Psychedelic Porn Crumpets' Experimentations

Have you ever sat down for breakfast on the tail end of an LSD trip and it looked like your food was fornicating? Yeah, me neither… Although that is the scenario that can’t help be pictured upon first encountering the name of the now iconic Perth psych-lords, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets. 

Bursting onto the scene in 2016 with their incredibly impressive debut album High Visceral {Part One}, before quickly follow-ing up in 2017 with High Visceral {Part Two}. And Now For The Whatchamacallit dropped in 2019 before COVID hit, putting an end to touring and live shows, such a crucial part of most bands existence and creative inspiration, with the Crumpets being no different. They were back last year with Shyga! The Sunlight Mound, and now we’re blessed with album number five - the wonderfully twisted Night Gnomes. 

Released on April 22, Night Gnomes sees the Crumpets dig a bit deeper and get a tad darker, while upping their production game just a touch, appropriately describing it as their “Kid A / Amnesiac”. Finally getting to hit stages, including a massive Europe and US tour coming up, we caught up with PPC frontman Jack McEwan to find out all about the new record.

I love this quote from the press release saying that you “gave my mental train a fresh lick of paint” - such good phrasing, what exactly are we talking here?

Oh god, I don’t even remember writing that - I must have been a fresh train I don't know, I think it was just coming from recording back to back records without touring anywhere. So you're sort of still in the same sort of headset of - I don't know, there was like, we did the first High Visceral record and Whatchamacallit but we were touring them, and then we did Shyga and it’s sorta just a whirlwind like “pffft”, fully stopped, and sort of didn’t  really know what that record was going to be, or if it did well, or if it didn't do well, or if it would been fine overseas to tour or whatever. 

So I think, coming into, like, mentally do another record without knowing how the previous one sort of went or did or was just like, “alright, well, I'm not going to do something similar to it”, in case when we go over to do America, like, start touring and everyone's like, “man, that album sucked, we're so glad you did something else”, or I don't know, it could be that people do like it, and then they think Night Gnomes is weird, but I think it wasn't going to be back to back where you're like, “let's just hope that it does well”.

So it’s almost like we have been living just, without the world sort of paying attention, so I suppose it's coming out now that sort of, well, W.A. is still in some sort of quarantine lock down thing, but where we're starting to get back out. So I think now that we're allowed to go and do these shows and can play again, it's going to be a really good indicator to see what is working.

So you’re gonna be playing lots of stuff from both Shyga and Night Gnomes on the US tour then?

Yeah, yeah, I think that's sort of definitely the plan because it feels like well, that both records - like Shyga to us seems a bit, of it was like… I suppose we haven't toured America since that was recorded, like 2019. So that was, for us, it seems like ages ago, but in musical terms, like filter - 2019, like, that’s a new release. I always think that about like - we were talking about Black Swan the other day, I was like, “yeah, that films new, we’ll watch it, yeah it’s a new film”.. It was like 2009 or something, I was like “oh my god”.

That is interesting - I wonder if that’s like just because, and I’m speaking on your behalf over here, you’re so much more consumed in music? I love film as well but never got round to seeing Black Swan, I would have said like 2015 or something…

That’s it - I’m pretty sure that film came out like… I googled it, it was 2010 or something, it was at least like 10 years old. 

Which is what 2019 feels like ago for you…

*laughs* Yeah, yeah, I have aged ten years in two year, I swear.

*laughs* I want to ask about the sound of Night Gnomes compared to Shyga in a bit BUT I want to go back to some stuff from the press material first - I read you were digging into philosophy a bit, did this stem from like “oh shit, I don’t know how Shyga’s being received, what do I do?!” 

*laughs* Yeah, that, but the existential dread of just being forgotten. I think that's like, the whole thing. But there was a lot of the time where I was like, “man”, like, “I'm gonna go and need to do something else”. I mean, eventually, like, yeah, that will probably be a thing as far as that career like change or path or something, but I think it was like, the way that we would have gone out would have just been soul crushing to be like, we were doing well, and then all of a sudden, we're forgotten and you’re like “I know, we can’t release anything and nothing’s working”.

