The beauty of BIGSOUND’s music program is the fact that it brings excitingly different acts together in one place, just like Sonic Reducer and Immy Owusu.
In one corner, you’ve got a punk rock four-piece whose energetic live shows have made them one of the most exciting bands to come out of Canberra in a long time.
In the other corner, you’ve got Owusu, an artist who draws influences from Zamrock and Afrobeat and was described by BBC Radio as “the very definition of culture clash.”
When they came together for a fun conversation before BIGSOUND 2024, mutual respect was quickly evident. “I really love your covers and stuff. I love the aesthetic,” Owusu told the Sonic Reducer bandmates, Cormac, Lachlan, and Louie (they’re joined in the band by Felix, who was unavailable for the interview).
The trio returned the favour in kind, telling Owusu how keen they were to see the genre-bending artist’s BIGSOUND set.
Read Sonic Reducer and Owusu’s full chat below.
Those attending BIGSOUND this week can catch Sonic Reducer at Ric’s Backyard tonight (September 4th) at 11:15pm local time and at Tomcat the following day (September 5th) at 11:30pm local time. Owusu has one showcase left, taking place at Wonderland Upstairs tonight at 7:30pm local time.
Immy Owusu Meets Sonic Reducer:
Cormac (C): Do you want us to go for it?
Immy (I): Yeah. Go for it – easy peasy.
C: My name’s Cormac, by the way. That’s Lachlan (LA) and that’s Louie (LO). The other member is sadly absent. So, yeah, my first question was do you have any rituals when it comes to writing? Like, do you find that you need to be in a specific headspace to write usually? Or do you kind of find that you channel wherever you’re at into how you do it, you know?
I: Oh, that’s a great question. I think writing is like fishing – there might be fish in the pond one day. And if you don’t catch it, they might be gone the next day. So, I think it was Mick Jagger [who] always carried a tape recorder around with him and he recorded everything and yeah, he woke up in the middle of the night, had like “Satisfaction” in his brain, recorded it, and then went back to sleep. So that’s what I think, you always gotta be ready to go.
C: 100%.
I: You’re putting on the best gig the world has ever seen – who’s playing at it, who’s playing at your show, and you’re headlining?
C: We can’t set ourselves up too bad with, like, having the best opener ever.
LA: Yeah.
C: [to LA] Who would be your ideal?
LA: I was gonna say – you see Oasis got back together.
C: Yeah good timing.
LA: Yeah, do you think we’d get them?
C: Yeah, they’d definitely be down to support for sure.
LA: What do you reckon Louie?
LO: Not gonna lie, I was gonna say Oasis as well. I feel like if we’re putting on the coolest thing ever, there would have to be more than just a bunch of bands that sound like us.
C: Exactly. I think The Specials would be in there for me. Yeah, Oasis and The Special is probably the go.
I: It’s like the London lineup for you guys.
C: England-centric for today. Lou, do you want to take the next one?
LO: Yeah, sure. What do you like to do after playing a set? How would you kind of wind down, if you’re even winding down?
I: If I’m near the ocean, I always love to go for a swim.
C: That would be nice.
I: Yeah, that’s a great, great way to wind down. I used to, you know, do the whole cigarette/vape thing. But these days I think I’d rather do a nice ocean swim if I can, if I can be healthy.
LA: What’s the best place to do that?
I: An ocean swim? Like, I don’t know, probably somewhere with an ocean, you know?
[All laugh]
LA: True, true words.
I: You guys are from Canberra, hey?
LA/LO/C: Yeah.
C: So we don’t, we don’t experience that [ocean swims] too often.
I: Fair enough. Speaking of, what’s your favourite musical act from Canberra or the most notable one that you guys really like?
C: I’d have to be quite biased and say my sister’s band Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers. I’m a big fan of them. I also think Mr. Industry, they’re in Melbourne right now. I love them. Spouse are great. There’s all sorts of good bands cropping up out of Canberra.
LA: Can definitely say Mr. Industry for me, they’re a big favourite of mine.
LO: I was going to say Mr. Industry too. Like, even though they’re now a Melbourne band, they’re definitely still Canberra in my mind.
I: I don’t think I’ve heard of them.
C: Yeah, they’re really cool. Their live shows are fucking hectic.
I: Epic.
LA: What influences you the most in the music you make?
