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It has been a while since Aussie punk rockers Frenzal Rhomb have released an album...but they have just released their 10th studio album , Cup of Pestillence and are hitting the road to play some shows including one on in Cairns.

We had a catch up and a chat with with Jay, the lead singer from Frenzal Rhomb and had a chat being a punk for 30 years, what its like to meet your heroes and the possibility of a duet with Russell Crowe in the future.

Jay Performing at The Big Day Out 2012 / photograph by Nathan David Kelly

(N) Hey, Jay, How are you today?

Hey, man, I'm very well. How are you?

(N) I'm fantastic.

You're in Cairns, so got to be pretty good.

(N) It's a beautiful sunny day and just the start of the right time of year.

(J) My God, I was snorkeling up a cape trib a little while ago. Bloody magic.

(N) Yeah, it's pretty nice. Where are you today?

(J) Just in the studio in Sydney. Yeah. Got a little recording studio down here and just been tracking some guitars, but it's a nice break on my ears talking to you.

(N) Well, thanks for taking the time to have a chat with me today.

(J) No worries.

(N) I was reading the Wikipedia page for Frenzal Rhomb as part of my research to our chat to you, and parts of it are actually very funny. Like, it just totally made my day.

(J) Oh, good. We do what we can .Yeah. I'm not sure how factual most of it is, but let's call it all true.

(N) The thing that really got me and made me laugh was the whole Jackie O story, which takes up such a big chunk of that page. But I got to say, reading it. You're not too wrong there about supporting Australian music.

(J) It's funny because I think more people talk to me about that 10 minutes phone conversation than any song that I've ever written. It was a little bit of a mountain out of a molehill, but for some reason gave me this platform to talk about my opinions on what was happening to Australian music at that time.

(N) Do you think Australian music is still in as challenging time? Because after you said that, you're like, go out, go and listen to Australian music, go to a pub, see a band.

(J) I reckon it is pretty healthy at the moment. I mean, thing about people like that is that they don't really realize that there's this whole other universe that exists without them and without their influence. So I think it was funny when they were sort of threatening to bury our band by never playing them on their commercial radio station. It was a bit of an empty threat because they never played us anyway.

Go and see stuff. And they wouldn't know who half of them were. I'm sure they didn't know who we were when we were talking to them. But yeah, I think it's pretty good at the moment. We've been playing a lot of shows, sort of post COVID, and people seem to be coming out again and loads of bands and like I said, I've got this little studio in Sydney and got lots of young punk bands coming through all the time and people doing real interesting stuff, I think it's going pretty good.

Lindsay McDougall from Frenzal Rhomb playing The Big Day Out 2012 / Photograph by Nathan David Kelly

(N) Yeah, I've noticed that. Just so much choice of gigs to go to at the moment and all the musicians that I've been able to see post COVID are just so grateful and happy to be playing again that the shows have just been magic.

(J) Yeah, it's a real relief. And I think for audiences to get all together in a room and have big sing alongs and stuff, it's pretty joyous.

(N) It's been funny in many ways, like, people forgot how to go to concerts.

Like, can we stand at the front? Can we dance around? Is this all allowed anymore?

(J) Yeah. Jump off the stage on top of each other.

(N) Now, you said you have lot of young punk bands come and play at your studio, which kind of leads me into a later question, because I think we're about the same age. I'm 47 and does that mean we're old punks now? What does that mean for us?

(J) Yeah, I think so. Age is all relative, I guess, but, yeah, as long as you're sort of keeping doing what you enjoy doing, which we definitely are.

We've just sort of finished this new album and I feel like it's sounding kind of fresher than ever. Really.

(N) So it's your 10th album, Cup of Pestilence, and it's just been released, your first album in six years. What's it like for you recording an album? What's your songwriting process? How does it all come together for you guys?

(J) It's pretty ridiculous. We were going to record about sort of three years ago, but then obviously the world stopped and we couldn't do it. But we sort of wrote about 60 demos for the songs for the album, so we had 60 songs to choose from by the end of it. Not sure if I should be really telling people that, because then they listen to the record, say, God, how did these make it? How bad were the other ones? Yeah, so we sort of we tend to go for quantity and then just sort of we have like an elaborate spreadsheet that we send around and everyone gets to vote on their favorite songs and whatever gets three votes or more automatically goes on the record.

(J) And then if that's not enough to make up half an hour's worth of music, then we'll all get a wild card so everyone can vote for their little pet song that they think is great and everyone else hates that gets on there.

(J) So that's sort of the process, but mainly we sort of try and write songs because there's pretty narrow boundaries. Like, we're not going to put out a jazz record or anything.

(N) Never say never, Come on.

(J) That's always challenging to write songs that are catchy and sound good and it's going to resonate somehow with at least with us and hopefully our audience and stuff within some pretty kind of tight boundaries.

So, yeah, it's good, it's always a challenge, but we got to go over to Colorado to record it with this guy, Bill Stevenson, who played in The Descendants and he was in Black Flag and stuff, so he's a bit of a legendary character in our world.

Yeah, it was great. We did the last three records with him over there and it's a bit of a mecca, that studio for bands with our fast, kind of melodic punk stuff, where people kind of tend to head over there from all sorts of different countries.

We go to this studio outside of Denver and sort of embedded ourselves in the process for three weeks, came back with a record.

Jay From Frenzhal Rhomnb performing at Big day Out 2012 Photograph By Nathan David Kelly

(N) They always say, don't meet your heroes. So what was it like recording an album with, I would imagine one of your heroes from Blackflag?

(J) Amazing. I mean. He's he's a real sweetheart, but he also he knows his knows his stuff, especially like, with, melodies and harmonies and stuff. Like, you know, Descendants wrote some of the catchiest songs, you know, in that genre for me ever written.

