Arising from the proverbial swamps of Melbourne’s lively indie rock scene is Reptiles. Shunning the modern indie rock aesthetic, the band embraces punk and grunge in all its gritty glory. The DIY band just released their second EP, Smell My Skin and are touring tirelessly to promote it.

Lead guitarist Joel takes a moment to chat with FasterLouder about bleach-drinking fans, 20c drug deals and the overall mayhem that is life in a punk band.

You guys have just recorded your debut EP. How do you feel about the outcome?
We’re rapt with the EP. We came across the right producer to work with us in Tom Larkin, via laying down demos with him earlier in the year. We do believe it’s the best introduction to our band that we could have wanted.

Are there any plans to release an LP next? Have you had time to write new music?
I think the plans we have are to continue to play as many shows on the road as possible. It’s more a case of lets see how our EP is received and plan from that point. We like to romanticise about future albums like a lot of young bands do and we do have idea’s song-wise that we’re hoping to work on. The odd thing is the material we are happy with tends to develop when least expected.

How have you found releasing the EP without a label? Are there any plans or offers to sign with an indie?
Releasing the EP independently has been challenging and at times annoyingly difficult because we would rather be free to focus on other things. There is a lot of leg work when you are setting up a release. The odd thing was we had label interest off the back of our initial demo and it was just too early for us as a band to be honest. After having some time to develop, we’re now comfortable with our identity or what it is we feel we are as a band. So hopefully if our release is received positively we can now strike up a label relationship we dig.

You guys have done a fair amount of touring this year. How did that go over? Have fans reacted well to your music and EP?
Getting out in front of different audiences and playing shows has helped us develop who we are and it’s been great. For us, getting out of the indie rock clubs down here in Melbourne has been awesome. We’ve had a lot of fun on the road as we’re close friends and we’ve been able to experience other cities, and you build up a thicker skin (lame pun not intended) for audiences. Some have loved us. We do divide audiences! We’ll see how our EP goes with people.

How do you guys keep sane while touring, being together on the road for so long? What was the most memorable/bizarre thing that happened to you guys while touring?
There is heaps, you know; heaps of little things that we find funny but when asked can’t remember. Honestly, you’d be surprised how much you get away with when you say you’re a touring band. That applies to just about… anyone you say it to. It’s great! My personal most bizarre memories go back to when we were touring with the E.L.F. (fantastic party man) and we were on our last leg of the tour in Tasmania. We attended some Pixies listening house party somewhere? And bought pot off a dude for 20c and a guitar pick. I could pretty much say Launceston is the weirdest place in Australia.

However it would be recording with Scott Horscroft for two weeks: that was really memorable, that man’s a fucking psycho. We drank so much gin for two and half weeks straight that by the end of it we all thought we had severe depression. It was horrible. We wrote a song about it, called Drank Bleach, featured on our EP. Actually that song is also about a girl who wrote to us who she couldn’t make our show in Brisbane one time because she drank half a bottle of bleach. True story.

Your sound has much more punk and grunge elements as compared to a lot of other bands coming out right now. What endears you guys to that sort of sound?
A lot of the – œ80s Australian punk-rock is our preferred music to get stoned to. Our guitar tones are entrenched in that period of music that was swampy and dirty as opposed to, say, the early – œ90s grunge movement. I mean, Em’s distortion pedal’s model name is Doctor Swamp. You are right in saying not many of the younger bands like us are doing this. It’s refreshing when they do though, as opposed to getting some kind of indie-dancey thing off the ground.

What music would you say influences your own sound?
What we are doing with Reptiles is hopefully a refreshing take on some of the Aussie punk bands of yesteryear that we enjoy listening to in our spare time. Kim Salmon’s guitar tones from back when bands like Beasts of Bourbon were stomping around in the indie scene, a lot of dark country bands that just sound like they were on crack, like Gun Club.

As you move into the public eye more and more and the EP is out for reviews around the country – how do you deal with criticism when it comes your way?
I think it’s just a situation where you need to realise that critics have their own personal tastes and you might not fit what they are after. You don’t get down about it. Maybe we will if we are attacked in the context of what we are actually trying to do. We’ll see how we are received but still, we love our band so we just need to keep throwing punches and spewing what we are onto everything.

Smell My Skin is out now through MGM.