by Benji Heywood (@benjiheywood)
What does hip-hop genius billy woods and prolific balladeer, author and composer Nick Cave have in common? If you’ve been paying attention to Australian art punks Party Dozen, the answer is easy. Both guested on songs or reworks from the drum-and-sax duo’s breakthrough 2022 album The Real Work. If you haven’t been following the band’s explosive trajectory, all good. There are still seats available on the Party Dozen party bus. Their new album, Crime in Australia, out now via Temporary Residence, is Party Dozen’s most accessible to date, an album that will shake your speakers as you shake your ass.
Crime in Australia is an ode to Aussie crime films, a genre that gained notoriety throughout the 70s and 80s then experienced a renaissance in the late 90s and early 2000s. Filmmakers like Phillip Noyce, Rowan Woods and Andrew Dominik explored the seedy underworld of Aussie noir examining themes of sexual violence, environmental activism, and oppression. The early films of the genre functioned like funhouse mirrors reflecting Aussie life under the police-state regime of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the Hillbilly Dictator who ruled Australian politics from 1968-1987 before corruption charges finally brought him down. Party Dozen’s largely instrumental music incapsulates all this—the grit, the grime, and punk politics—while ensuring the fun dial remains cranked to eleven.
Post-Trash recently spoke with saxophonist Kirsty Tickle and drummer Jonathan Boulet about how they created the sound of Crime in Australia, instrumental music’s unique emotional resonance, getting in shape for the band’s hyperactive batshit live show, and confessions of the band’s own high crimes and misdemeanors.
This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Photo credit: Ruby Boland
Post-Trash: Party Dozen came to my attention with your last album The Real Work. What was it like to have a record that reached international audiences after previously playing primarily in your native Australia?
Kirsty Tickle: I mean, it's good, right? We've been desperate since we started this project to get out of Australia, mainly because there's not that many places to play here. The scene is good and it's healthy, but the population is so low that you really only have two options: get into this Australian-only scene and play the same festival route and same five venues all the time or try and export it. Australian musicians are massive on exporting, because we're all just trying to play more than five shows a year!
PT: Did it feel validating to successfully export your music after putting out so many DIY albums?
Jonathan Boulet: That's hard, because as humans, you always want more. You get some progress and then you think, how much further can we go now that we're here? It's definitely validating. For sure. We’d probably be doing Party Dozen whether people were watching or not, but when people do, it's encouraging. I wish we could get out more to other continents.
PT: Did the increase of scope change how you approached Crime in Australia?
KT: No, I don't think it changed. We want to make music that's really fun for us to play. Part of that is making music that feels good to listen to as well, especially in a live setting.
JB: I've been doing a lot of vinyl lately and we were very conscious that this record sound good on vinyl. I look at every album as an opportunity to learn more about recording. So, for Crime in Australia, I focused on that. There's a certain way that you can mix for vinyl; it sort of pushes the speakers, it moves the speakers in a technical way. And for this record, we want people to put it on and be like, Whoa, the speakers are popping out of the box!
PT: Let’s talk about that sound. Crime in Australia was fashioned like the soundtrack to a long-lost Aussie crime movie. Were there specific cinematic elements that inspired the album?
JB: There's a lot of celebration of Aussie crime in this country. They idolize criminals. And, yeah, films like Chopper (2000 Australian crime drama written and directed by Andrew Dominik) and a TV show called Mr. In Between we took a lot of inspiration from. These are both dark and gritty but also sometimes sweet and nice. There's also a lot of Australian gang films that we love. They have a very specific vibe that we wanted to capture.
PT: In the press materials, it says you stole back your old drum set piece by piece from all these places. What kind of drum set was it?
JB: It’s just a Pearl fiberglass kit, but it was the kit I got when I was 10 years old. I moved overseas a while back and sold it to a friend on the very cheap, and then he kind of let it disappear into different people's houses. When I moved back, I started finding it piece by piece and I was like, Well, I'm taking it back. And eventually I got the whole thing. (to the camera) Mikey, I can give you some money if you want, but you gotta let me know!
PT: Is that the kit you used for the album?
JB: Yeah! It has this nostalgic sound and sentimental value. It still has the original skins that it had when I was first bashing the shit out of it. And I was like, why change that? It kind of works with the theme of the album.
PT: Kirsty, is there a story behind your saxophone? I know you started on clarinet way back when, but the saxophone you're playing now, has it been with you a long time?
KT: I bought (my saxophone) when I moved back from London. I knew the sax I wanted, which is a Yanagisawa, a Japanese brand. Problem was they don't make that many of them. So, when I found one, I took a gamble and ordered it without trying it, which is riskier for woodwind instruments because you want to find the one that feels good. But it's an amazing horn. It's really not well taken care of at all! It's scratched to hell from my microphone kit, and like, I drink beer and blast into it, and it’s well-worn and I love it.