So it was great to go and go and work with him and just people that we trust that kind of know how to make that sort of music sound as good as it can. And they tend to always make us sound way tougher than we actually are.

That's always a good thing.

(N) I think this is a pretty classic Frenzal Rhomb punk rock album. And the thing about your albums for me is they just always have so much humor in them and also a kind of dark social commentary. Is this just how you see the world or what's going on with that? I think back to the early albums that I listen to with Genius or Punch in the Face it's always just so funny and I just kind of love it.

(J) Yeah, I guess when we're writing stuff, I sort of listen to a lot of more kind of political kind of stuff but then I don't feel like I can really write that effectively without sounding too earnest or something.

We always sort of hide it behind some gags. But yeah, it's funny because of the process with the 60 demos, the ones that end up making it, it's not necessarily for any one reason. So so we might have some songs that are a bit more serious that kind of didn't make it because the chorus wasn't catchy enough or something like that, or didn't resonate as well with the rest of the band, or for whatever reason.

So it's always. Kind of bit of a surprise when we actually get the record, we're like oh wow, those songs made it.

(N) The video clip for where drug dealers take their kids is pretty cool. And I was just interested who came up with this concept, who designed and illustrated it because I think it's a pretty cool video.

(J) It's our man. Fox. Fox Trotsky. He used to play in a band with me called Nancy Vandal. I played in a band with him and I played another band with him now called the Neptune Power Federation with my wife.

And he does a lot of our T shirts and stuff. He's sort of been a long term friend andartist and he's been doing those animated clips for us for a long time. And best thing about him is that he's really fucking cheap.

(N) He might hit you up for a pay rise after that.

(J) Yeah. Hope he doesn't read this.

(N) You've just announced a national tour including showing Cairns at the Tanks Art Centre on the 24th of June and you said on your website these are all on weekends so we can recover and get back to work and live our lives.

(J) Sounds like it was written by someone in the band with a job.
Well, I was going to say what is your day job? But I'm understanding probably now just do band  and record studio.

(N) That is your day job.

(J) Yeah, that's it for me.

Lindsay works on the radio down in wollongong and Gordy keeps himself busy somehow. Yeah, we're all doing different things and so trying to get everything to work around it. But we are all friends and it is always a good focal point for us and good excuse to get together and stuff, and who wants to go and see a band on a Tuesday?

(N) Yeah, it is a hard sell here in Cairns actually. So is this the first time you've played up in Cairns?

(J) No, we've played up there before. I want to try to think of the names of the venues that we played before, but I might get a confused play.

Was there a place with Jack in the title?

(N) There was a place called Johnno's. Which was a blues bar.

(J) We played there. We played Gilligan's.

(N) Oh, really?

(J) I reckon, yeah. Not for years, but yeah, we haven't been up there in ages. I like to get up there.

(N) Yeah. I couldn't remember when you last up here, so I was trying to put together whether where or did I miss it.

(J) It was probably on a Tuesday.

(N) You've been in a punk band for 30 years. How do you maintain the rage? How do you keep doing that?

(J)Look, I just really enjoy the music, so we always try and write music that we want to listen to. I guess the songs kind of keeps moving forward in the shows as well.

Like, the shows are always super fun and the audience always gives us a lot back and lots of sing alongs and that's a pretty little love in the room. While people appear to be beating the crap out of each other, they're actually enjoying each other's company, I'm sure. That's what keeps us rolling on. And somehow we've remained firm friends, which is probably a bit of a rarity after this long. Also, we just kicked out everyone that we didn't and but yeah, it's good. It's a strange thing to do with your life, but it's definitely fun.

(N) You mentioned the shows there and I just wanted you to kind of reflect on your career highlights because when I see who you've toured with in Australia and who you've toured with overseas, I get pretty jealous. It's a pretty awesome list of bands. So I was just wondering, what's one of your career highlights or just a moment that you're just like, wow, that's pretty awesome.

(J) Wow. I don't know. Playing some of those festivals and stuff, I guess you get to meet a lot of people, but, like you say, don't get too close to your heroes. But we always have a good bit of sport when we do those big shows with those big American bands.

You put me on the spot.

(N) Sorry, it is 30 years but that's all right. I was looking at no FX, and I'm like, Jeez, that would have been pretty crazy. That would have been good.

(J) It's good, but with any band, you do 50 shows with them, and by the end of it, you're like, I never want to hear this band ever again.

Singing is a real buzz. and working with Bill and stuff. I know I talked about that already, but yeah, for us to be able to go and do that at this age and having been a band for so long and to get such a good result out of it and just sort of hanging with those guys is your real privilege, I'm sure. As soon as I get off the phone, I'm going to think of 20 other things.

(N) That's the way it is sometimes. Hey, I've got to ask, has Russell Crowe called you yet about playing any of his indoor garden parties or what?

(J) Listen, he hasn't called us. His lawyers were in contact. But, yeah, there's actually an outside chance that that he might be playing a festival that we're playing on, because I feel like we could be friends.

I think ee could be friends. I'm a big fan of his movies. He might be a fan of some of our other songs.

(N) I know he's got up with Amy Shark recently. He might get up and duet with you, Jay.

(J) Yeah. We could either strike up a lifelong relationship or he could just beat the shit out of us. You know  a lot of those things might happen.

Hey, thanks for your time today.

No worries, man.

(N) Just before I let you go, the best show I ever saw you guys play was in 1997 at Melbourne Uni O week, you were supporting Spiderbait.

Frenzal Rhomb play Tanks Arts Centre on the 24th of June grab your tix HERE

Frenzal Rhomb's new album Cup Of Pestilence is out now you can grab a copy or a tshirt from their online store HERE