Melbourne’s favourite absurdist, conscientious, experimental metal outfit, Twelve Foot Ninja, broke crowdfunding records raising $52,600 to make a somewhat controversial anti-cyber bullying video for their song Ain’t That A Bitch, and to celebrate the achievement, they’ve announced a new tour.
The clip was the kind of epic only a band of Twelve Foot Ninja’s stature (no pun intended) could achieve, with cameos from a 7ft Alaskan bear and a Penthouse Pet. The tour will be no less epic, with French electronic/metal outfit The Algorithm joining TFN for their upcoming dates.
To find out more about this singular Melbourne outfit, ahead of their national tour, Music Feeds caught up with vocalist Kin Etik to learn 10 things we previously didn’t know about Twelve Foot Ninja, like their Power Rangers connection and guitarist Rohan’s strange and rare condition.
1. Originally, Stevic wanted to call the band ‘Tough Elf Alfalfa’.
The name didn’t stick and after a game of ‘would you rather..?’ with a mate, he decided upon Twelve Foot Ninja. When Stevic asked Russ what he thought of the name, Russ replied, “Yeah, it’s good…if you’re like, 7 years old!”. I’m not sure how Stevic convinced Russ, but he did!
2. Before every show, we get into a huddle.
Stevic will give us a sports-inspired motivational speech. We find that it helps us get into the right frame of mind to smash a show. We close with the collective mantra, “We’re not here to fuck spiders!”.
3. While on tour, we take photos of each other sleeping.
Usually these are taken when sleeping during plane trips. We have collectively amassed a lot of these photos. Everyone looks odd, but Damon particularly looks like a corpse when he sleeps.
4. Stevic has a strange reaction to caffeine.
He will only drink a little bit if he needs an extra boost before a show. He is always entertaining to watch, but his come-downs last a couple of days, and he can be pretty grumpy. I’m pretty sure I’ve witnessed him having an out-of-body experience on the stuff. Check out this video, for example:
http://youtu.be/e6Ql__ZlZsA
5. We have collaborated with other writers on some of our songs.
On 2 of the tracks from our debut album Silent Machine we collaborated with a French dude, Nicolas Jeanney. He grabbed our attention with his metal covers of pop songs online. For our backing harmonies, we have collaborated with a bearded, telepathic pigeon named Francis. He’s an alcoholic, but writes some great stuff and is quite a hit with the ladies.
6. Stevic once did some session guitar work for ‘Power Rangers’.
In fact, his first paid session as a guitarist was playing on the soundtrack for an entire season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
7. I (Kin) was once a voice-over artist.
I loaned my voice to over 100 advertisements for companies such as Nintendo, Red Rooster, and Coca-Cola. I also appeared as a local hooligan on local ‘Aussie Drama’ Blue Heelers for 5 episodes.
8. Twelve Foot Ninja is not a democracy.
Most of our major decisions like “Who will use the bathroom first?” or “Who will sleep where in the hotel room?” are settled with a game of ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’.
9. Not everyone knows this, but Rohan suffers from a serious condition.
Every time a camera flash goes off, his hand involuntarily flips the bird. See here for example.
10. There are actually 12 things that you may not know about Twelve Foot Ninja.
I’ll save the other 2 for another time.
See Twelve Foot Ninja on their upcoming ‘Troll Burger’ tour, which kicks off later this month – all details below, or check out our Tour Guide.
Twelve Foot Ninja ‘Troll Burger’ Tour
Friday, 21st March 2014
The Zoo, Brisbane
Tix: Via Twelve Foot Ninja | Oztix
Saturday, 22nd March 2014
Miami Tavern, Shark Bar, Gold Coast QLD
Tix: Via Twelve Foot Ninja | Ticketmaster
Thursday, 27th March 2014
ANU Bar, Canberra
Tix: Via Twelve Foot Ninja
Friday, 28th March 2014
Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle NSW
Tix: Via Twelve Foot Ninja | Big Tix
Saturday, 29th March 2014
Manning Bar, Sydney
Tix: Via Twelve Foot Ninja | Oztix
Friday, 4th April 2014
170 Russell, Melbourne
Tix: Via Twelve Foot Ninja | 170 Russell | 1300 724 867
Friday, 11th April 2014
The Gov, Adelaide (All Ages)
Tix: Via Twelve Foot Ninja | Oztix
Saturday, 19th April 2014
Rosemount Hotel, Perth
Tix: Via Twelve Foot Ninja | Oztix | Heatseeker
