Anchors

31 January 2011 | 9:03 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

Melbourne Tarago Punx Anchors have recently capped off their debut studio album, entitled 'Bad Juju' and are fast approaching a spot at Melbourne's All Age Pushover Festival as well as some dates with international melodic hardcore superstars No Trigger. Pat from the band answered a few questions for us. 

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Melbourne Tarago Punx Anchors have recently capped off their debut studio album, entitled 'Bad Juju' and are fast approaching a spot at Melbourne's All Age Pushover Festival as well as some dates with international melodic hardcore superstars No Trigger. Pat from the band answered a few questions for us. 

First off, what's your name and role in Anchors, and name three people you'd like to smack?

Pat, guitar, I think that all three members of Jet probably need a good dose of heroin now their music career is in its twilight.

You've just self-released your debut full-length Bad Juju. How are people responding? Songs for Lily is a pretty hard act to follow.

The response to Bad Juju has been great, in that people are paying money for it and leaving 15-20 word bits of kudos on our facebook. I’m still copping a fair bit of heckling live though, so obviously it’s not that good.

Musically and otherwise, what has influenced the writing progress of the album?

Letting Chris Lyon (the other guitarist) get more fruity with his riffs. I can’t even believe that some things (Bad Juju, and the second half of We are Oscar Mike for example) made it onto the album because some of the twiddly stuff and the nu-metal beats are so far removed from what we would previously have written.

Musically we hadn’t been listening to anything different, although you can probably tell the difference between songs written by Chris (tracks 3-7) and tracks written by me (the rest) because we come from fairly separate musical places…

How do you feel about the way live music in Melbourne is headed, especially considering the pending closure of the Arthouse?

Positive. There’s heaps of good bands around at the moment, and even though I badmouth other venues all the time, The Tote just invested in a fantastic PA, and heaps of other pubs are finally getting their act together. We will never have another venue in Australia that is as easy to deal with or as accommodating for band and audience, and we will never have a place that is as much fun to play, but you gotta keep moving forward I guess…

Being a Melbourne band, you guys have played the pubs here quite a few times, as well as having toured the east coast. Any plans to head way out west to Perth any time soon?

Yes, but it’s a big gig and it’s gonna take time.

Pushover is coming up in March, are you looking forward to a different vibe in a festival setting?

Yeah it’s gonna be weird, the fact that it’s a day gig is going to be the biggest hurdle, we just played a day show for Australia Day and I ended up cursing the crowd, venue, country and various NGOs… I get a little grumpy during the day so I’m gonna have to work on that.

That said, I’m so fuckin excited for this it’s not funny. This was the first festival I ever went to way back in ’01 and I started playing in bands straight after. Ten years later I feel like I’m coming full circle - like Pennywise.

Do you feel like it’s going to be different in any way from shows you've played before? Considering the All Ages nature of Pushover, do you think the younger kids will show up for you?

Yeah younger kids don’t mind us, after they get over the initial shock of us not sounding like Amity… I think cos we don’t sound like all the shit mosh bands they are usually subjected to they give us a chance even if they don’t like us that much…

AND we’re playing before m/IEXISTm/ so there should be about 6000 people trying to get barrier position / prime windmilling space.

Pushover is renowned as a bit of a melting pot for a few different genres, do you think you'll be converting any of those damn hipster kids?

Not a chance. If someone’s going there to see Illy or Stonefield, I’d probably rather they leave hating us…

Do you have a favourite venue to play at?

Arthouse hands down. The Brisbane Hotel in Hobart is a close second.

Surely the studio must have been a bit stressful at some point. I'm not sure how long you spent recording the album; if you had time to go crazy or not, but do you have any funny stories from during the recording process?

It was definitely stressful, nothing really funny, mostly just shouting or tense silence. It was probably one of the least funny experiences of my life.

You guys are playing with No Trigger soon. Thoughts and feelings? Nervous? Keen to impress?

No Trigger are one of our main influences, so I hope they don’t think we’re shit. I’m looking forward to taking them to the pie shop in Horsham on the way to Adelaide. The only thing I’m nervous about is Tony our bass player fainting before the show out of pathetic fanboy excitement

You’re stuck on a desert island, 5 albums. Go.

Propagandhi – Potemkin City Limits
NOFX – So Long and Thanks for all the Shoes
Chris Wollard & The Ship Thieves LP
Shai Hulud – That Within Blood Ill Tempered
Sommerset – Fast Cars, Slow Guitars

Any last words or shout outs?

Everyone can get fucked.

Except for Sean Callanan from Face Eater, who’s filling in for us on guitar in Adelaide.

www.myspace.com/faceeaterhc