But it's sort of been refreshing to see the ticket sales going really well in America and and in Europe as well it’s like “Oh, thank God, like, can I at least do this for another year and I can write another record”, and then without - before I go back to the building site, chuck the hard hat back on, I just know the boss’ll be like “I told you you’d be back!” and I’m like “fuck you!” So yeah, at least every year I’m away from that conversation I’m alright. 

*laughs* Is the boss just like in the back of your head every single time you’re writing and recording?!

I can see his real smug look like “you know you’re shit Jack, you know you’re shit”

*laughs* Maybe everyone needs that bad boss as a motivator?

That’s it. I think you do, you need a bad boss to get into your brain like “if you don’t try this, you know I’m gonna be there… waiting.” 

And trying a lot of things you’ve done - great segue here - so, Night Gnomes is a bit deeper, a bit darker, a bit something else… so you said how you weren’t sure how Shyga was being received, was this a conscious decision of like “let’s get weirder”?

I think that was something that I, at the time, didn't really focus on, and it was sort of writing material that - when I was recording Shyga that was like two sort of ideas for a record. One of them was this really - I’m so glad we didn’t go with it - but it was like this, like nu metal kind of like, Limp Bizkit cross kinda… I dunno? Like, it was almost Limp Bizkit cross Queen and I was just like “yeaaaahhhh!”, like getting full power metal, like thinking I was Freddie Mercury, like “alright, this is gonna work”. And then, though, I think I remember showing Rish, but you know, when you're really nervous, showing someone something, it's like that I was just like “Man, I can't play this live”, I can’t pull off a Freddie - I can’t even pull off Fred Durst *laughs*

So we probably won't do that, so I was like, “alright, we'll get back to what we can do”, but then there was some darker bits and pieces that sort of like, the tail of those sorts of ideas, that I really wanted to kind of push and just explore and see where could go and and rather than doing some like 70s, bop bouncy kind of like Beach Boys-esque rock record I think going into somewhere where we're like “cool, what sounds good, what works for us”. And the production is all over the place on the record, because a lot of the time it was sort of, there's some of the best work we have, which like Slinky for me, it's like I think just, I can’t produce that at any higher quality from me, but I think coming a year later, like to where was recorded, I'd be like,” Man, I’d change this or change that or do this”.

But it's nice to see, it's like a level of where we are at the moment, producer wise and recording wise. So that was sort of just a challenge to just see what we could create that sounded quite good and interesting and I think yeah, for me, it's like definitely the darkest thing we've done, like tracks like Dread and Butter and, I don't know, the opening track Terminus, I’d just be like, “Ohhh, I can't wait for that” just when it kicks in just it’s just fully, fully on the money. But yeah, it's an album and yeah we're definitely proud of - something that we wanted to change and at least keep evolving our sound, so it sounds a lot better than Shyga does - you can actually hear some bits and pieces this time *laughs*

I don’t want to nerd out TOO hard here, but as someone with an audio engineering background myself, I’m quite curious about these changes in recording or producing - what are we talking about here? Is there some changes in Porn Crumpets recording or producing techniques people can listen out for on the new record?

I think like - for one, I stopped using a Singstar mic *laughs* and bought a condenser mic, so yeah, rather than vocals - so I think, a lot of the last couple of albums, I’ve got so, not lazy, but like almost to the point  where the same software I'm running the guitars and the vocals through, and they're all on the same spectrum, so it was just so hard to distinguish what's guitar and what’s vocals. I mean, if you listen back to - I think that was a technique that was used a lot in rock music back in like, Queen or whatever, but it was great because they only had one guitar, and ten vocals, rather than ten guitars and one vocal, the difference was like, yeah, absurd where we were coming from. 

So it's just picking up bad techniques over the years and thinking it was working. Now like, obviously, there's a lot of stuff where I’m kinda just like “Oh man, what was I even thinking?!” Moving forward, it's nice that we can at least get to the point that we've made mistakes, and I think that is - like yeah, vocals is definitely one, they seem to be a lot clearer on this record. . I think that's also coming from not being a singer, trying to hide it to be like, “Alright, I think I can… Did I hit that note? I don't know. But we'lll push it up a little bit. I trust it”. So yeah. 

