoy the sounds of friends of ben as I walk in and quickly drink my first beer. Was a good moment personally.
Pawan: Well there was lots of cool people, we went to go see a friend DJ and we ended up pretty drunk and falling off stools. It was a mess.
That place can get pretty sweaty which is why we’re pretty keen to play there. Sweaty clubs suit us more than polished venues. We’ll play any house show as long as there’s beer for us and people to listen.
What can your listeners expect to happen at your gig?
Tommy: fuck.Yo.shit.up
Pawan: We have no clue yet, but we know that we’ll have a few new songs, and plenty of loose times. We’re gonna get loud and we’re gonna party.
What would you describe your genre as?
T: Post-Nothing
P: Electro noise punk with a danceable aesthetic
What are some of your inspirations?
T: Big booty bitches. Sonic Youth.
P: Health, Stature::Statue, At The Drive In. And a shit load of scotch. And Rekorderlig cider mmmmm.
Upon listening to your tracks online I felt like hurling, thrash dancing and pulling some bitches extensions out…what kind of activities do you want your music to induce in your listeners/audience?
T: pretty much that! … Maybe some tears
P: Hahahahahahaha mission accomplished but dancing/thrash dancing would be sick.
Did you have any expectations when you formed ‘Sorry Socrates’?
T: To lose more hearing
P: To have some fucked up fun and make people hurt things. But not kittens, I love kittens.
What are some of your favourite things about Brisbane either musical or non-musical?
T: The weather and that there’s transport outta here!
P: I like the winter here and all my friends are here. Plus its kinda awesome here. Prefer the Kingdom of Sweden though.
For the first time ‘Sorry Socrates’ listener where would you direct them?
T: Our unearthed page, just search us on google.
P: Our bandcamp! again search us in googz.
At a house party Sorry Socrates will be found…
T: Playing in the living room. Drinking in the bedrooms. Sleeping on the kitchen floor.
P:…then playing again at 5am to wake everyone up.
Which Brisbane bands do you guys appreciate?
T: I Heart Hiroshima, Violent Soho, The Cairos, Last Dinos, Cortez & The Crow. Just to name a couple or 5.
P: Cairos, Dinos, Stature, and Moon Jog.
We all know that Splendour in the grass 2011 is a fucking rip off and a kind of shitty line up too, name 5 artists that you’d sell limbs to see
T: SY, The Candyskins, JPNDRDS, George Gershwin, Bill Hicks.
P: Aint Bill Hicks dead? But I’d see: DFA 1979, JPNDRDS, Cult of Luna, Mercy Arms (again) and Mogwai
