Slug Guts are not a band to fuck about with. Having been together for only six months, they put down their first LP, Down To The Meat, in seven hours for just $10! This Brisbane-based four-piece, whose influences are listed on MySpace as Pussy Galore andCaptain Beefheart, sound more like some ingeniously twisted blend of everything from surf to sledge that sounds as though they are blasting through walls as they play.
Heading down to Sydney as part of their Down On The Meat LP Tour, Slug Guts will be at La Campana with Nevada Strange and The Atrocities on Aug 28th, as well as playing Flip Out at The Manning Bar with Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Pink Reason, Naked On The Vague and more on Aug 29th.
Music Feeds: So, I heard Down To The Meat only cost $10? Tell me the truth, how did you get it that cheap and sounding so good, were there a few back-alley transactions to subsidise the process – if you catch my drift?
Slug Guts: JD used to work at the bus station, lifting bags, hustling, wastin time. He met this country music guy from Tamworth, Glenn Agnew, who worked on the opposite counter. He had come to Brisbane to record and had all this new equipment. So he said we could test it. Seven hours later we had an LP. The man is a genius. When Wolfmother came in to demo songs he told them to wait while we did our stuff. The man is a mindreader.
MF: Can you describe the recording process?
SG: We just went in and all played together. We knew what we wanted to do. We had been together as a band for six months and had no time or desire to fuck around.
MF: Your music has an appropriately gutty sound, what’s going through your head when you’re playing this stuff?
SG: Not a lot to be honest. Slug Guts is a reflection of four fuckups from a shitty town. We are a gang of sorts and write tunes all the time.
MF: How would you describe the live show?
SG: Interesting, fucked. Good. As tight as Dire Straits circa 1988?
MF: Do you have any pre-show rituals?
SG: We usually have a quick trip to the chemist but then we have, on occasion, in the afternoon before a show, gone hunting, mostly wild pigs.
MF: What are you guys like when you’re not playing music? Any secret obsessions or strange hobbies worth a mention?
SG: Not really, we are all mildly to ridiculously obsessed with records. Anything new or old that is fucked up and kills us. We spend way too much time in mine or JD’s damp shitty houses listening to tunes and getting fucked up.
MF: Most of the music I’ve heard coming out of Brisbane recently has been fairly upbeat and sunny like The Boat People, The John Steel Singers etc, is there much of a punk, garage, whatever the fuck you want to call it scene up there? Any bands you recommend our readers checking out?
SG: I think the two bands you mentioned don’t want anything to do with us.
Bands who we do hang out with:
Blank Realm- psych damaged family band ala Paron Sound, Trad Gras, Religious knives.
Cured Pink Radio- totally territorial Butthole Surfers style band
Teargas- japcore with a sex pest on vocals.
Off the top of my head. There is a few more.
MF: You’re signed to Stained Circles along with a bunch of other awesome acts, what’s it like to be signed to a label that’s so involved with supporting the scene?
SG: Daniel and Johanna do a great job. Looking through what they have put out – Jay Reatard, Pink Reason, Deaf Wish, and Eddy Current etc – it is an amazing label and certainly one of the most prolific and interesting in Australia. We didn’t want anyone else to put out our record in this country.
MF: As a band signed to an indie label do you feel at all as though there’s anything holding you back as a band in terms of the business side of the music world?
SG: We have no desire to experience the business side of the music world. Not being high and mighty but I can’t think of a single record that kills me time and time again which had anything to do with that other business world of music.
MF: Would you like to see anything change in the way the Australian Music Industry works?
SG: Once again, I feel like we are really removed from it, stained circles puts out our records, we book our tours, we book tours for friends bands to our town, we sleep on floors, we hire our own van, we drive our own van, we don’t act like complete prima donna arseholes all the time.
MF: You’re playing Flip Out Festival, who are you looking forward to seeing? Who should our readers be sure not to miss?
SG: Pink Reason, Eddy Current, Naked On The Vague, UV Race, Deaf Wish, Zond, Ooga Boogas, James Arthur’s Manhunt – wouldn’t miss any of them for the world.
MF: With Down To The Meat costing so little, can we expect another Slug Guts album soon?
SG: Once we get back from the ‘Down on the Meat’ LP launch/Flip Out tour, we have two weeks and then we are going in to record our second LP. The tentative title of which is ‘Howlin Drugs LP’. We are going all out on this one and doing it in two days.
MF: Is there anything else we should be keeping an eye out for?
SG: Look on our site for tour dates starting sep 27th.
Be sure to catch them at Flip Out at Manning Bar on Aug 29th
Tickets from: www.oztix.com.au Ph 1300 762 545 AND www.manningbar.com Ph 9563 6000) & the ACCESS Centre at the venue