Interesting, I was literally gonna ask with the vocals, is that a confidence thing as well?

Oh yeah, or just being like, you know what, like, I think instead of drowning it all the time in delay and reverb, which is kind of cool and I think when we were playing those shows, when you're doing like, say The Bird or like Mojo's or Indi Bar when there's smaller rooms and you can't really hear the vocals anyway, it was kind of just like, eternal, the reverb delay on it, so it's just like it's happening in there. And then as the rooms kind of got bigger, they're like, “I wonder what Jack sounds like?”. It’s like, “you're not gonna like this, we'll stick with 100 cap rooms, we’re good there *laughs*

No more hiding! So I’m thinking about the singstar mic, the 10 guitar tracks and one vocal track - what would someone like producer/engineer extraordinaire Dave Parkin say about this sort of stuff?

Oh man, I think Dave's so like, he's so… what's the word? Where he’s complimentary, like, if you bring him something like, our stems or that he's like, “oh  man, that sounds good, I really like this idea and that idea” and he's got so many ways of being able to sort of evolve the track. I think it was just like, a lot of the time he's like, “cool, can't wait to get on this” and we're like, “oh, no, we’ll just do drums, that’s the finished thing” and you could just see him be like “why is that the finished thing?!” and I’ll be like “cos I kinda like it!”

And then I'm just so stupidly naive about like, what music is, though, and just go “yeah like, we’ll just use that as the final product”, and you can just see someone who’s just got such a brain for music just being like “man, you’re ruining yourself!”. So I think, yeah, learning to trust those sorts of like minds, and obviously, right, when we worked with Jeli [Michael Jelinek], and we do the mixing, I can think like, you can sort of hear the battle that of where his first mix to where my mix is, and then we sort of come to the middle, and maybe sometimes you’re just like, “actually, we should have turned  that down”, or “we shouldn't have brought out that frequency” and, and even now there's like bits and pieces like Bob Holiday where it's like “go redo the bass, redo this”.

In my head like, you like you hear what you hear in the song, but then you give it like a year later without listening to it. And you're like, “fuck”, like, you can’t even hear what I'm thinking, because you're just playing it in your head. So it's almost like you have to give your music off to a couple of other people maybe to listen to you before you can sort of hand it over because one, it is so convoluted and it's got so much happening. I think now I've learned to just be like, “alright, what instrument is needed”, rather than overdubbing everything just for the sake of it, so just to fill up room. And that's what I used to love, I used to love compressed dity sort of like little rock tracks where you’re just like, “I can’t hear what he's singing, I can't hear what he's doing.” But yeah, now I definitely think the ears evolving, we're trying to get better, and it's kind of nice to see that, there's that sort of curve where if you started from album one to sort of where we've got now - I mean, I personally hope it sounds better, but I don't know.

Well, it is subjective at the end of the day, because you know, I wanted to touch on you saying the word what instrument is “needed”? It's like, on the first couple of records, maybe the 10 overdubs, that's what was “needed” then - I guess how do you know what is needed?

Oh man, never. Ever. I’ve been doing this little project with Alex from Great Gable.  We've just started writing sorta this Beatlesy kind of like little sort of indie tracks where we just come around and play acoustic and then just build it and build it. But it's nice going from the beginning of a song to be like, well, it starts with acoustic but like you can eventually take that out. Because you don't really need acoustic. It's more like a shaker, isn't it - unles s you just put them in two speakers and that does sound kinda good.

But it's nice to think about everything in what we're hearing, rather than working on a track for, god, I don't know, literally like six months, sometimes for Porn Crumpets records for like two minutes per song and you’re like “it’s perfect!” amd then yeah, you’re like “I don’t even know what I was doing!”. So it's good going back to the drawing board, but I need to learn how to write something from scratch, to then produce it to then get better. And I mean, trial and error takes a little longer. But I think I'll eventually get there. I'll be 40 yeah, and just be like “one day, one day, I will be able to record a maraca!!” and I'll be like, “listen to that maraca!!”. *laughs*

I'll hold you to that, I wanna hear that Maraca as well *laughs* So you mentioned the track Bob Holiday from the new album, who I looked up and he was an actor who played like the OG superman. Just like all of your records, there’s some pretty damn interesting track titles going on - where do you get title inspiration from?

