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Swastikas and The Art of Being Tastefully Obnoxious: An Interview with Ausmuteants

Check out their new video "No Motivation" along with an interview by DX of Total Control

After an hour of discussion with Jake from Ausmuteants, he summarized the band succinctly by saying “we like Back From The Grave and we like Killed By Death." Both are compilations of forgotten punk hits from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, and by saying this, Jake is attempting to assure you: Ausmuteants sound like a billion bands you’ve heard before. What makes those compilations so useful is they were for the sake of the song: there’s none of that hysterical metaphysical questioning about whether it is “real” punk or not, if it has concerns or elevates human consciousness. It’s about a good song.

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Ausmuteants' new LP Amusements (due on April 1st in the US) sounds like a compilation of these disparate bands, redolent with clichés and ready-made themes, of which the glory is this: they can write songs! It’s suitable that Goner are releasing their record in America, because Goner introduced the world to the Reatards, and that’s probably the closest reference point you’d get to Ausmuteants. Bedroom disasters.

Ausmuteants is Jake, Billy, Shaun and Marc, and we spoke with Jake on a balcony in the early morning sun, on the day after they launched their LP in Australia. Check out the video for “No Motivation” from their forthcoming LP and read the interview below.

Noisey: Have you done any other interviews lately?
Jake: Yeah, we’ve done a few, but all of them I just lie through the teeth. They’re not face to face. Have you read the Hate comics by Peter Bagge? You know how Stinky is in that band with everyone named Kurt? Well, every interview I just say “we came together as a band because we all had the same name”. I’ve blown all the chances for a decent interview lately.

How many bands are you in at the moment? How do you manage that?
Six. I just neglect all of them.

Let me try: Ausmuteants. Frowning Clouds. Heirophants. Leather Towel.
I also play in Wet Blankets, which is Billy’s little brothers band. He’s 15. All the songs are about hating school. It basically sounds like Killed By Death. And I play in a band with my girlfriend called School Damage. When I was younger, I tried playing in a band that mixed all my favorite genres: hardcore, blues, garage and punk. And of course, it came out like a garage version of Sublime or something (laughs). It doesn’t work. It’s like, Al (Montfort) plays in Dick Diver and in Straightjacket Nation, any attempt to combine those two sounds would be terrible. A lot of people in Melbourne are doing different bands because they like different styles of music, mixing them together doesn’t work out.

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Put The Music In Its Coffin fanzine recently wrote an article about this called ‘The Death of Genre Exclusivity’, which is a really terrible sentence to say out loud, I sound like an obsessive masturbator. There was a very long time in which it was entirely unacceptable for someone to be taken credibly as a musician if they lacked allegiance to a style.
I just don’t think anyone cares about what credibility is anymore.

So, let’s talk about Devo. How did you learn about the band?
When I was younger I didn’t really think anything with a synth was proper music. I was into blues and garage, really guitar driven, and I heard ‘Whip it’ and ‘Girl U Want’ and ‘Gates Of Steel’, more New Traditionalist and Freedom of Choice stuff. When I heard The Mummies cover ‘Girl U Want’ I realized they were really great songs. I think I found the first album for $5 on a whim, and I didn’t take it off the turntable forever.

How important was Devo for you guys?
When we started Ausmuteants it was all about The Screamers. We also heard that song ‘No Tears’ by Tuxedomoon. We were obsessed with Chrome and Killed By Death bands. Nothing too underground or whatever. Inspired by The Spits and The Ramones. I go through massive Ramones stages where they’re the only thing I want to listen to for months and months because they never did anything terrible. They did average stuff, even when CJ joined it’s still not terrible. You can’t go wrong with them.

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Are you wearing a Dump On The Chumps shirt on the record cover?
Yes, it’s my oldest shirt, I made it when I was 14. When I first heard Helen Keller I wanted to make music like that, kinda “punk jingles”.

Do you guys have any films you all agree on?
Billy and I agree on Dumb & Dumber. You ever see Body Melt? An Australian 90’s movie with the cast of Neighbours and they get mutated? It’s great. I’ve never watched a movie with Shaun. Whenever I go to Shaun’s house he just plays Street Fighter and makes delicious Chinese food. I don’t have a thing about video games, I play them for ten minutes. He plays them for days. He plays in tournaments with Street Fighter. He’s really, really into it.

Where does Ausmuteants fit into Melbourne? What are the good bands here?
Constant Mongrel is great. I reckon Heavy Breathing is the best album of last year. I reckon Hugh is killing it more than anyone in Melbourne at the moment. His 3 bands, Velvet Whip, Nun and Constant Mongrel, the best bands in Melbourne at the moment.

Talk about Sam Wallman. He drew the art for your 7”, and he’s a pretty well regarded illustrator.
He’s my favorite Australian illustrator. He makes me think about the political side of things. Literally, no one else has. People like Sam Wallman made me think when I was into being really obnoxious with Ausmuteants “what’s the point of doing this, if these guys don’t take it as a joke”. I just seem like a dick.

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When you started the band, did you have an explicit agenda to be obnoxious?
Early on I thought it’d be hilarious if we were the most hated band ever, and I’m sure there are so many Melbourne bands that have done the exact same thing. Just trying to be like the Electric Eels I guess. Drawing swastikas on everything. Trying to make everyone hate us, paying out on our friend’s bands. It got to a stage where the people who I wanted to take it seriously took it as a joke, and the people who I wanted to take it as a joke started taking it seriously. When I’ve got friends who pull me aside and ask me if I’m into Nazi shit, I got over it. It happened so many times, random people in bands I like, pulled me aside. I kinda felt like the joke had gone too far. This was a couple of years ago, kinda on the fringe of when I was trying to decide if I wanted to be a snotty kid or not.

Wait, how old are you?
I’m 25.

So, wait, you were 23 years old trying to decide if you wanted to be a snotty little kid? That’s pretty 2014.
Uh, yeah. This was in the “offensive” stage. We have a song on the record called ‘Fran Dreschers Alien Abduction’. It’s about Fran Drescher, she had a home invasion and was gang raped, they tied up her husband and forced him to watch. I thought about when people have a traumatic experience and they blame it on aliens.

Do you feel any sense of shame or guilt for this behavior?
If I thought I was serious, it might be a different thing. But it’s a joke. Other people can take it however they want to.

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That’s a hell of an angle. I wouldn’t want to put myself in that position.
You don’t really need to put yourself into that position is what I’ve learned (laughter).

I understand the impulse to provoke or antagonize people. It’s entirely understandable. Either overtly by drawing swastikas or by being a hippie writing meat is murder on a toilet wall. I just don’t think people really give a shit either way. Overt displays of antagonistic behavior ultimately just seem to embarrass people.
That’s why I don’t do it anymore. If there’s no substance, it’s just dumb.

Did anything good come out of this behavior?
Just funny stories. Like our first shirt, we haven’t made any shirts except by drawing on shirts with permanent marker, we drew Hitler saluting UFO’s over the Eiffel Tower with a swastika flag. It didn’t make any sense, it was funny.

So you gave up on being hated in the nation, did you have any other aspirations?
Nah. That behavior was always so showy, and I realized that’s one of the things I really dislike. What’s wrong with being a regular dude?

DX does time in Total Control, Straightjacket Nation and UV Race. You should follow him on twitter