Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A Pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.
Brenton Harris is the front-person of Australian pop-punk juggernauts Catholic Guilt. Brenton took a few moments out of his day to chat with TGEFM about releasing a fantastic record under a strict lockdown, whats next for the band and platypi (platypuses?)
Thank you for agreeing to this today. First of all, congrats on the recent success of the singles “Nothing” and “Talking Fake.” Where is the band at regarding a follow-up to 2020’s fantastic This Is What Honesty Sounds Like?
Brenton: No worries, thank you for being interested in our music. It still blows my mind that someone on the other side of the world would spend some of the most finite resource they have, their time, listening to our music, and even more so that they’d invest in it enough to want to interview me about it. We consider that a massive compliment.
As for the status of a follow-up to ‘This Is What Honesty Sounds Like’, I can’t give you a concrete answer but I can tell you that we’ve recently been in the studio here in Melbourne with our usual production team, The Loud Noise Estate, working on some new music. I can also confirm that we’re in the process of writing and refining several new tracks, so an official release sometime next year is looking very likely.
Speaking of the Honesty record, you released in the middle of the pandemic, obviously that removed touring as an option, how did you counteract the lockdowns to get the new tunes into ears across the globe?
It was a struggle that’s for sure! I don’t know how familiar people overseas would be with the situation in Australia at that time, but we live in Melbourne, which was statistically speaking, the most locked-down city on the planet. We are a very community health-conscious band and populace, generally, so we were supportive of most of the measures, but it did make life as a touring musician impossible, it also made rehearsing pretty much impossible as well, as there was a radius limit for movement, as well as very tight restrictions on numbers gathering indoors and a nighttime curfew, all in place for months on end.
As we weren’t able to play anything resembling a tour run, we had to get creative with the rollout and also had to stay ready to strike when an opportunity arose. So we shot videos whenever there was a temporary break in restrictions, made an animated video for ‘Life In Three Part Harmony’ when shooting a real one became impossible and created an 8-bit video game called ‘Furrend Finder’ to help people through the boredom. We also held a couple of ‘live-streamed’ rehearsals, produced some covers of Midnight Oil, Comeback Kid and Saves The Day and did every bit of press we possibly could. We also had frequent virtual catch-ups to stay connected. When the opportunity to play shows locally did arise, we managed to sell out both our single launch for ‘A Boutique Affair’ and our EP launch for ‘This Is What Honesty Sounds Like’ and both were nights spent with some of our dearest friends in life and music that will live long in the memory. The vibes at both of those shows made them two of our favourite nights of all time. People were just so stoked to be back attending shows and we were equally as stoked to be playing them!
I thought it was just Fosters, kangaroos and Paul Hogan down there, but Catholic Guilt, Stand Atlantic, Yours Truly and Between You and Me have all put out some amazing records over the last few years. What’s going on in Australia that’s led to such an overabundance of great music in the scene lately?
First of all, as a Melbournian, I need to state for the record that Fosters is a trash beer. Kangaroos are dope though and as far as Hogan’s go, Paul is definitely an improvement on Hulk, so throw another shrimp on the barbie, I guess?
As for the musical side of the question, Australia has a rich history of producing world-class music in all genres, but especially punk rock, indie-rock, metal and hardcore. From the proto-punk of The Saints, the surf-rock of Radio Birdman, to the seductive rock of the Divinyls or the dark majesty of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, right through the politicised pub-rock of Midnight Oil, the timeless songwriting of Paul Kelly and the contributions of ‘90s staples like Frenzal Rhomb, Bodyjar, Silverchair and The Living End. All of whom are influences on us. The rise of bands like the ones you mentioned and of the likes of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Dune Rats, Eliza and the Delusionals, Violent Soho, Polaris and our friends in Clowns, is just what happens when the rest of the world starts paying attention. I’d encourage anyone who likes any of those bands to do a deep dive into what’s going on in Australia right now, because it is as exciting and inspiring as anytime in our history.
What effect, if any, have the cultural and political landscapes of the last few years had on your music?
This is a bit of a difficult one to answer because the bulk of the material people have heard from us so far was written prior to the chaos of the last few years. The housing affordability and mental health crisis down here both rage on though, so it feels like the likes of Song of the Renter and A Boutique Affair have maintained a sense of relevancy. Or at least it feels like that to me anyway. The chaos of the pandemic did have a direct impact on our recent single Talking Fake, both in the physical creation sense and on the lyrical narrative.
In a physical sense, as Dean and I were the only two that could see each other legally, we were the ones principally involved in the song’s initial creation, which means there’s a lot of our individual idiosyncrasies embedded in the end result.
In the narrative sense, the lyrical inspiration arose from my experiences during that time period. During that time I became more and more aware of the fractured state of some core relationships in my life. That led me to think about the concept in a broader sense and after speaking to a few people and observing the plight of a lot of people close to me, I realised that the enforced isolation really brought the cracks in relationships of all kinds to light. Most of those cracks were caused by communicative breakdowns. So we wrote ‘Talking Fake’ as an appeal to both sides of these relationships to put all the placating, all of the excuses and the unending awkwardness aside and just speak honestly and truthfully with another, to quit ‘talking fake’ and just ‘give it to me straight’. Whatever happens on the other side of those conversations has to be better than living in a state of constant fracture.
The music world has also changed a lot over the last few years. What are some of the biggest changes you’ve come across in your time within the scene?
