“It’s a pretty ridiculous, synth driven, massively produced sci-fi epic… but it’s not a concept album,” Johnny, lead singer/guitarist of The Galvatrons tells me of the band’s debut album, Lazer Graffitti.
‘No 3 minute long ambient synth interludes then?” I ask.
“Just a bit at the end where me and Gamma disappear up our own asses for about 15 mins, but you’re allowed to do that on the last track.”
Yet despite how proud of the album the boys are, they are quick to highlight that it’s not going to re-invent Rock n Roll and that it is very much an album they won’t make again.
“We’re under no illusions, this is the sort of record you only make once, and I think we put everything that we wanted to put in this record all that finishing high school sort of stuff. But yeah I think there are a lot of bands who make this record three or four times and we’re not going to be one of those bands.”
With a live show rife with joking around and other onstage silliness, the band have been accused by some as being nothing more than another Darkness-esque fad destined to fade like their colourful jumpsuits.
While some bands might be discouraged by such hateful remarks, The Galvatrons on the other hand seem positively stoked about it.
“Yeah you want people to either love or hate you,” Johnny explains. “You don’t want that middle of the road thing. No one wants that.”
“Besides,” bassist Condor interjects, “if people hate you they’re talking about you, so they’re promoting you, you win,” he laughs.
Having become accustomed to the delicate egos and airbrushed self-image of most bands today, this attitude comes as a breath of fresh air to this jaded and bitter journo. However, regardless of how refreshing such a view is, one has to doubt what artist tell you so I inquired further about how and why they sport such a nonchalant perspective toward criticism.
“By not giving it a shit really,” synth lord Gamma divulges with a quiet giggle. “It’s the easiest way to go about it really, just say this is what we do, we’re just going to have fun doing it. The lauding or the derision comes later.”
The band also earned themselves quite a reputation as time travellers from the future sent back to the past to revive the flailing flag of rock.
Eager to find out why a band from the future would make music that sounds like it’s from the 80s, I pushed Johnny to tell me what their orders from the day after tomorrow were.
“We’re not from the future,” he groans most likely having had to say this multiple times already today. “I said that a couple of times at gigs, you know ‘we’re the Galvatrons we’re from the future’ kind of a catchy little thing, I had fun with it you know, it’s not like we’re this massively serious band. But then people started writing literal reviews, and asking us about it interviews. We thought it was a bit weird that people sort of latched onto that.”
A little disappointed at not being regaled with H.G.Wellsian tales of a future gone horribly wrong, I push on, asking what we can expect the Galvatrons to sound like when they finally do get to the future.
“It’s just going to get glitchier I think,” says Gamma. “I think in about 20 years it’s just going to be glitches and bleeps.” Seizure
Aphex Halen I suggest to which the band erupts in laughter. “Yeah totally,” Johnny adds, “just big fat synths and guitar over glitches and bleeps. Kids will be air drumming like this…” he explains by seizuring violently in his chair.
After the rest of the band restrains me from jamming my belt into his mouth in a misguided effort to stop him swallowing his tongue, I ask the band about what it’s like to be a Galvatron on tour.
“We’re quite well behaved. We play the show and we go home,” Condor answers all too quickly.
“Bullshit, the last time we played in The Gold Coast, Condor didn’t even come home with us, he just met us in Sydney,” Johnny laughs before continuing. “Yeah Gamma doesn’t even remember the show, there’s a lot of Scotch involved when we play the Gold Coast. But yeah there’s always some sort of weird shit going on when we’re on tour, then you get back to the hire car and it’s full of lemurs you know, you can’t escape it.”
Surely if anything a Lemur would be quite easy to escape from. But hey who cares, I’m interviewing them because of their music, not their knowledge on lower primates.
Be sure to check out Lazer Graffitti, out now on Warner Music.
The band will also be touring with Something With Numbers throughout July and August, see http://www.myspace/thegalvatrons for more info.
