Introducing Big Richard Insect

Thu 19th Jan, 2012 in Features

The 2012 St Jerome’s Laneway Festival is offering the opportunity for one Adelaide band in to join the likes of Laura Marling, M83, Pajama Club and The Drums in the hallowed Fowler’s Laneway bottleneck. Of course, last year’s logistical issues have been addressed, and we’re gearing up for one of the most intriguing line ups the Festival has delivered complete with, hopefully, FasterLouder’s local nomination, drone punks Big Richard Insect.

While the three piece have been less than six months on the scene, they’ve been together performing music on and off for around six years. During our conversation band members Tim Richardson, Patrick Heath and Stef Parente were pretty modest about the true DIY punk aesthetic they’ve created, mostly out of necessity as none of them can read music. But in truth, Big Richard Insect are one of the most enjoyable bands in Adelaide to emerge in some time, and the fun they seem to be having performing is infectious.

Their demo track Be My Brasser is indicative of what punters can expect of Big Richard Insect – an unpretentious lo-fi slice of gold reminiscent of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, less their inherent sarcasm. We chatted to the band before early one morning to find out what they thought of the chance to play Laneway.

Big Richard Insect have been together since June and it’s been about you guys enjoying yourselves. By that virtue, this must be a bizarre opportunity to be nominated for?
Tim: Yeah, definitely. Our plan is not to have big milestones like that, it’s just to keep doing what we do.
Patrick: Just getting a gig every week is a milestone, and we keep getting them, so we’re happy.
Tim: Things like the nomination means, for us, that we’re not completely shit. We’re doing something right. It’s a validation, because the first couple of gigs we did were terrible.
Stef: After every song we’d just stand with our head in our hands.
Tim: But even still people used to say that we were good, but it’s progressively been getting better.

Did you come from any existing bands? Or was this just an extension of your friendship?
T: We used to play together years ago in bedrooms.
S: And record with this old Karaoke microphone wired into a tape player, and then we’d sit back and listen to what we’d done and they were 45 minute versions of Down By The River.
T: Thinking about it now, you think Jesus, what were we doing? But I think it’s a good way to start out and learn how to play a little bit.

The whole DIY ethos stuff is what everyone wants to cling onto right now…
T: I think it’s got to do with the fact that none of us are musicians. DIY is a necessity.
P: It’s not by choice.
S: Little things like trying to do recordings in the bedroom are ridiculous. Things like, “that recording didn’t work, so maybe we should move the mic into the middle of the bedroom” are the sorts of decisions we’re making, just trying to get a half decent sound.
P: But we really like the shitty sound as well. The best thing we’ve got going for us is our naivety. If we had to get good, I don’t think this band would work.

Is it shared personal taste that forms the music your guys write, or it is as much an experiment of what you can play?
T: I think we all love 60s and 70s rock n roll. Not that it’s what we write, but if you listen to it I think it comes out somewhere in the music.
P: I feel we’re punk, but in the sense that the music we write is just a reflection of what we can do. It’s nothing complicated.
T: It comes back to the fact that none of us are musicians. I can’t read music. I struggle to tune up a guitar. If we try to do something fancy like change keys before a song, we can’t do it so we stick to what we do.
P: But we like that sound.
T: It’s energetic, and if I went and saw us I’d bop my head and think “these guys are alright”, so it’s the sort of music we like to hear.

With regards to recording and the usual music process of distribution and shows, considering you’re treating the band as an exercise in fun rather than a business so to speak, what are your goals for recording and gigging?
T: Well some bands are in it for money and the music reflects that, I think. People are trying to be DIY, but at the back of their minds they’ve got money as a goal and I think you can see through that. Until it gets to the point where we’re not having any fun, then we’d have to re-evaluate the idea of the band.
S: At the end of the day, as a band you still want to reach as many people as you can, and you can do that without having the goal of money.
P: We just want to get to a point where the live shows we’re playing we can be really happy with. That’s the main thing, and it’s what we’re working towards.

Do you guys hear many comparisons at this stage, as people try to work you out?
T: One guy said we sound like Queens Of The Stone Age, but he was out of his mind.
P: Credence as well. That was awesome.
T: I heard Radio Birdman as well. Our friend’s mum said that we sound like Radio Birdman, which was sick, because she’s seen them back in the day.
S: Who said Queens of The Stone Age?
T: Some drunk dickhead at the show at The Metro. But he’d come in from off the street. He’d heard us while he was stumbling around and came in to see.

That’s the ultimate compliment isn’t it? To rouse a drunk from a sidewalk stupor and get him to listen.
T: Like the Pied Piper.
P: He must have been really drunk.
T: We also got told once that we were really loud. No elaboration on that. But I really get a kick when some music nerd or old rocker comes up to us and says that we sound really good. That makes me really pleased, to have a hip young thing to say we’re cool. I think what we’ve got, as a whole set, is a lot of different influences coming together.

You’ve just recorded your first demo, but have you’ve also got plenty more material in the works?
T: Definitely, we’ve got more than enough to fill an hour set. We’ve actually had to limit ourselves to around 10 songs, and we’ve really practised those so our live show is really improving.

Doesn’t that limit the creativity of the band, and the excitement that comes with writing new music when you’re just starting out together?
T: The thing is, at the moment nothing is boring. Say we’re doing it for another year, it might get that way.
P: It’s fun though, to be getting to the point where we can play the songs with our eyes closed or drunk. That’s where you can have fun because you’re not nervous about fucking it up.
T: We’ve only played a dozen shows so hopefully that gets better and better.
S: When we started playing gigs, we’d drop guitar picks, or turn the guitar off while we were playing or drop a drum stick and look at one another and just be freaking out. But now we know that’s just a part of the live show and that stuff happens.
P: Our short set, because we’ve played a lot of supports which we’re happy to do, that’s the perfect amount of time for a person to watch a band and not get bored. With our short and punchy songs, it’s ideal.

Your Soundcloud currently features the first tracks you’ve ever recorded semi-properly. Is this indicative of the sound that Big Richard Insect is hoping to cultivate in the coming months?
T: I always like music that evolves, though we’re not talking about doing a classical album or an experimental album. But we like Country songs, so to do some more of that would be cool. But I just think at the moment we’re all learning and the whole thing is as we get better we can try different things and our tastes can meander.

Do you have an awareness of what else is going on in the Adelaide scene, or are you guys just focussed on what your trying to do?
S: The support of the bands that we’ve been hanging around with, Mondo Phase Band particularly and some of their other mates like Creepers, if you don’t have that kind of thing you don’t get a gig.
T: They’ve opened a lot of doors for us. You get a gig, you ask them to play, and then they return the favour. It’s quite collaborative.
S: That’s the fun of going to practice sometime in the week, because we find out we’ve got a gig and it’s awesome. I don’t think we’ve turned one down yet. We can’t turn anything down yet, we just want to get out to new people.

Laneway Band Competition:
Wednesday 25th January – Ed Castle, Adelaide