Funk bruisers RUNK. and punk groovers The Trepids have a few things in common. They’re both emerging bands, they’re both regional, and they’re both acts you should bend your head around.
Following on from their joint show at The Loft in Warrnambool and ahead of the remainder of RUNK.’s Rush Hour tour, we hooked up Andrew Kinnear of The Trepids and Matt Murray of RUNK. for an indie band-on-band chat.
Nangs, gigs, and Mexican food: RUNK. and The Trepids discuss the ins and outs of starting up as an indie band in Australia.
Andy interviews Matt
ANDY: What are your opinions on the “Freak Tragic Nang Death”?
MATT: Obviously horrible news, it was super unlucky that they got a faulty cracker. The world needs safer nangs and nang related products. We must push for a safer nang experience #savethenangs
ANDY: Top five men you’d turn gay for?
MATT: The lead singer of The Trepids, Orlando Bloom, Leo DeCaprio, Paul Kelly and Cam from Modern Family if he was a real person.
ANDY: With two ‘main’ vocalists, is the responsibility for writing hooks or choruses shared or do you come to Jacob with a hook and he raps to that or that sort of thing?
MATT: These days a lot of the writing Jacob and I do together, we hang out a lot and Jacob always has lyrics written so when we come together things just happen. I didn’t start singing in RUNK. songs until we wrote YETI and that was one of the last songs we recorded on the EP. A lot of the time Jacob will have a few verses or a rough chorus and we’ll workshop it together then take what we have to the other two fellas and they’ll do their thing on it.
ANDY: What was it like starting a band in Warrnambool and coming up through a pretty small scene as opposed to Melbourne or Sydney?
MATT: Well I didn’t join the band until June/July of last year because the band’s previous drummer Yannick was an exchange student from Switzerland. When he got shipped back to ‘The Motherland’ the other boys and I started jamming and we became a thing! We got heaps of mad opportunities to play live in Warrnambool with the likes of The Bennies, The Hard Aches, Rozwell Kid and Foley. Jarrod Hawker at The Loft in Warrnambool helped us out heaps getting us those big support slots and sharing his infinite wisdom regarding the music industry with us.
ANDY: How does the band get ready for a show?
MATT: Most importantly it consists of us eating Mexican food. Jacob is very particular about his vocal warm up and breath control, I like to stretch my arms a bit and loosen up before we take to the stage, Tom plays the Read A Book, Tom riff crazy fast to warm up and Harry usually plays through a song or two with Tom in the band room. We used to obnoxiously yell a particular couple of lines from a particular song by DMX before we got on stage. That hasn’t happened for a while though, we’re much more grown up than that now (we’re not).
ANDY: What artists influence you as a drummer, songwriter and as RUNK?
MATT: Paul Kelly and Wil Wagner are both massive ones for me. In terms of drums, I used to listen to a heap of hardcore so 13-year-old me was always holed up in the garage trying to play metal with one kick pedal. All the music I listen to has had an influence on me as a drummer, I sort of base my style around drummers that I like. I guess my style is like a whole heap of different drummers in one not very good drummer, haha. Collectively Arctic Monkeys are a big influence along with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Rage Against The Machine and a bit of David Brent too.
ANDY: What gets played in the car on the way to a RUNK. show?
MATT: A good chunk of Mac Demarco, an unhealthy amount of King Gizzard and just the right amount of Kendrick Lamar with a hint of Danny Brown.
Matt interviews Andy
MATT: Who is your favourite band you’ve played with and why? (Tread carefully)
ANDY: I’d probably say Lukewarm Iced Tea, they’re pretty sweet. We played our first show with them and did our single launch with them, they’re really fucking cool.
MATT: What’s your most crazy/wild/fun live experience?
ANDY: Definitely supporting RUNK. at The Loft in Warrnambool, those boys go off!
MATT: Top five favourite albums of all time without thinking about it?
ANDY: OK Computer – Radiohead, Bleach – Nirvana, Doolittle – The Pixies, Throw Me In The River – The Smith Street Band and Knife Man – AJJ.
MATT: What’s your favourite venue you’ve ever played?
ANDY: I guess it depends pretty heavily on sound, I really like playing at The Bendigo Hotel but when we did our single launch at Bar Open we had a great sound guy so that was probably my favourite time we played a venue.
MATT: Whats on the horizon for The Trepids for the rest of 2017?
ANDY: We have a lot to do, we’ve got our EP that we’re working on at the moment that we’ll release with a run of shows. We’re probably going to work on a collaborative single or something for a bit of versatility or even work on a little tour early next year, if not late this year.
MATT: What’s the story behind your single Fiend for those who haven’t heard this ripsnorter of a track?
ANDY: I guess the whole EP Quarter Life Crisis is about the time after I left school living in Melbourne not doing very much, just being sad you know. I was living in Richmond just down the road from this little pawn shop. I was selling some guitar pedals in there one day and this woman came in and wasn’t looking in the best way and the guy there wasn’t very nice to her so I wrote a song to that sentiment. That’s about it, I guess.
MATT: Who has been the most influential band or artist throughout your life and journey as a musician? Elaborate.
ANDY: Definitely The Smith Street Band, I got into them the year I got out of school. It’s a bit cheesy to say they got me through some hard times, I really get behind the idea of just going for it, getting a band together and doing heaps of shows or just trying to play whenever you can. Just a really fucking cool band. Wil’s songwriting too has been a massive influence, just so brutally honest.
Catch RUNK. on tour:
