“We wanted an interesting instrument like an organ, so we went to the tip ‘cause we thought we’d seen one there,” Tom Simpson said. “We didn’t have any cash so we used our credit card and Josh went in and I loaded it into the back of the car. Josh came back out and told me his credit card hadn’t worked. The guy was waving at us saying ‘See you later’.”
This is how We Stole The Organ got their name.
Simpson, 21, later told me that he and band mate Josh Watt were completely paranoid the entire way home.
“We kept looking in the rear view mirror thinking there would be a truck load of council workers with pitch forks chasing us,” he said.
Besides organ stealing, the five Kiama boys who make up We Stole The Organ, Xavier Mayes – Vocals, Josh Watt – Guitar, Tom Simpson – Synth, Oly Marland – Bass and Scott Whittaker – Drums, have been getting together since March this year creating mayhem.
Describing themselves as Electroc, their songs create a dark hole that somehow makes you want to dance like you’re made of tin through synth inspired madness and frantic guitar riffs.
We Stole The Organ could very easily fit into the Sydney synth scene that’s bulging from its seams, but this is where the boys are glad there’s some distance between Kiama and Sydney.
“We’re out of the Sydney scene and the bigger scenes, so we don’t get influenced by other small bands, we don’t even see them live,” Watt, 22, said. “New music that comes out influences us to do things that haven’t already been done.”
We Stole The Organ’s live show inspires punks to dance, men to dress as women and people to jump up on stage and go crazy before getting kicked out of the venue in a dramatic fashion. But the boys maintain they just want people to dance, with one liners like “F**king dance” before starting a show.
“The ideals with most of our songs is to create energetic and dancy feelings while maintaining a somewhat dark dramatic edge. We like the dynamics to build and build, without really ever dropping, until we all end up in frenzied hysterics,” Simpson said.
The synth can be attributed to the crowd going a bit zany, but it has also been known to get them into trouble, following a near on stage explosion.
“I play a sampler on stage and it was playing up a bit,” Simpson said. “Right at the end of the gig I sort of got pissed off and kicked my stand over and all the leads made an explosion sound and it sent a shock through the system. The sound guy came up to me and said ‘do that again and you’ll be out of here’.”
Having been on regular notation on FBi and played on Triple J, their latest single Narco tells a story that some may know better than other, the excuses we use to get ourselves out of trouble.
“It’s a story about something that’s happened, say like a bar fight or a riot, and the police have been involved. Your excuse is that you’re narcoleptic,” Watt said.
Although Simpson believes it’s about Watts alleged bar fights.
Having supported the likes of Ajax, Riot in Belgium and Darlin, We Stole The Organ are headlining the Annandale on October 28th, featuring The Bungalows and The Tokyo Spares.
