Formerly known as Driftwood, Mumbofish are the flailing four piece of Sydney rockers sliding off the back of a six month break. With a new name, a new sound and new tracks, they’re as prepped for re-entry as they’ll ever be.
Well versed on the live train at iconic local rock venues like Brighton Up Bar and Frankie’s Pizza, Mumbofish wouldn’t think of getting back in the game without a show on the calendar. Before they break out the new material at the Bald Faced Stag this Friday, we caught up with the rockers for a chat.
What have Mumbofish been up to for six months? Sydney is ready to find out this Friday, as the band boldly launches their newest cuts.
HAPPY: You’ve just come off a pretty long break, how’s it feel to have the wheels moving again?
MUMBOFISH: It feels really great! Right now everything’s feeling really fresh. We’ve got a bunch of new songs that we’ve only just started playing live. This upcoming show at the Bald Faced Stag will only be the second time we’ve played a lot of them for an audience. It’s a really exciting time to be getting up on stage because we don’t really know yet how a lot of our material is going to be received, and what the crowd favourites are going to be, which is a really refreshing feeling. And of course it’s also great to be going back to the older songs that our audience already know and approach them with a bit of a fresh take.
HAPPY: Why did you feel the need to take a break from gigging?
MUMBOFISH: Early last year our previous guitarist Nick left the band so that halted our progress for a bit until we found our new guitarist Ben. It obviously takes a bit of time to adjust and learn the back catalogue and to gel.
HAPPY: Were you just writing or throwing together a more fully realised live show too?
MUMBOFISH: While we didn’t take the break with the direct intention of doing either of those things, they both just kind of happened naturally. We took the time to get Ben adjusted and in that time a lot of new material started to surface, a lot of which felt quite different to our old stuff, and our style definitely felt like it was developing. And the next step was to work the new songs into our live show, so we had to spend a lot of figuring out where all of the new stuff fits in there.
It’s interesting you mention more fully realised live show because we’ve been thinking a lot about that. We’re trying to look at the set as a whole show, thinking about transitions between songs etc. rather than just getting up and playing a bunch of songs. That’s something we’re still working on refining and experimenting with but it’s a cool idea that’s exciting for us.
HAPPY: The releases have been in overdrive since you came back. Just how much material did you write?
MUMBOFISH: To give you an idea, about half of our live set at the moment is made up of new material that we wrote during that break – so a lot! There’s about seven or eight fully formed songs and then about that same amount again of new ideas in the works. It was a really creative time for us and we’re still riding on the back of that.
HAPPY: Did your name change represent something a little more than a name? Maybe a voyage into a different style than Driftwood?
MUMBOFISH: Definitely, especially with the line-up change and all the new material that we mentioned before. We wouldn’t say that it’s a total departure from our old sound but it’s definitely developed to a point where a name change felt right.
HAPPY: What’s a mumbofish anyway? A driftwood-dwelling river creature or something?
MUMBOFISH: That makes far more sense than anything we possibly could have come up with, so let’s go with that.
HAPPY: Which member of your band is most fish-like?
MUMBOFISH: It has to be Daniel because he drinks like one.
HAPPY: What can the dedicated Sydney punters expect at your upcoming gig at the Bald Faced Stag?
MUMBOFISH: Be expecting a lot of new material. This will be the first headlining show with this line-up so it’ll be an exciting night for us to play the new stuff live. Definitely not a case of us playing through a tired old set that we’ve played 50 times before. Our supports are Shnand, Just Breathe and Crooked Frames who are great local bands and good mates of our’s. We’ve been wanting this line up for a while so we’re really looking forward to it.
HAPPY: Any surprises in the works?
MUMBOFISH: We’ve got a busy couple of months ahead. Like we mentioned we’ve got heaps of new material, so we’ll be heading back into the studio at the start of April to record a couple more tracks with an aim of a big single release for the middle of the year and plenty of shows to support it. Right now its about honing in on our sound and trying do the songs justice by making the best recordings we can. Every time we go into the studio it’s a big learning experience so we’re keen to see the results.
HAPPY: And when can we expect some more news from Mumbofish?
MUMBOFISH: About the new recordings definitely in the next couple of months. We’re working hard on pre-production at the moment so can’t wait to share it once it’s finally done!
Mumbofish will be playing live at the Bald Faced Stag this Friday. Find all the details on the Facebook event.