I don't really know, I think it was like - Dave Parkin was actually another one. I remember we did the drums with him for Part Two, and I remember, he would go down the song list and be like “oh I've seen that before, I've seen that before, I've seen that - oh, that's interesting”. So I'm like, “Gurzle” and he’s like “yeah, that’s kinda cool” - I think from then, I was like “I will always want the songs to be like - impress Dave Parkin” *laughs* If I say like a word like 10 times in the songs, like we can't call it that it's got to be something else.

I think that's sort of the first thing you see - I remember buying a record and the first thing you look at is back title, and song titles, and you're just like “this is either interesting or not interesting”, or it's something that you want to go for. That sort of, I don’t know, it's all part of the allure, the brand, the whole thing the colour, the feel, the smell or whatever. I never know song titles, I remember having some arguments like that weird thing when you go out to the pub and someone's like, “name me 10 songs from this” and you’re like why should I - I’ve listened to them, but I have no idea what the song titles are.

So I always feel like the song title is just as irrelevant as like, the band name in some ways. So it's like, if you like the piece of music, then you'll hear it and you'll be like, “I really liked that, but I have no idea who it's by”. But it’s when you sit down in a pub garden, music constantly going and like now we have Shazam. But you just can't, I just yeah - there’s songs I know I love but will never hear them again, and it kind of makes me upset. So maybe I shouldn't be more aware of what song titles and things are.

Naa, naa, keep doing what you’re doing I reckon - all I know is I’ll remember your song titles far longer than most… and now I kinda know who Bob Holiday was *laughs* So I want to ask you about one more quote from the press release about the new album - “and if deeper isn’t your cup of moonshine, then at least you know the sixth album will be upbeat as fuck” - soooo this means you’re already working on that sixth album?

There's been so many ideas going for a sixth record. I think I've got nine records ready to go. but I don't want to just release anything because I've just think like that idea of putting out material just for the sake of putting out material…  I think I just want something to breathe and know it sounds good. I think that's where we're at now. Like, we've done five records and if it was just gonna keep going, I don't think there's any self reflection like, I just want to sort of maybe take the pointers of Night Gnomes and what people think and sit down with actual rather than - it's so hard listening to just sort of like yes, people when they're like “no, it sounds good. It works it does”l and you're like “what was shit about it?! What can I change on the next one?!” 

I think yeah, learning that yourself is like the hardest thing because then otherwise you just end up doing the same bits and pieces and you see like the one song’s got the most plays so you're like, “oh well clearly let's make all music like that”, but then  you can't keep doing that because you might just be in some weird Scandinavian like -  some kid has got you on like a million times and is like your only fan for some reason. Yeah. That's why I just had a nice little break with Alex doing this record that we're working on and that’s nearly finished, so I think I'll go back into Porn Crumpets with a nice sort of fresh ear, fresh head and think about what I need to do in my life, rather than just write music, but like put it into something like make it sound good.

So this project with Alex - does it have a name, any other details at this stage?

Yeah, no, I think we're gonna call it “Yellows” that was like that working title and it's kind of nice, upbeat. It's just one word. I think we were gonna call it something ridiculous. Like the Farmer Street Speed Bumps and the album was gonna be Bumps of Speed *laughs* and we were like “we’ll call it Yellows, it just works”.

*laughs* That’s dope, super exciting stuff! So you’re about to jet off all around the US and Europe, which you’ve done before, but given it’s after the pandemic and you haven’t even gotten to play stuff from Shyga live yet, what are you looking forward to the most?

Yeah I think being sensible, and actually seeing shit this time, yeah. Like the shows was always sort of the thing, I think we thought of it as a chore. Like, when we were first doing it, we were like, we're on holiday, but we have like this thing to do. And for some reason, everyone who you want to hang out with as a Porn Crumpets fan, you’re like “why are they all at the pub” oh fuck, we’ve gotta play - okay, we’ll get this over and done with so we can hang out with everyone”.