PT: One thing I love about the band is that for a drums and sax only band, the sonic palate is quite varied due to the generous sample bank you employ. Walk me through the process of making your samples and maybe use a song like “Wake in Might” as an example. The piano sample on that one fucking slaps.
JB: The start of the process will be like two hours of just plugging everything in and making noise. And sometimes nothing comes of it. And sometimes there'll be four seconds that could be something but you have to imagine what's going to happen on it. And sometimes you can picture it pretty quickly. Instantly, you can hear a beat, or you can hear a vibe that's going to happen with it. “Wake in Might” was like that. I had a midi piano on and just distorted the shit out of it, hitting it really hard, so it would kind of peak out. Then we recorded four other pianos and blended them together. And then we put the sample on the sampler and looped it and just jammed to it.
PT: Are you recording longer 10 to 15-minute jams and finding the moments that you like and just compressing those into a song?
KT: We try to go by sections. We might do a full section three or four times and each time the song begins to take shape a little more. We try not to Frankenstein it too much, just because it feels better when it's developed naturally within the session.
PT: Since your music begins as improvisation, Kirsty, do you ever have a moment where you are listening back to something you played, but have no recollection or any fucking idea how you played it?
KT: Oh, all the time. It's becoming increasingly common and every time we go to record, I'm like, I'll put a video on to remember what I do, but then in the moment, I don’t do it. Right now I'm trying to remember how I played the end of “Les Crimes.”
PT: You also sing through your sax. Do you think of your voice and saxophone playing as two separate things?
KT: There is a difference. The sax is a more physical part of my performance than the voice is. It's almost like I get a bit of a break when I just have to yell. It's not the same muscular and diaphragm support needed for those sections and they're aided by effects as well. Plus, the saxophone is quite a big instrument on someone my size, and it requires a lot of breath and a lot of support. It is tiring and sometimes it is on songs you wouldn’t expect. Like on this new record, a song like “Coup de Gronk” sounds easy but by the end of it, I'm like, completely out of breath because there's just no breaks in it. It’s relentless.
PT: When you're gearing up to start playing live shows again after recording, do you have to build your stamina back up? Like, get in “tour shape”?
KT: Yeah, absolutely. I've been running in preparation for our UK and Europe dates. The show is quite physical. There’s a lot of jumping and a lot of running around the stage and a lot of energy. And I want to keep that up, because I think it’s a nice kind of point of difference. And it's fun! And I know, Jono, you’ve been playing drums every day for hours.
JB: Yeah, I try to get up to speed on an electric kit I have here, but there really is no substitute for touring. You can’t simulate tour fitness. You try but then a couple shows in, you realize you’re not ready for it at all (laughs).
PT: As a primarily instrumental band, you still seem to be communicating some pretty punk ideas. A great example would be the song “The Big Man Upstairs” and its corresponding video that convincingly argues that punk rock helped topple Australia’s “Hillbilly Dictator.” Do you think about those themes when writing the music? Maybe a better question is, can instrumental music adequately express complex themes?
KT: We're definitely trying to put ideas in people's heads as they listen, because it connects more. For me, instrumental music is more accessible when you feel connected to it. I've always felt a deep emotional connection to the music of the Dirty Three. It feels so Australian to me, and maybe that’s because of my memories of listening to it driving through the country on tour. But that's the intersection you want with instrumental music. You want people to have an emotional reaction to it, and it's made so much harder if you don't have words. With “The Big Man Upstairs,” that was a song we've been trying to write for years, a song that makes you feel something in your chest and feel it deeply.
JB: We're not thinking very specifically about doing that on purpose, though. I think it just kind of happens naturally. And that goes back to the to the message that you get through instrumental music. For me, it’s always clear what it makes me feel, and what it makes me see. So, for “The Big Man Upstairs” specifically, I could see this old footage happening and then that story kind of fit the profile, and it all sort of emerged into a cohesive thing.
KT: We're trying to come at music in the purest way without taking ourselves too seriously. That’s the punk ethos. The theme that we're always trying to emulate and push forward is the idea that you can make instrumental music that people want to listen to and it can still be punk, even if it doesn't have words, or it’s not as rough around the edges. It's got that DIY ethos. We're making music for us. Like John said before, if no one listened to these records, we'd still be making them. And that's a cool position to be in.
PT: Well said. Ok, last question. Without risking prosecution, what’s the biggest thing y’all have ever stolen?
KT: My biggest attempted theft didn't work out! We were at a music festival with our friend Dan and they had all these nice palm trees in the backstage area, so we tried to walk out with the pines. On the radio, we could hear security saying, “stop them with the pine!” (laughs) We had to give up the pine. Jono, What's your biggest crime?
JB: There was this one time… It's so petty, it's just so dumb. One time I stole an iPad from an airport. You know how they used to have iPads on display for people to use to go on the internet? And I don't know, I was delirious from the flight, and I was feeling dangerous, and I noticed that one of these iPads wasn’t fully secured. And I was like, I'm gonna stick it to the man and take one. And I did and it was kind of dumb, and I apologize.