Eddy Current Suppression Ring is a band as well-known for playing small, packed-out venues, as its members are for their down to earth natures. So it is with a great deal of relief that I discover an AMP award, ARIA nomination and the personal blessing of Ian – œDicko’ Dickson has hardly changed the Eddy Current formula, or the attitude of guitarist Mikey Young.

An influenza-ridden Young (aka Eddy Current) makes this clear early on in the interview, opening with solid advice on curing hangover symptoms: “Chocolate milk” he suggests with a wry sense of humour, “always works for me!”

With the band set to headline the Flip Out Festival, a far cry from the huge stages of the Big Day Out and Falls Festival, you can expect a similar situation to always, “I think as long as we keep it varied and nteresting and do a bit of both [festivals and smaller shows], there’s always some good coming out of it.”

The key difference between shows at a festival like Flip Out Festival and their much larger counterparts, Mikey notes, is the company. “They’re the type of shows I like playing because they’re with the types of band that I like and most of the lineup is made of bands I love. I mean, I see no difference to the way we do things to how they do things. We’re not trying to make a professional career out of this. I guess I just prefer to play gigs with bands I know.”

One of those constants in their gigs is the showmanship of Brendon Suppression, a frontman who waddles manically, jumps into the crowd and screams out lyrics, all whilst wearing a pair of ominous golf gloves. “The golf gloves were originally because he was scared. If he didn’t put them on, it’d be an insecurity for him. And I guess he never wanted to be a singer of a band at all. It all happened by accident; he just came in one day and thought it was fun. So he has no real idea how to sing like a normal person would, which is part of charm. He’s making it up as he goes along.”

As for their own recordings, they say the key to their perfection is their own lack of exterior quality control, “We don’t think any further then ourselves. We just make a song we like and if we like it we’ll play it and record it. That’s about as far as it goes. We’re never thinking of other people or reactions to the song or whatever.”

Mikey clarifies that after winning the Australian Music Prize for their critically acclaimed sophomore release Primary Colours that this mentality hasn’t changed. “It’s just put a bit more money in our bank account… and it’s a cool thing to tell the parents for a week.”

Even then, he finds it difficult to see how anyone can critically rank an album, “I don’t even know how you decide that our record is better than a Presets record? It seems weird to make music into a sport. I’m proud that we got up there, but I don’t take it too seriously.”

After mentioning the explanation that Dr. Karl offered for their band name on Triple J days before our interview (“I missed that!” he responds genuinely), Mikey goes into detail about the origins on the name. “It was a part on the electric transformer at my old work and it had to be fixed one day. And a guy there left a note saying that we had to fix the eddy current suppression ring. I thought it was funny, thought it sounded like a jazz band or something. I had the name before actually had the band.”

On the topic of Triple J, a radio station known for its divisive effect upon independent musicians and music lovers alike, Young spoke of his indifference to the results of the recent Hottest 100 of all time. “I know who the top two were, and they don’t really surprise me. The listeners to Triple J these days really are young, heavy listeners who like that kind of shit. I mean, I’m pretty far from popular taste but even I’m not surprised with it.”

As he jokes about what he’d have in his own personal top five – wavering between The Turtles, The Nerves and Rod Stewart – he questions the ever-present difficulty of creating such constrains around people’s choices: “I could only ever make lists of the top five pop songs or the top five garage songs; never one of the top five songs of all time.”

One thing that has notably changed in the ECSR camp – the next record will feature “actual” album artwork, “I think we’ve gone through two albums now with pretty much blank covers, so now’s the time to be pretty much a bit more ingenious. So hopefully this time it will be a bit less boring to look at.”

You can catch Mikey playing in both Eddy Current and The Ooga Boogas at the The Flip Out Festival in Sydney at The Manning Bar on August 29th and Melbourne at The Corner on September 5th.

Get your tickets here