By Kieran Webber
The Australian psych outfit first came on our radar last year when they released their third album ‘And Now For The Whatchamacallit’. It was a whirring barrage of fuzzed out psych rock that was unrelenting in it’s pulsing energy. It wasn’t long before i had gorged on their back catalogue, suffice to say i was hooked.
That same year they also played my favourite Cornish festival Leopallooza. I couldn’t beleive that i was able to see these guys in the middle of nowhere in my home county, it was a dream come true.
Now the band return with new single ‘Mr Prism’ which today has accompanying visuals (see below). In addition to this they’ve also announced news of an upcoming fourth album.
With this in mind and our excitement ever growing we wanted to know more. So, we caught up with frontman and mind behind the band Jack McEwan.
Watch/listen to ‘Mr Prism’ here:
Kieran: Okay, so off the bat what is the meaning/story behind the band name?
Jack: It was originally a branding project I started at University. My lecturer asked if I had any tracks to accompany some designs I had made so I wrote Marmalade March, Cubensis Lenses and Cornflake at home. I showed a few people and they suggested we get a band together, now here we are, five years later still recording off the same computer with terrible software.
Kieran: When you first started out did you expect the response you’ve received?
Jack: Not at all, I really didn’t think we’d ever make it out of Perth as there were so many good bands springing up at the time. I’d always wanted to write an album so it was kinda nice silently lurking in the Perth shadows crafting away on High Visceral Part One with zero pressures of a time frame or deadline. We felt like underdogs so it was nice to spend a solid year tweaking away at the best of our amateur abilities. There was also the added benefit that Perth was in a bit of a spotlight from previous years, we knew we’d always be compared to Tame Impala, Pond, Love Junkies, Abbe May and all the other great Perth rock acts but that gave us this ‘work twice as hard’ mentality, so the bar was set pretty high for what we wanted to achieve.
Kieran: Are there any key figures that have influenced you and your music growing up? If so, who?
Jack: Apart from The Beatles. yeah, a lot of the acts I mentioned before. The Perth scene was all I listened to for a solid two to three years, Tame, Pond, Hideous Sun Demon, Abbe May, Spaceman Antics, Red Engine Caves. There was an abundance of amazing fuzz driven, heavy drums, delay drenched vocal acts that I was listening to and watching religiously, there was a band for every genre so we knew we needed to diversify our sound if we were to fit in, which looking back on probably helped us break through nationally. Also Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Wand, Melody’s Echo Chamber and the majority of the LA psych scene were all massive influences.
Kieran: From the outside perspective it seems that Australia is a real hotbed for rock/guitar driven music, why do you think this is?
Jack: There’s probably hundreds of reasons, I can’t speak for the majority of Australia, Melbourne obviously got hooked on Thee Oh Sees, but Perth I reckon it all boils down to how isolated we are. There’s very few international acts that visit us which creates great opportunities for local bands to pack out larger rooms with not much competition. Then the East coast gets whiff of a Perth band doing 500 tickets every month and they wanna check them out, the festivals pick you up, radio plays your music and the sad part is the East coast probably has a thousand better musicians or bands that struggle to get out of their bedroom or Tuesday night support shows in a basement because Elton John’s doing seven nights to a million people who wanna watch him and not your insane twenty piece polyrhythmic hip-hop psych band, no matter how good it is, large cities will always be competing with twenty or so International acts each night. I also think the rest of the world is looking at Australia for the next AC/DC, Wolfmother, The Vines because they’re familiar with that genre, it’s easier to pigeon hole, same way everyone spots another grunge band from Seattle, or Blues band from Nashville, we’re almost expecting it from those cities now. It’s definitely a good thing if you play in a band that people affiliate with traditional to that region as you’ll be noticed, in our case it’s what we know and love, I never thought about it this much when we started out but i’m sure there’s a bunch of angry artists who wanna escape the labeling, filled with angst and fuelling a belly fire to break through and swamp all pre-notioned assumptions and turn the city on its head. If it’s good music it’s good music, there’s probably more jazz infused hip-hop bands in Perth right now, but yeah I dunno, Nick Allbrook wrote a good article on it if you are genuinely interested. I’m merely a pedestrian.
“There’s very few international acts that visit us which creates great opportunities for local bands to pack out larger rooms with not much competition.“
Jack McEwan – Psychedelic Porn Crumpets
Kieran: How’s Bills mandolin holding up not being able to tour the world?
Jack: He’s retired now, peacefully perched on top of my piano waiting to be passed from kin to kin.
Kieran: How has the pandemic affected Psychedelic Porn Crumpets and when do you think it will be likely we’ll see you in the U.K again? (PLEASE COME BACK TO CORNWALL!)
Jack: To be honest it’s genuinely helped a tad, I’ve had more time to be at home recording and working on our new record which I feel is our best work to date, I’ve never felt more creative. Obviously the lack of touring has hurt but we’re just starting to get back out to play some local shows which should be fun. Would love to be back in the U.K soon, have to see how the world plays out.
Kieran: What can we expect from your fourth studio album that is dropping early next year?
Jack: Yeah should be January, we’ll have another couple of singles between then but I’m so excited to get it out. It’s a cross between Kings of Leon ‘Youth & Young Manhood’, Nirvana ‘Nevermind and The Beatles ‘Sgt. Peppers’. I reckon it’s our most up-beat record so far, everything flows well and gels really nicely, there’s good pace to all the songs, everytime I listen to it I wanna crack a beer in the sun so hopefully that translates to everyone.
Kieran: Can you describe the new album in four words?
Jack: Seventies Inspired Glitch Rock.
Kieran: Lastly, can you tell us something weird, gnarly or funny that has happened to you guys on tour (apart from getting Pneumonia haha)?
Jack: There’s too many to list, everyday I was crying laughing, or just crying. My favourite will always be Luke passing out on an airplane while trying to make his way to the bathroom. More recently we took a bunch of Instant K hole at a French arcade while we were on one of those virtual roller-coaster machines, six of us hanging off the sides hysterically screaming gibberish with a bunch of bewildered French people thinking we’d escaped the ward. Still surprised nobody was locked up after that. All time best was drinking wine with Devo and Tony Hawk at Desert Daze just after we dropped a tab, it was like we were all transported back to the 90’s, great people.