The Sound of the PARROT’S Beak - Matthew Young

Written by: Tom Wilson - Sense Music Media

It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and over the phone I can hear the tick-tock-tick-tock of Matthew Young’s indicator as he changes lanes, speaking to SENSE on his way home from work. A few hours prior to our interview, KING PARROT had broken the news on social media that drummer Todd Hansen wouldn’t be able to make the first shows of the tour in Melbourne and Adelaide. “Toddy lives in Brisbane, and just due to COVID restrictions that have come into play up there, he’s unable to come down. We’re all pretty shattered that he can’t make it, and we really want him to be there and be part of it, but we’ve had to just sort of say, well, do we cancel these again? This will be the second tour that we’ve had to cancel because of COVID. Squiz, our guitarist, has been recording a local Melbourne band, CHOOF. Jack, the drummer from CHOOF, is a KING PARROT fan, and he basically knew the setlist already. He knew, like, twenty songs, and most of the songs that we play live … They’ve had a few jams over the last few days, and by all reports he’s doing a really killer job, and we’re just going to run with it.”

“We’ve had to sort of bide our time with this run of shows, and we thought, in terms of the tour, let’s just space it out a little bit. It gives us an opportunity to write some music and rehearse a little bit, and get together more regularly, as opposed to just doing a national tour in a week or two weeks … We want to keep writing and being creative, because we have a lot of ideas for new music, and with Toddy being in Brisbane, we haven’t had many opportunities to rehearse.”

How would you describe some of the concepts you’ve had for new material, in terms of what you’ve done previously?

Youngy laughs. “I would say it’s much of the same, man. We’re not really reinventing the wheel or anything like that. During lockdown, Slatts has been pretty creative in terms of writing, and he’s thrown a lot of ideas out there. A lot more … still heavy, and still metal and all that, but more rock-y … a little bit more rock ‘n’ roll than what we’ve done in the past. Squiz and Ari are always writing. I think Squiz brings a really good punk rock element to the band, and Ari often brings the more metallic edge to it, with the heavier riffs and the more grind kind of stuff. I find that with those three elements combined, and then my vocals on top, and Toddy’s drumming … that’s what contributes to what KING PARROT is, and allows us to be able to work within those genres that we tend to stick with. Anything from rock ‘n’ roll, hard rock, punk rock to thrash, grind, heavy metal, death metal sort of stuff, we can work within all of those genres. I think that’s the really cool and fun thing about KING PARROT.”

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Having first seen them supporting PHILIP H. ANSELMO & THE ILLEGALS in Brisbane, I watched guitarist Ari White spiking beers off his foot and Slatts shirtless and glassy-eyed and assumed that they were singing songs like Piss Wreck because they were, well, piss wrecks. Needless to say, I was a bit embarrassed when, during a subsequent interview, Youngy informed me that he hadn’t had a drink in over ten years, and when I actually started paying attention to the lyrics of songs like Dead End, it suddenly seemed very clear. KING PARROT is whatever you want it to be. For those who like a drink or ten, they’re the ultimate party starters – a snarling, shrieking hurricane of grinding riffs and good times. For those of us on the wagon, Youngy’s lyrics are caustic poetry spoken by an alcoholic who has been to hell and back.

“I always find it funny, because I’m writing the lyrics from the perspective of someone who doesn’t drink, but when I sing it to the crowd, they think I’m singing about getting pissed,” Youngy laughs. “I’ve kind of written it in a way that encapsulates what I want to say about it, and it’s like a story in a way … but it can be taken either way, if that makes sense … It’s funny man, it’s a weird thing. I don’t even question it too much anymore. It’s just what works for KING PARROT. That band has had to be so many things for all of us, and for me it’s a bit of an outlet with regards to that sort of stuff, but strangely enough it works the other way too.”

It’s probably nice being able to take most of his paycheque home instead of blowing it all on tins.

“Yes, indeed. There’s been an incredible amount of savings on my part over the last decade of not drinking piss.” [Laughs]

For a band that makes their bread playing sweaty clubs and bars, how does he deal with fans who’ve had a bit too much? “It just depends how drunk they are. For the most part, you have to have pretty good boundaries with that sort of stuff. If I’m interacting with the audience, usually I’m at the merch desk, selling stuff, signing stuff or getting photos or whatever. I try to have good boundaries and be respectful and stuff, but also know when to step back, and when someone’s encroaching on my space I try to be assertive without being too offensive. It’s challenging. It just depends on the person as well. Some people just get so drunk that they don’t know what they’re doing, and it’s hard to make any sense of that … Hopefully they’ve got a friend or a missus nearby that can whisk them away if they get too painful.” He chuckles. “I can just ignore them as well.”

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He laughs when I ask about the highlights of the last ten years. Shockingly, I’m not the first music writer to ask him that lately, so as he weaves through the afternoon traffic he makes an effort to give a new answer. “One of the first proper tours we did in Australia, with THY ART IS MURDER, CATTLE DECAPITATION and AVERSIONS CROWN … It was a real tour, with some really cool bands, and it was quite a diverse line-up, and the shows were packed, sold-out. It was right when THY ART IS MURDER were taking off, and CATTLE DECAPITATION hadn’t been out here before. We got a really good glimpse of how those bands, who were a little bit further ahead of us in terms of their stature or whatnot, how they operated and how things went for them, and the way they did things. We learned a lot on that tour; how to run things. I’ll always be grateful to those bands for that opportunity … When I think about the international touring stuff … We’ve done about a dozen tours in America, and probably half-a-dozen tours in Europe. I wouldn’t know how many tours we’ve done in Australia, but we’ve had the opportunity to go to Japan a few times. Just the opportunity to travel and go and see the world, you know? I’ll always remember, we were in Europe, touring with OBITUARY, EXODUS and PRONG. We played in Budapest in Hungary, and then I remember going to Romania and playing in Bucharest … driving to the venue and going past Dracula’s Castle. [Laughs] Just going, “What the hell are we doing in Romania?” Experiences like that, when you’re right over the other side of the world, just going, “What are we doing here?” I guess for bands like OBITUARY and EXODUS and that, they do all that stuff and they do it all the time, but for a grind band from Australia, getting the opportunity to play in places like that, and touring in Scandinavia, all through Europe, Spain and Italy, places like that, and the U.K. as well … Just having those experiences has been pretty amazing for bands like us.”

