Ahead of opening for MONO at Newtown Social Club on December 7, we spend a couple of minutes with Serious Beak and chew the fat…
Describe your music in five words or less.
Lachlan: Death-defying psychedelic prog.
Tim: More riffs, less talk.
Gene: Dumb dada, da dada dada dar.
Andrew: SuperBirdGrindProg
What’s going on in the world of Serious Beak?
Lachlan: It’s taken us four years, but we’ve just released our new album Ankaa, which we are all super stoked on. To celebrate, we’re going on tour with Perth’s amazing Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving.
Gene: Then we will yet again venture into the cave of truth and ask the spirit crystals for help.
What motivates you to make music?
Tim: To hear music the way that we want to hear it.
Gene: Purely selfish reasons.
Andrew: An unknown force, be it spirit or genetics, I must!
Lachlan: Catharsis.
What have been the high and low points of your musical experiences so far?
Tim: Highs, surviving this long as a band whilst playing some amazing shows with some incredible bands.
Gene: Highs, 2013’s massive Australian tour with Battle Pope. Lows, when this band breaks up.
Andrew: Highs: being asked to join Serious Beak, playing amazing, packed shows with past & present bands. Lows: how long it takes Beak to write material.
Lachlan: It’s been amazing to support rad bands like Deafheaven and Neurosis. Lows? Well, it’s never fun playing a bad gig.
What music are you listening to at the moment?
Lachlan: New tunes from Joanna Newsom, Earl Sweatshirt, Instrumental (adj.), Hope Drone and Sufjan Stevens.
Tim: Kowloon Walled City, Majora, Instrumental (adj.), a digital station called ‘Pure 90’s’ and whatever my 2 yr old daughter wants to listen to, which at the moment is Jimi Hendrix.
Gene: Cardiacs and Plus-Tech Squeeze Box, but mainly movie soundtracks and musicals.
Andrew: I’ve been going back to some of my high-school era jams; re-discovering Pantera and Primus and how awesome they were/are, Enslaved’s last two albums, Instrumental (adj.), Kurushimi as well as Bernard Herrmann’s scores.
If you were stranded on a desert island, which member of the band would get eaten first? And why?
Lachlan: Tim, because there are only so many Dad jokes and references to ‘80s pop that one can handle.
Gene: Lachlan, surely we would each find a corner of the island and start our own solo project.
Here’s an opportunity to bitch about something, whether music related or not. What really pisses you off?
Tim: Our federal government’s lack of commitment to actually preparing our country, and our planet, for the future in which my kids and thousands of generations afterwards have to live in. Carl Sagan’s ‘The Pale Blue Dot’ should be read out at the start of each sitting of Parliament, just to give each member a sense of perspective and quell the feelings of self importance, so that we can move on from what divides up and realise that we, as a species, can achieve so much if we all work together.
Lachlan: As ever, people seem all too eager to abuse and exploit our fellow humans.
You’re putting together your perfect gig featuring Australian artists. Who would you get to play and where? Feel free to include acts/DJs/bands/venues that no longer exist.
Gene: My place with no other punters with 4’33? being blasted on a loop.
Serious Beak support MONO at the Newtown Social Club in Sydney on Monday, December 7. Tickets are on sale now through lifeisnoise.com.
