IF you believed everything you read on the internet, you’d think that Jay Whalley was a totally hardcore punk rocker. But the vocalist for popular Aussie punk band Frenzal Rhomb tells Jennifer Niven it’s all incorrect. Frenzal Rhomb has apparently courted a lot of controversy over the years, explicit album covers, obscene lyrics, alignment with a variety of crazy causes… In fact, their own press release hails them as “those bloody Australian controversial, hilarious, radical punk rockers…”
“Oh really?” laughs Jay Whalley, who has been rocking the global punk scene for over twenty years, “I guess it does tend to follow us around.”
So why is the band so bad arse?
“Um. Local music and being vegetarian? I think those are the most radical causes I support,” chuckles Whalley. “It’s ridiculous how in this day and age people can still find things to be upset about.”
Whalley got into punk rock as a teenager when he realised it was the easiest music to play on the guitar. These days his shows with Frenzal Rhomb book out up to 2000 people. He was actually born in Glasgow, which is perhaps where he gets that rough and ready way of talking…
“I think it’s funny when people get offended over swearing. It’s silly. It’s nothing you wouldn’t hear outside your workplace or your school,” he says, “It’s funny how as soon as you’re in a band then your lifestyle becomes politics for the media.”
Maybe it’s his mouth that gets him in trouble then. As a host on large Sydney radio station Triple J, Whalley hosted a variety of features like Dreamweaver, where he interpreted callers’ dreams in quick fire sentences. It quickly became Screamweaver, where he would scream the answers at them. He gets bored talking about his band’s upcoming New Zealand tour and casually starts to mention the need for an armed uprising.
“If you’ve heard we’re coming to start some kind of revolution then yes, yes it’s true. I don’t know how we’re going to do it. What I do know is that everyone needs to be heavily armed,” he reasons, before assuring me my job will be secure as long as I turn the paper into a propaganda magazine for his cause.
His other aim for the band’s trip to promote the new album Smoko at the Pet Food Factory? To prove you don’t need to practise to make good music about “cockroaches, Goths, racists, rapists, bird attacks and heaps of ciggies.”
“We don’t practise. There’s no practising on my watch. But our live show will blow your mind apart six ways from Sunday. All the talent’s in the band…”
And what’s your formula for fun on stage, Jay?
“Me? I just kind of swear at people and have a nice time.”
Frenzal Rhomb, Bodega, October 29.