Getting to know Angry Beige
Sydney-based band Angry Beige are seriously turning heads right now, so we caught up with vocalist/guitarist Elfy Scott to find out more. And yes, she’s the same Elfy Scott who writes for somethingyousaid.com. Conflict of interest? More like conflict of awesome:
Angry Beige are a little rock, a little blues and a fair dose of punk. We tend to avoid the predictable – largely because our guitarist, Chris, is some breed of complex guitar genius and generally refuses to budge into more mainstream ideas (which is a bit of a shame really because sometimes you do just want to be the people that make pretty girls in skirts twist and shout/shake what their mothers gave them). At the moment we’re happy adopting the position of a band that are just too weenie to fit into the punk scene and kind of upsettingly raucous to indie crowds.
Our new EP is finally a thing. It’s the first recording attempt that hasn’t made us want to drive screws into our own eyeballs. It’s a short, live and really satisfying recording of some of the first songs we ever took to the stage. It’s basically the best of our beginning as we move on to more ambitious songs and projects this year. For a two-hour effort in a dingy St Peters recording studio that smelled like wet cardboard and crayons, I think it’s a fairly quality listen.
Our live shows are always wild, a ridiculous amount of fun, and generally tend to be worth the emotional trauma that’s inflicted by trying to organise gear in the preceding day. We really exist for live performance and all get a huge kick out of the whole affair. Especially when Lulamay, our bassist, literally kicks me for dancing on her when I inevitably get too drunk.
If you’re lucky I’ll do something stupid like accidentally unplug a guitar wire, spill vodka bloody everywhere, show my butt, or decide the time is obviously ripe to take my shirt off (it never is). We did a Sydney University do once where there was this enormous paper mâché zebra standing to the side of the stage and I got wankered and decided to leap on its back halfway through, it was fun– I now sustain that giant paper mâché stage zebras should probably be a venue obligation.
Sydney is exploding with musical potential. We’re involved in a scene called My Sydney Riot at the moment, run by the seriously unflappable Ray of Fait Accompli. All of the bands that we’ve encountered in our six months of gigs have been absolutely incredible. It really appears as though there’s this enormous movement swelling beneath the surface right now of bands that are reacting against an indie dogma and producing some unbelievable work. It’s an amazing place to be.
We spend too much time halfway abandoning good songs, forgetting those riffs and reminiscing about “that one riff we had that time that was really good”. I’d say a portion of our time is also wiled away improvising stupid puns at one another.
It might surprise people to learn that our bassist Lulamay is the daughter of Ken Gormly, bassist of Australian legends, the Cruel Sea – a fact that we weren’t made aware of for far, far too long.
We also once inadvertently opened for Green Day one night at the Captain Cook. We were only informed of the situation about fifteen minutes before we took the stage. It was great – as it turns out, the entire band is sober now so I spent a good few hours backstage with their roadies and Red Engine Caves nabbing all of their untouched beer.
…Also the box jellyfish has 64 buttholes. I mean, that’s super surprising.
In the future hopefully we shall simply be continuing to play with more fantastic bands and assisting in the proliferation of a renewed Sydney live music scene, you know, in between watching Ren and Stimpy cartoons in our underwear. We can also only hope that more venues will also adopt the belief that all bands should be provided with generous amounts of liquor, chicken schnitzel, haloumi salad… and the odd paper mâché zebra.
Keep an eye on Angry Beige’s Facebook page for details of their upcoming EP and live shows.
Interview by Bobby Townsend.