I: That’s a great question. I think my first ever influences were a lot of African American, like blues/rock artists like Howling Wolf. They’re my big influences and, you know, Jimi Hendrix and stuff like that too. I grew up playing a lot of rock music and stuff then I got into African music after that. But, yeah, my first influences were definitely like Little Richard and Chuck Berry and Howling Wolf and all those guys… Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
C: Oh yeah.
I: Where did you get your band name from?
C: Lachie came up with the idea – it’s the name of an old punk song by the Dead Boys. [It] has a really good guitar intro and shit and we’d listen to that a lot at the time. We were in college when we were kind of talking about it a lot and there was a good while were we were going to change it and we were like, “Oh, yeah, it’s a placeholder name,” and then we kind of just did too many gigs under it and then were like, “You know what, it’s staying.” We’re all pretty pleased.
LO: It also reminds me of Sonic Youth, which is like the coolest band name ever. And The Sonics.
C: All the GOATs.
LO: I was gonna ask a question about African music specifically because I listened to your record earlier today. I found that with a lot of the stuff, the Zamrock influence really comes through, especially on the production. And I was gonna ask, can you see them kind of becoming more popular and occupying a larger space in Australian music or Western music more broadly?
I: I mean, that’s a good question. I never imagined them doing that, but it seems like there’s a bit of a trend to maybe that happening. Because a lot of people are really getting into Zamrock, especially at the moment. And then you have a lot of artists like Khruangbin at the moment who are sort of taking a lot of influence from that type of music. I think that’s really exciting for me. So I could definitely see that happening. If not now, maybe in a few years. I have a feeling it might be more of an underground thing for a little bit. Okay, personal question. What is your guilty pleasure to listen to?
C We were talking about this on a drive.
LA: Yeah, we were talking about this not too long ago.
C: I think for me it’s like Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, you know. Like the really trashy eighties, stuff like that. I don’t want people to know I listen to [it] but it’s kind of fun.
LA: Mine’s horrible – I think [it] would be something like Limp Bizkit or something.
LO: For me it’s kind of similar to the Limp Bizkit one. But worse. It’s like 2000s ‘butt rock’, like Creed. Shit like that.
I: Have you seen that meme with the girl and she’s crying because her boyfriend’s singing Creed in the shower?
C: That’s like how it is.
LA: That’s how we wake up after every gig when in the hotel room when Louie’s in the shower blasting “Higher” by Creed.
I: Hey, man, I love that. Speaking of nu-metal, I think Korn was like the first rock/metal band I ever listened to as a kid. [The] breakdowns in “Freak on a Leash” [are] just so good.
C: Yeah, for sure. I was gonna say as well, I feel like when I was younger I totally gravitated to that super early rock and roll sort of sound as well. I feel like it gets stick for being a bit dated, but especially when you’re young and don’t have context of current music trends, it’s so exciting to hear those early guitar riffs and stuff, you know.
I: Yeah, absolutely.
C: Do you think you’ll continue exploring the sort of sounds you have been in your last album or is there a specific genre or sound or influence that you’re really keen at the moment to kind of dive into?
I: I think I’m sort of keen to just keep refining what my sound kind of sounds like. I kinda wanna go back to a little bit more of the Zamrock sort of stuff that I was sort of starting to do before my album. I really love the Zamrock stuff, so I’d love to explore a bit more fuzzy stuff, heavy fuzz stuff. That’s what I love listening to, so that’s kind of what I want to bring out a bit more.
C: Yeah, I was listening a bit earlier to Witch. I feel like you can hear so much of that in contemporary music right now as well. Like it still sounds very modern.
I: I actually got to meet Witch at the start of the year, they came and toured in Melbourne. That was cool because that was like the first Afro-rock band I’ve ever listened to, and so that was crazy.
LO: Yeah, that would be amazing.
I: I had a similar question with you guys, because I was listening through your music, which is so dope. I really love your covers and stuff. I love the aesthetic.
LO: Oh, thank you so much.
I: It’s so much, it’s epic. And you guys look like you kill it live as well, so I’d be keen to see the showcase.
C: 100%… likewise.
I: But yeah, where do you see yourselves developing in the next post-BIGSOUND chapter?
C: Oh, I think there are a lot of things. I think we’re all super excited about different sounds. I feel like there’s a lot of areas we kind of want to tap into. For me, I’d love to play around with some kind of stranger sounds… just not limiting ourselves in any way.
LO: On one part we get classified as a punk band a lot and it is how we describe ourselves and stuff. But I think we’re also very keen and eager to experiment with a whole bunch of stuff. Even like 2000s indie rock like The Strokes and The Libertines and stuff.
