{"id":78524,"date":"2022-11-14T15:14:41","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T21:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=78524"},"modified":"2022-11-14T15:14:41","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T21:14:41","slug":"levitation-interviews-tropical-fuck-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2022\/11\/14\/levitation-interviews-tropical-fuck-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"LEVITATION INTERVIEWS: Tropical Fuck Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-78524-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Tropical-Fuck-Storm-Interview-Final.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Tropical-Fuck-Storm-Interview-Final.mp3\">https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Tropical-Fuck-Storm-Interview-Final.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><strong>Participants<\/strong>:<br \/>\n<strong>Keller Welton<\/strong>: Programming Director, KJHK<br \/>\n<strong>Maddy Lehr<\/strong>: Assistant Music Director, KTSW San Marcos<br \/>\n<strong>Tropical Fuck Storm<\/strong>: Gareth \u201cGaz\u201d Liddiard, Fiona Kitschin, Lauren Hammel, Erica Dunn<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Maddy<\/strong>: How has Austin been for you guys?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: We just got here! I\u2019ve spent the whole time trying to get you guys in.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Erica<\/strong>: We\u2019ve only been here a couple of hours, I wore my 13th Floor Elevator socks for luck.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Maddy<\/strong>: Is this your first time at LEVITATION?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Fiona<\/strong>: Yeah yeah, we played Austin in 2019?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Keller<\/strong>: Was 2019 the first time you guys were in the US?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Fiona<\/strong>: No, it was 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Keller<\/strong>: What was coming to the US for the first time like for you guys?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: I think most of us had been here before. Ya know it&#8217;s like being on TV, cause ya grow up seeing all the American TV shows.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Keller<\/strong>: Was it everything you\u2019d hoped?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: Yeah, it was everything we\u2019d hoped, and less, which is good. It\u2019s better than it sounds. But um yeah, we had only been a band for about three months, maybe even less, before we came to the US. We came with Gizz.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Hammel<\/strong>: We only had, what, two or three original songs, so we filled the set with covers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Keller<\/strong>: What kind of covers were you doing?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Fiona<\/strong>: Fugazi?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: Burning by Fugazi, Lose The Baby by Lost Animal, Taman Shud by The Drones, Natural Family by The Nation Blue. A lot of the B-sides of the first couple 7\u2019\u2019s were covers. So covers and maybe like two or three originals. We just didn\u2019t have time to write anything.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Keller<\/strong>: What are some artists that you guys find particularly inspiring for your sound?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: Wow that&#8217;s a big one. We all listen to lots of stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Erica<\/strong>: Captain Beefheart! Roky Erikson\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: Everything. If it\u2019s good.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Hammel<\/strong>: I think that&#8217;s one of the good things about having such diverse tastes in music between the four of us. We\u2019re not all just rock nerds, or punk. We all listen to heaps of different things and we are all constantly showing each other new bands. Ya know I\u2019ll listen to something for a year and then never touch it again. But if I happen to be listening to something weird while we are writing, then of course it\u2019s going to have an influence on our music, it&#8217;s constantly changing. It\u2019s not just that we have staples of bands we love that we are always reaching for.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Keller<\/strong>: One of the things I find most interesting about Tropical Fuck Storm is that you guys just don\u2019t sound like anyone else, ever, period. And your Spotify bio is, \u201cmusic for people who are tired of the same old shit,\u201d how do you separate yourselves from the \u201csame old shit\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: One thing that we have in common is that we all like music with spirit. It could be classical music, it could be Hungarian folk music, or punk rock. If it\u2019s got spirit, even if it\u2019s cringy, we like some cringy stuff. We\u2019ve all played in bands for ages, so we\u2019re just trying to do something different to amuse ourselves. It\u2019s fun when you make something new and you\u2019re like, wow. And we try to make music ya want to listen to, but also something you\u2019ve never heard.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Hammel<\/strong>: And there&#8217;s no point in starting a new band if you\u2019re just gonna do the same shit as everyone else is doing. There&#8217;s plenty of bands out there. No one needs another rock band, no one needs another pop-punk bank, no one needs another blues band. