Interview by Erin Eddy
There aren’t too many bands that are as Australian as Frenzal Rhomb. The tongue-in-cheek humour, the larrikin antics, the accented vocals, and the disorderly, rowdy energy are all traits synonymous with the punk rockers, who have been spreading their infectious high jinks and raucous music for 31 years now.
Here at HEAVY, we took advantage of a moment with guitarist Lindsay McDougall while he was on the job at ABC Radio, Illawarra.
“I’m speaking to you on the ABC’s dime; That’s right, this is taxpayer-funded right now!” Lindsay cheekily told us.
The purpose of our chat was to speak about the upcoming Spring Loaded Festival, which Frenzal Rhomb is featured on, as well as Lindsay himself being the MC for the event. But it’s hard to speak with someone like Lindsay, from a band with as much history as Frenzal, and not slide a little off track and reflect on days past, especially if you’re a long-time fan.
In the following interview, you’ll hear discussion on the 2001 Big Day Out, stealing Killing Heidi’s vodka, their VHS The Travelling Flea Circus and anecdotes about past experiences touring overseas.
When we did speak of Spring Loaded, Lindsay expressed that the familiarity of sharing the lineup with old friends is a definite joy.
“It’s nice playing with a bunch of old pricks that have the same level of cynicism as us,” he jokes, “I do wonder where the high jinks on this tour will come from and from which bands will the nonsense originate from. I’m excited to see who in the Shihad camp gets unnecessarily drunk by the end of it!”
Given that this festival is stacked with a lineup to make any 90s kid froth, we asked Lindsay whether Frenzal Rhomb’s set was likely to be more geared toward a nostalgic vibe.
“Nah, fuck that!” he laughs. “We do a lot of new stuff. We love not relying on nostalgia. We use nostalgia, we’ll pull it out, but we’ve just put a new album out, and we’ve loved playing songs from the new album at the last couple of shows that we’ve done. So if you’ve come to see us play just songs from Not So Tough Now, bad luck!”
The new album Lindsay speaks of is titled The Cup Of Pestilence. It was released only last month, and Lindsay says the songs are more involved and complex than ever.
“We wrote really hard songs to play and to sing,” he smiled. “They seem to be only getting more difficult, too. Because we’ve all been playing instruments for long enough, Jason knows he can get away with writing these really hard songs for us to play.”
If you’re in the area, make sure you head to Sandstone Point for the Spring Loaded Festival at Sandstone Point Hotel this Saturday, June 3. Tickets are still on sale and can be purchased via Ticketmaster or Oztix.
And if you can’t make it to Spring Loaded, Frenzal Rhomb will be on the road across the country as they continue to tour their latest record The Cup Of Pestilence, so keep an eye out for dates near you.
Have a listen to our full interview with Lindsay to get the complete scoop on all of this and more!
