Teen Archer Interview

Over the weekend Zac found a christmas gift voucher for bowling and took Teen Archer to Crown Casino. We spent the $70 on beers and bowling, it was a good time.

A= Alex Macfarlane - Drums for Teen Archer

G= Gus Lord - Bass and Vocals for Teen Archer

J= Jack Petty - Mainframer

Z= Zac Oblivian - Mainframer

Alex & Gus

Z: So how long have you guys been playing for now?

G: We started in October last year, so it's like exactly a year ago since we started.

Z: I've noticed you guys play a lot of shows with bands that you don't sound at all alike- you also play a lot of different venues and don't seem to be playing in a certain scene.

G: It just kind of came about as a thing of just being stoked at the fact that we could actually play a show.

A: I think it's because the people that run the shows on the internet are really polite and so people who are offering us any gigs, we'll just sort of take it.

G: And it's only recently that we've started to organise our own shows, so really any good bands we've played with is really by default so we've been lucky.

A: You know the fact that we're overage now has made it pretty cool in that we can have more beer fuelled shows. As opposed to our parents having to drive us to every gig.



J: So are there many bands you guys haven't played with that you want to?

G: Yeah i'd love to see us play with Deaf Wish, actually any of the Flip Out bands really. We're all listening to Royal Headache at the moment.

Z: So i guess Flip Out was probably the biggest show you've played so far, what was it like being involved?

A: Yeah it was a really cool day you know, but it was funny we all kind of had this moment when we watched Pink Reason were we felt our band was just so insignificant under the weight of their heavy avant. Maybe because they have meaning behind their songs.

J: At their Sydney warehouse show, they made a guy pass out. Like we were watching and i was like "Man i feel a bit ill" and this guy actually dropped to the ground. I guess it was just too much for him or something.

Z: You know that's funny because at that show i thought the beer really got to me, that Reches will do it every time.

A: Yeah we were drinking Toohey's New which i hadn't had before and it was alright.




Z: Best gig?

G: We played a house show a while ago that was sick.

A: Yeah that was awesome.

G: We played a show with Useless Children and Super Wild Horses, that was cool too.

A: That gig was particularly good because we saw the other bands do such good sets.

G: It's pretty rare for us to stick around and watch the other bands purely because, well we discussed that eariler.

J: Worst?

G: The worst, yeah i'd been at a staff party at Strike, bowling! There was a huge bar tab and i got incredibly wasted. We were playing at a Streetparty event- Pogo or something.

J & Z: Fuck that.

G: We thought since it was Streetparty we'd be stupid about it and get face masks.

A: Which all broke before we got onstage.

G: Yeah so we ended up playing in our underpants. I broke my bass and amp. I don't know if i broke someone elses amp exactly but it did stop working while i was playing it. So that was pretty bad, especially for me because the other guys were sober.

Z: How did the Streetparty crowd take you?

G: Surprisingly alright, there was a couple of hipsters up the back- arms crossed.

A: There was a few real rowdy kids up front rocking out. One of them came up to me and was like "You guys sounded like Pantera!" and put his arm around me.

G: We get alot of weird comparisons at gigs like, "Oh you guys sound like Blue Oyster Cult! or Turbonegro!" and my mum does it too, she's like "Oh i can hear the blues in that!" and she has no idea what she's talking about.


Z: You guys haven't had Calum on sax in the band the whole time, was that something you wanted to add for a while or did it just happen?

G: We thought about it but it was hard to find the right sax player because their either like classically trained and have the wrong idea or their completely shit and can't play but have the right idea. So luckily Calum falls somewhere in the middle of that.

J: He doesn't play on every song, how do you guys figure out when to have him?

A: Well it's kind of like when he come up with a good line or something.

G: I see it as we have our 4/4 punky stuff and then the more rhythmic bass driven thing and thats usually where he slots in there.

Z: Anything coming out soon?

G: We've got our 10 inch coming out which is being pressed as we speak.

A: And it's gonna be on like swirly textured vinyl which is like the offcuts of other bands vinyl. Which means we got a discount on it, so it's gonna look really cool. I'm just hoping there won't be other bands music on it on bits of it.

J: How did recording go for that?

G: We did it about 8 months ago, we're ready to release something else. But we self funded it so it was really expensive and it was in a particularly expensive studio as well.

Z: And who's putting it out?

G: EXO Records, which has stuff like Bachelor Of Arts, The Night Terrors and Alex's other band Breaker Morant. It was funny because Bachelor Of Arts asked us to play a show and we thought we totally fucked it up but Kody came out after and asked us to go with them.

Jack & Gus

Thanks to Alex and Gus of Teen Archer

Go to Exo Records for more info.