I think the biggest change over the last few years has actually been the increased visibility of diversity in both the local and global punk rock scenes. There’s been a lot of incredible artists in the scene breakthrough who identify as female or as members of the LGBTQIA+ community, or other previously underrepresented groups, there’s also been a lot of First Nations acts that have finally got the attention that their art, their people and their stories have always deserved as well. It’s really fucking cool to see. We are all big fans of the way the younger generations are pushing our world to become more welcoming and artistically and culturally progressive. So that and the apparent disregard for genre confines. Which I also love.
This question is definitely based on my desire to see Catholic Guilt and coyly (hopefully) manifesting a trip to the East Coast for you all. Do you have plans in the works for a North American tour in the near future?
To paraphrase the spirit of Jim Morrison in Wayne’s World II paraphrasing Kevin Costner’s character Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, who was himself paraphrasing the bible, “if you book us, we will come”.
We are actually headed to the USA for our first little run of dates this month, playing San Diego, Irvine, Orlando and Tampa on our way to Gainesville where we’ll be playing two shows, one pre-Fest event the night before Fest20 and then at Loosey’s on the Sunday of Fest20. We’re bloody stoked to be finally stepping foot on stages in your country. We also can’t wait to actually meet Rob from our label, our publicist Mike, our fellow Wiretap bands and all of our US fans. If you can make it to a show, come! And if you know someone who can work out how to book us an East Coast run, we’ll happily come back next year!
Following up on tour questions, if you could book your own tour with three other bands, who would they be and why?
I could answer this a thousand different ways on a thousand different days, but at this moment, I’m going to say put us on the road in the US with Against Me!, Jimmy Eat Word and Thrice, with The Wonder Years, Teenage Wrist and Softcult alternating dates as openers. I feel like that would be a great blend of the sounds and vibes that have inspired our band as a collective, as well as provide insight into what we’re listening to now. Each of the three ‘headliners’ have all been enormously influential on at least two or three members of the band. This is especially true for me personally, outside of Aussie acts very few readers will know about, those are three of the acts I have been most inspired by as a songwriter. Soupy from the Wonder Years also gets a big shoutout for being the most relatable of the ‘new breed’ to me personally, while the latter two acts are current personal favourites of mine. I know I broke the rules of the question. I’m not sorry, because this tour would absolutely crush.
As someone who was never talented enough, the process of signing to a label has always fascinated me. How did Catholic Guilt and Wiretap Records come together?
Two words. The internet.
In all seriousness, it was just a nice confluence of events whereby we were actively seeking out opportunities overseas and Wiretap Records was seeking out new acts. As big fans of Spanish Love Songs, we had been introduced to Wiretap Records via their debut full-length Giant Sings The Blues, and thought that their artist roster was a great fit for us, so we hit up Rob with some tracks to see if he’d have any interest in working with us, and as luck would have it, he’d already heard a couple of tracks and was in fact, interested. ZOOM calls took place, decisions were made and with a swipe of a digital pen, we were one with the Wiretap brethren. It was the first-ever record deal for any member of this band. So far it is worked out great for both parties and we can’t wait to actually meet the team in October!
One of our obligatory questions in these interviews also tends to be the one I have found most important on a personal level. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should?
(*takes a deep breath*) For the sake of some form of brevity, I’ll stick to some of my favourite emerging Australian acts! So with apologies to all of our Wiretap Records bandmates, who all rule, here’s some Aussies you should get into your earholes, pronto.
WAAX are a badass grunge punk band from Brisbane that rule, Press Club are an equally amazing Melbourne-based punk band, Clowns are a fantastic Melbourne-based hardcore punk band with psych-rock elements that also double as one of the most entertaining live bands on the planet. Eliza and The Delusionals are a super-rad ‘90s style power-pop/indie-rock band with the most addictive melodies, Excuse For An Exit are a stellar crew from regional Victoria who blends 90s alt-rock with pop-punk in an amazing way, their guitarist/vocalist Edelle guested for us at Full Tilt and crushed it, definitely check them out. Speed are taking over hardcore right now and are absolutely worth your time, even Shaq digs them! RedHook and Future Static are both incredible emerging Aussie heavy acts, Chasing Ghosts are doing amazing things in the storytelling punk space, The Dead Love write catchy AF power-pop/grunge tunes and I also have a massive, massive love for the South African-born, Melbourne based songwriter Ruby Gill and the Melbourne-based, South African-born, Tamil, Sri Lankan singer-songwriter and rapper Ecca Vandal. My mate Dan Maio (from The Getaway Plan) plays the drums for Ecca and her live show is INCREDIBLE. Check out her track Price of Living with Dennis Lyxzen from Refused and Jason Aalon Butler of letlive/Fever 333 as your entry point. There’s so many more though! This scene is stacked!
What’s next for Catholic Guilt?
Touring America, coming home, drinking some decent coffee, writing and recording some music, releasing a rather summery sad-boy pop-punk single at some point (it’s called Live For The Rush, but shhh secret squirrel) and then playing some shows around Australia, or that’s the plan anyway. Our eyes are set on Europe for 2023 also, so cross your fingers for us.
Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?
Three quick things. Firstly and most importantly, we have a new guitarist/vocalist, Megan Sidwell and she is megscellent. We’re all very excited for you to hear the fresh dynamic that Megs brings to our sound. Secondly, we are NOT a Christian band and could people stop asking us that or assuming that we are? Thirdly, Male platypuses have a hollow spur on each hind leg connected to a venom secreting gland, which is proof that even the cute things in Australia can kill you if you give them the chance 😛
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
