Weak Boys Return To Rattle The Cage Of Middle Class Banality

Sydney's Weak Boys trade in self-effacing, lo-fi guitar pop. Their 2014 debut Weekdays/Weekends captured hearts and made the cut for a bunch of year-end 'best of' lists with incisive songs about suburban alienation, scabbing ciggies, and drinking the hangover away.

Now, they're back to rattle the cage of middle-class banality with their follow-up Weak Boys II.

The result of a weekend of The Simpsons trivia and all-you-can-eat at their local Portuguese Community Club, Weak Boys II has the not-so-weak-looking three-piece squaring up issues of drug binging, your pot dealer constantly holidaying in Europe, and the increasing frustration with a city dealing in politics of paternalism and draconian legislation.

Songs like"Good One Sydney"and"Life Rules" fit perfectly with the rest of Weak Boys diffident, mope-rock canon, Weak Boys II might be full of Australian signifiers like Coopers six-packs, Tally-Ho's, and pissing away your last few dollars at the local TAB, but it's despondence is universal. Laconic, wry, and unflinchingly frank, Weak Boys are a band that roots for the underdog, because they are the underdog.

Noisey: Has your music moved to heavier stuff to cope with Mike Baird and his cabinet?Chris Yates: The heavier track "Good One Sydney" was actually written by Matt when Barry O'Farrell was in power, it was originally called "Good One Barry". It's all the same shit. 'All politicians are crooks' (from another of Matt's songs on the record ACAB) seems like such an obvious, redundant statement but the corruption at this stage in Sydney is just so highly visible and no one actually cares unless it directly affects them. You have certain noisy protest organisations in this city praising Baird for overturning the ban on the horrific greyhound racing industry for showing 'he listens to the people' and acting like the displacement of seriously disadvantaged people in Sydney is not worth a protest as much as a lack of late night entertainment options. Defending the narrow idea of what we consider our culture shouldn't mean turning a blind eye to the rest of the shit that's going on, and I don't think it should be a priority. We're trying to say a lot of this stuff on Weak Boys II - it's basically a protest album thinly veiled by bad jokes and bad playing.

Does getting high help you leave your real world problems behind?
Yeah of course. The idea that drugs are intrinsically linked to bad behaviour is some deluded moralistic religious hangover that stigmatises people who try to experiment to find the right combination of uppers and downers to help get through this nightmare of society and life.

How did Matt's departure to Japan affect the outcome of the record?
It's a shame we haven't been able to play any shows this year but really that's the people's loss more than ours. It's been a nice break.  Hopefully we can write another album next year and record it on skype or whatever the hell people do.

Weekdays/Weekends had a very 'Australian' gaze. Does Weak Boys II share this?
I think if we've been conscious of anything, it's to try and write songs that reflect our experience in this city and country and time. Of observing and recognising that many people have it far worse than us and trying not to speak for them but to acknowledge the systems and institutions that make injustice possible and calling it out in whatever measly voice we have. The most frivolous songs on the record are hopefully representative of our experience even if that is just a jingle about having a bad hangover or calling the cops bastards.

'Weak Boys II' is available Nov 25 through Strong Look Records.  
The band launch the album in Sydney Jan 4 at Freda's.