Whereas now I think we're like, alright, like, if we're gonna do it, it's, let's think about it like a show and start thinking like the lights… man I swear, like, we're always going to be five years behind anyone, like mentally, but we've just got to the point where yeah, we're turning 30 and we’re like “we should probably think about the band now”. So yeah, we started thinking about the band and doing these shows will actually have a bit of brainpower behind it rather than sort of rocking up and doing it.

A lot of the time it’s harder when you actually don’t wanna go and get drunk, being caught around alcohol all the time, it’s impossible not to have alcohol. So we’ve learned and we’ve been training, we’re going like “alright, can you get like ten beers drunk, and then for the next hour drink a mid strength” and you’re sitting there like “ohhhhh, I can’t I just want to plow it”.

I’m just picturing like a Rocky montage with the music.

Yeah, yeah yeah you’ve had ten shots and then you’re like “eeeuuuhh”...

And hey I guess that goes full circle back to the first question - I guess that’s kinda giving your mental train a fresh lick of paint?

There you go, that’s it.

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets new album Night Gnomes is out April 22 via What Reality? Records

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AUSTRALIAN TOUR
 
Tickets through www.psychedelicporncrumpets.com
 
Thursday 30 June Crowbar Sydney
Friday 1 July Republic Bar Hobart
Saturday 2 July Lion Arts Factory Adelaide
Saturday 9 July The Rechabite Perth
Friday 15 July The Corner Melbourne
Saturday 16 July The Triffid Brisbane

 
UK / EUROPE TOUR
 
Tickets through www.psychedelicporncrumpets.com
 
Thursday, August 11th Hole44 Berlin
Friday, August 12th Molotow Hamburg
Sunday, August 13th Tivoli Utrecht
Monday, August 15th The Forum Tunbridge Wells
Wednesday, August 17th Brudenell Social Club Leeds SOLD OUT
Thursday, August 18th Rescue Rooms Nottingham
Sunday, August 21st Junction Cambridge
Monday, August 22nd Think Tank Newcastle SOLD OUT
Tuesday, August 23rd Saint Luke’s Glasgow SOLD OUT
Thursday, August 25th Band On The Wall Manchester SOLD OUT
Friday, August 26th O2 Institute Birmingham
Saturday, August 27th Thekla Bristol SOLD OUT
Monday, August 29th The 1865 Southampton
Tuesday, August 30th  Concorde 2 Brighton
Thursday, September 1st Electric Brixton London
Friday, September 2nd Norwich Arts Centre Norwich SOLD OUT
Saturday, September 3rd Manchester Psych Fest Manchester
Tuesday, September 6th La Maroquinerie Paris
Wednesday, September 7th Trix Club Antwerp
Thursday, September 8th Vera Groningen
Friday, September 9th Doornroosje Nijmegen
Sunday, September 11th De Muziekgieterij Maastricht
 
 
US TOUR
 
With support from Acid Dad (except Atlanta)
Tickets through www.psychedelicporncrumpets.com
 
1st October Independent San Francisco, CA
3rd October Star Theater Portland, OR
4th October Biltmore Vancouver, BC
5th October Crocodile Seattle WA
7th October The Urban Lounge Salt Lake City, UT
8th Orange The Globe Denver, CO SOLD OUT
9th October The Globe Denver, CO SOLD OUT
11th October 7th Street Entry Minneapolis, MN
12th October Empty Bottle Chicago, IL
13th October Empty Bottle Chicago, IL SOLD OUT
14th October El Club Detroit, MI
15th October The Axis Club Toronto, ON
17th October Bar Le Ritz Montreal, QC
18th October The Sinclair Boston, MA
20th October Le Poisson Rouge New York, NY
21st October Underground Arts Philadelphia, PA
22nd October Union Stage Washington, DC
24th October Exit/In Nashville, TN
25th October Terminal West Atlanta, GA
27th October Satellite Bar Houston, TX
28th October The Parish Austin, TX
29th October Deep Ellum Art Co Dallas, TX
1st November Casbah San Diego, CA SOLD OUT
2nd November El Rey Theatre Los Angeles, CA