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s just boring to be doing that shit, so just test yourself and try to make some new cool, weird shit and see what happens I guess.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Keller<\/strong>: Another thing I find interesting about y\u2019all is the writing, the lyrics and imagery you use, and stuff like that. Where does this come from? Who or what inspires that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: I mean the main one is Bob Dylan. And then there&#8217;s a million others. Marty Sparrow, Jonathan Richman. That&#8217;s another thing that we just try to do differently than everyone else. Ya just gotta mess with it until it\u2019s good. Everything starts out as teenage poetry, which is a problem, and eventually you fix the problem.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Hammel<\/strong>: Gaz also has a master list of random things people have said, or things he\u2019s heard. That gives us a thing to look to when we are writing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: There&#8217;s a few rules, not many. Leonard Cohen said it&#8217;s not a tree, it&#8217;s a pine tree or an oak tree. Give the people a little more information. Spruce it up ya know? Like a spruce tree.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Keller<\/strong>: How did you guys meet the Flightless Record guys?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Fiona<\/strong>: They supported our old band The Drones in Australia back in the day. We met them 15 or 12 years ago?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: Yeah when they were really young, it was the biggest tour they\u2019d ever done at the time. Which is funny &#8217;cause now they do tours like these.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Keller<\/strong>: Is there a local Melbourne musician you want to highlight?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: EXEK is really good. I liked their last record, it was really good.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Erica<\/strong>: Teether.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Hammel<\/strong>: All I\u2019ve been listening to lately is Barker.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Keller<\/strong>: I gotta ask ya, the name, where does it come from?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Fiona<\/strong>: It&#8217;s just a stupid name, we had a studio called Tropical Fuck Storm Studios, we had a label with our music called Tropical Fuck Storm Records. We needed a name for a new band, and that won.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Erica<\/strong>: I thought it was a joke.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: The internet is demanding, ya know when I first heard King Gizzard &amp; The Lizard Wizard I thought wow that&#8217;s a shit name. But ya don\u2019t forget it ya know what I mean? So I thought let&#8217;s just do a stunt title so ya won\u2019t forget it. The best part is with immigration because the immigration guys will go, &#8220;What&#8217;s the name of your band?&#8221; And we have to explain that we\u2019re here for gigs and you think they wouldn&#8217;t like it but it always makes them lighten up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Hammel<\/strong>: And if you go into a store or something people will ask about the accent and we&#8217;ll say we&#8217;re here for work. Then we say we&#8217;re in a band and they&#8217;ll ask who&#8217;s your band, and when we say Tropical Fuck Storm they&#8217;ll be like, &#8220;hell yeah!&#8221; And they&#8217;ll look it up straight away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If we were called The Baby Animals or something it just wouldn\u2019t work as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Maddy<\/strong>: If you were a flavor, what flavor would you be?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Erica<\/strong>: Licking a lightbulb<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Hammel<\/strong>: Dr. Pepper, sweet but spicy<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Fiona<\/strong>: A ducking dipping sauce with soy and chili and cinnamon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Gaz<\/strong>: I\u2019d be beer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Hammel<\/strong>: I&#8217;d be petrol.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Participants: Keller Welton: Programming Director, KJHK Maddy Lehr: Assistant Music Director, KTSW San Marcos Tropical Fuck Storm: Gareth \u201cGaz\u201d Liddiard, Fiona Kitschin, Lauren Hammel, Erica Dunn Maddy: How has Austin been for you guys? Gaz: We just got here! I\u2019ve spent the whole time trying to get you guys in. Erica: We\u2019ve only been here a couple of hours, I wore my 13th Floor Elevator socks for luck.\u00a0 Maddy: Is this your first time at LEVITATION? Fiona: Yeah yeah, we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":78525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3232,3234],"tags":[1018,8743,3266],"class_list":["post-78524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-on-kjhk","category-live-performances","category-music-interviews","tag-interview","tag-levitation","tag-music-festival"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/IMG_0071.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78524"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78530,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78524\/revisions\/78530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}