C: Exactly, yeah. We kind of were of the mindset that punk music doesn’t really have too much of a specific sound. You know what I mean? There’s a lot of variety within it.
LA: Yeah, there’s a lot of room I think to kind of experiment in whichever sort of direction we want to take it.
I: Yeah, that’s sick. That’s awesome.
LA: So, what’s one of your favourite venues or cities or places that you’ve played at before?
And if you haven’t already, what would be your favourite place or dream place to play at?
I: Oh, that’s a great question. For me, I think one of my favourite places to play would be The Evelyn in Melbourne. It’s just a pretty iconic venue. A lot of artists that I really like kind of started out [in] that space, which is really cool. But that being said, I did play the Gershwin Room the Espy in St Kilda in Melbourne. That was like where AC/DC and all those guys first started playing. But it’s been super gentrified and stuff.
La: Yeah, it’s a bit fancier now. I feel like I went there not too long ago.
I: I don’t know how I feel about those spaces. But yeah, The Evelyn is pretty cool. And I’d really love to play Meredith, which is a music festival in Victoria because it’s probably my favourite music festival I’ve ever been to.
C: Is there a specific type of music at the festival?
I: It’s sort of artistic, boutique. And it’s a nice place – you know with festivals, you have to go from stage to stage to stage? At Meredith, the festival is just like one stage. You can bring your couch with you.
LA: Very down to earth.
C: Yeah, 100%. I always get so worn out at festivals from just the trekking.
LA: That’s because they never let us bring our own couches in Canberra.
I: What’s your favourite acts that you’ve played with?
C: That’s a hard one.
LA: I think for me it could have been The Empty Threats who we shared an opening spot with on one of the shows for the Teen Jesus tour. Yeah, they were just really great. They were really, really fun to hang out with like between sets and stuff and also just their performance in their set was just like the most spectacular thing to watch. It was just amazing.
C: I think the Cosmic Psychos were great as well. We did like three gigs with them – was it earlier this year or was it last year?
LA: That might have been the end of last year.
C: Either way, we did three gigs with them and that was super fun. Just super friendly guys and really good gigs.
LO: I think for me it was a really small gig, but I absolutely love the headlining band. It was this Argentinian band called Boom Boom Kid. That was a fucking mental show. Their performance is just absolutely off the rails and they made this room that had like maybe seven audience members in it feel like you were in like a stadium show… it was just fucking awesome.
I: OK, rad. That’s so cool. Yeah, I used to love Cosmic Psychos.
C: I had to carry Lou out of the pub that night, we all got way too drunk.
I: Fair enough, that’s the place to do it though – last night playing with the Psychos. Like you gotta do it.
I: Yeah, exactly. Did I see you guys supported Private Function as well? Was that something that happened?
LO: We were going to, it got cancelled. I think they had to cancel that tour because I think one of the members was sick or had an emergency or something. I think the idea is they’re just gonna do a national tour for that album next time they’re available.
C: Hopefully that pulls through, we’d love to play with them at some point.
Lo: Yeah, they’re amazing.
C: Do you have a pre-gig meal? What do you like to eat when you’re on the road?
I: It’s the absolute worst, but you know, Chicken Parmi.
LA: Chicken Parmi – that’s respectable.
I: Where I grew up they say Parmi. I know some people like to say Parma, but I say Parmi.
La: Nah, I’m settling on Parmi.
C: Yeah, it’s Parmi.
I: What’s one thing that you guys love doing when you’re on tour or on the road somewhere as a crew?
C: Probably eating sandwiches for some reason. We get a lot of sandwiches.
LA: We wanna find which city in Australia has the best sandwiches. And right now I think Sydney is looking like the winner.
LO: Yeah, it’s sandwiches and then it’s fucking Taco Bell. I don’t know why. I think it’s the novelty being from Canberra and not having it. Every time we go to a city with Taco Bell, we just need the Crunch Wrap.
I: What’s the best sandwich in Sydney? Just asking for a friend.
C: I think it’s Oti. It’s this place in central that we’ve gone to. They just do real good mortadella sandwiches. I’m sure there are probably better places out there, but alas we haven’t had the chance to get into the weeds of it for now.
LA: For now, we’re holding that place as the champion. We’re holding that one as the greatest.
I: That’s sick. Well, awesome to meet you guys. Hopefully I run into you guys at BIGSOUND somewhere. I’d love to come to the showcase for sure.
C: Definitely. We’ll have to find it at some point.
