Beyond The Call

Photo by Ali McCann

pider Vomit have a great band name, get around in matching tie dye and have a tendency to take too much acid. They’re also one of the strangest, most exciting bands to pop out of Melbourne in recent months. With the approach of their first release we thought we’d try to find out what they're all about. As it goes our scheduled interviewer called in pill sick at the last minute but luckily the ever resourceful Spider Vomit agreed to interview themselves. Hannah: What do we want people to know about us? Jim: Who we are and what we stand for. Hannah: Who do you think we are Jim? Jim: I think we’re a group having a universal conversation. Hannah: What do you think we sound like? Gill: Psyunge. John: What is that? Hannah: Psychedelic Grunge. John: I think it’s more séance music. Gill: We sound like five people with pretty different tastes in music playing together in a room on acid. John: Sometimes it sounds like cult music, which is how it should be. Some of the newer songs reach further back into our past to hidden memories. They’re becoming darker and at the same time the edge is becoming sharper. Craig: Why did we call the EP Widows Walk? Gill: I think it describes how we’re evolving as a band. It’s the sound of where we’re going to as opposed to where we’re coming from. Hannah: The songs on the EP are all pretty different. They’re the ideas that we had when we first played together. Gill: The point of the EP was to lay those tracks down so we could move on. I’d rather evolve than sit in a bedroom for ten years and practice and practice and eventually put out this perfect thing when I’m 30. People aren’t interested in perfection. They want to see evolution. Hannah: Yeah, then you learn from your mistakes as you go. Like with the EP photo shoot. Instead of generically lining up against a wall, we decided to take two car-loads of people to an undecided location. We dragged all the equipment over about two kilometers of sand dunes because it was a spot we couldn’t drive to. Then we kind of got dressed up in crazy, psychedelic gothic outfits. We were in the middle of all these sand dunes and then we took a bunch of acid. Craig: It was a full moon and the tide came in and we got stuck there. Gill: We had one tent but we had to put the camera equipment in there. It was more important than us. The whole thing really damaged us. Craig: That’s right, a lot of sand got in the stereo and we had to resort to listening to Gill do Nirvana covers. Hannah: Yep, we’re learning as we go. We’re learning when too much acid is too much acid. John: Do people ever look confused when you say your band's called Spider Vomit? Craig: Hell yeah. They say, “oh, you play music?” and I say “yeah”. And they say “what’s the name of your band” and I say “Spider Vomit” and they say “oh, so you don’t play in a real band then”. Yeah—it’s a real band; we’re really serious about it. I’ve got to think of a fake name I can tell people so they don’t think I’m playing in a shit band.

annah: So we’re vocal heavy - not many bands have two vocalists. Jim: Not many bands want to convert people either. John: What are we converting people into? Jim: Whatever their mind allows them to be converted into. Any access point and it will be utilised by the band. Ah, yes, the shows are exciting because there’s two people up the front. It’s a bit more exciting than just having people tucked behind their instruments. Hannah: It’s quite hard to communicate the feeling that you’re trying to express with your vocals when you have to stand in the one spot. Craig: Do you think hearing Spider Vomit recorded is much different to seeing us live? Hannah: I think that now with our newer songs – we’re trying to play without having breaks and trying to make it a whole piece. Gill: It’s getting more improvised as well. Hannah: It’s hard trying to get that same feeling of playing a live show onto a record. Gill: I think recording at our house and recording it pretty much live helped that. I think we captured the energy. John: I think that we write songs as a band together and it’s kind of broad but I think that’s where the intensity comes from rather than sitting down and thinking about it. It’s just about playing music and trying to make the most of what we’ve got as a band. Jim: Quite often the more constraints you put on it the more of that live energy that you lose. Primarily people play music to enjoy themselves but when they have to play songs again and again and again and have to record those songs then some of that energy can go. But I guess the band tries to keep it in the live shows. A bit more of that inclusive, its time to have fun, to enjoy it and that’s why we have certain songs that try to include the audience and make it into a bit more of a cult happening. Hannah: So we all play or have played in different bands. We’re busy. Gill: Creative people. Jim: Craig, how did you first start playing music? Craig: I wanted to start a long time ago but could never do it but then my friend taught me how to play bass and then I moved in with you guys and started singing. Hannah: What about you Johnny? John: I think I first started playing guitar because Gillian started playing guitar. Gill: Yeah, Johnny was always just jimboing in on what I was doing. John: But I was listening to different stuff. Jim: Since you’re younger does that mean you’re a better guitar player than Gillian? John: Yeah of course, cause I can learn from her mistakes. Hannah: How much younger are you than Gill? John: Two years. She was the big nasty sister. raig: How did you start playing guitar? Gill: I played piano since I was like five or something and I fucking hated it. It was just boring and I had to learn stuff like “Greensleeves” and I never practiced and then Mum said ‘well do you want to play something else’ when I was 15. And I said “fuck yeah, I want to play guitar”. In my first guitar lesson I learnt Nirvana songs and I went “shit this is awesome, this is what I want to do, this is amazing”. So then I’ve played guitar since then. Jim? Jim: I started playing piano relatively early and got a bit sick of that. Then when I didn’t have to go to church anymore I really had no music to listen to other than my sister’s Abba albums. My favourite song was “Fernando”. Then played a little bit of drums and music in high school and bought a cheap drum kit. The guy I was living with had a guitar so I played guitar. Dulcimer, harpsichord, grand piano, oboe, contra bass, violins, viola, clarinet, you name it. Gill: How about you Han? Hannah: I never had a music lesson in my life. My sister was always the one - I did art classes while she did music classes. Then one day when I was visiting my mum we found this weird shop and I found the omnichord. I went “yep, here’s an instrument I can play”. I got back home, had a jam with my nephew who was about three at the time, busted it out and fell in love with it. I got back to Brisbane where I was living with Jimmy and he used to play drums and I’d play omnichord in our little room under the house. We sounded like Air. Jim: That omnichord was the greatest invention ever. Hannah: It is and that was my entry. I still didn’t sing. I didn’t try to ever. I’m learning as I go. Gill: Yeah, we’re all still learning. I think that’s the important thing about our band. We all want to keep getting better, we’re not happy just playing three-chord crap. We don’t want to be another crappy post-punk band. Craig: I like post-punk bands. Gill: Yeah, but we don’t want to sound like that. Hannah: Even bands that I admire I don’t want to sound like. It’s gotta have myself mixed into it and all you guys in there too. Gill, remember when we met and we bonded over music and sat in a goddamn tent and listened to Hole and got yelled at. And then we started experimenting. I think we learnt a lot from each other. And then Craig found us. Craig: I bonded over losing my job at Flight Centre and crying on Gill’s bed while she patted my head. Gill: You were on acid too. Craig: That was good bonding time. But before that I didn’t play music very much. Gill: You played in Lindsey Low Hand. Craig: Yeah, but when I told my friends I played music, no one really considered me a proper musician but then when I came to your house everybody just said “you’re definitely a proper musician” so I just thought I’d try and learn everything else as well. Hannah: I still don’t know what I’m doing. Gill: No one knows what they’re doing. Hannah: People have their strengths – you’re an awesome guitar player. Gill: What am I Hannah? Hannah: You’re an awesome guitar player. But when I met you, you weren’t even considering playing in a band. You at that point were still playing Nirvana covers in your room. And I was like “no, lets play”. Gill: It was always in the back of my mind and was something I tried as a teenager but it was with retarded people and it never worked. I never found the right people. Hannah: I think we complement each other and bring out each other’s strengths. Gill: I think we give each other confidence to do what we want to do. Widows Walk is out in June through Unstable Ape