One of the many things that seems to set KING PARROT apart is their attitude. They market themselves like a world-beating rock band – one that just happens to play one of the most extreme genres in music. The time, effort and money that they’ve invested in themselves speaks volumes. Their music videos are high-concept and often hilarious. Their press shots are slick – the type you pay good money for, as opposed to snapping a phone pic in front of a brick wall. Given they are based in a genre known for DIY punk aesthetics, photocopied artwork and low-fi production, KING PARROT stand out like a sore thumb. “We’ve been pretty ambitious in terms of what we wanted to do. That was there from the outset with myself and Ari. He and I have been in it since day one, and we’ve always been pretty driven to make sure that we get overseas and tour and all that sort of stuff. We wanted to have our own Aussie metal band, that sounded like an Aussie metal band, that toured the world. We didn’t see that as something that existed, especially with all the bands that we loved … The real underground stuff that we loved from the 90s, only a handful of those bands got the opportunity to tour, and only a couple of times. The fact that we’ve been able to do it as much as we have is incredible … With the videos and stuff, we love doing that stuff. It’s another opportunity to be creative for us, so we love that.”

SENSE reached out to Jason Fuller, owner of Goatsound and bassist for infamous Melbourne metal maniacs BLOOD DUSTER, who has worked with KING PARROT several times throughout the band’s lifespan. “The thing with all those bands is they can generally just be another band in the pile. You have to separate yourselves, and they did some video clips that really separated them from everyone else who was doing anything. The video clips really highlighted the kind of funny dudes and bizarre band that they were, so without the video clips, they would’ve been fucked … The videos definitely helped propel them into people’s faces, you know?”

After ten years, what does Youngy attribute to the success of this band? Is it just hard work? Or was it also capturing lightening in a bottle? “Firstly, I’d probably like to say that the chemistry in the band has been important. There’s no sort of pretentious stuff in the band. Just turn up, be yourself, bring your best qualities to the table and we’ll work with that … Sobriety has been a huge help for me, in terms of being able to apply myself to take care of the business side of the band and the merch and all that stuff. That’s my realm, and I’m grateful that I’ve been blessed with the other guys’ confidence that I can do that for the band. I think that’s really held us in good stead as well.”

The hundreds of hours spent building the profile of the band have paid off, with KING PARROT the heaviest band to ever be nominated for an ARIA Award (twice). "We’ve been both times,” Youngy explains. “Our record label bought us tickets to go.” His voice trails off, and he chooses his words carefully. “We were very out of place, let’s put it that way! We didn’t belong there, that’s for sure.”

The red carpet interviews are solid gold – the band sticking out like sore thumbs, with Todd Hansen telling a reporter, “We’re just here for the free feed.”

“We’re walking on the red carpet and all that sort of stuff, and people were like, “Who the fuck are you guys?”” He bursts out laughing. “We were like, “Yeah, don’t worry. Go and interview someone else.””

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What have been some of the low points? Has he ever doubted the future of the band?

“Probably in the last few years, yeah. Just in terms of all the COVID stuff, it’s been difficult to know when we’re going to play again or get back together. We’ve been pretty resilient around all that.” The band released an EP of tracks recorded with PANTERA legend Phil Anselmo titled Holed Up in the Lair. “We’re feeling confident about moving forward now, but I guess everyone has had a sense of helplessness in the last eighteen months. I’m feeling confident that it’s going to be okay. We’ve had lots of things happen. We’ve been threatened, and threatened legally … Yeah, all sorts of crazy stuff happened. Obviously, it doesn’t get out there, and we don’t want it getting out there!” He laughs. “All the stuff that you would imagine happen to a band, it’s happened. We’ve been robbed, we’ve been ripped off, we’ve lost money … We got robbed in Chicago once, and that was fucked. We lost all our money … Our safe got stolen out of the van. We stupidly left it in there. It was just one of those things … We had to park five blocks from the venue because we couldn’t find a park, and then we had to run back and do soundcheck, and we didn’t even think about the safe that was stashed in the back of the van and had thousands of dollars in it. Someone smashed in there and got it. We put it up there on our social media page and said, “Hey, we’ve been robbed. If anyone wants to make a donation…” Because that really fucked us. Within 24 hours, we’d got the money back from donations from our fans. So that was incredible, man.”

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Recently, Ben Weinman (formerly of math-rock hurricane THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN) shared a ticket stub of a truly bizarre event from 2003 – DEP playing with OL’ DIRTY BASTARD of seminal New York rap collective THE WU-TANG CLAN. The collision of styles got me thinking – if Youngy wanted to pair KING PARROT with a vastly different band, who would he pick? “My choice would be WEEN. I love WEEN. WEEN are one of my favourite bands … If I could open for any band, it would be WEEN! We often use WEEN songs as intro or outro music for our sets with KING PARROT.”

KING PARROT VIDEOS

KING PARROT’s music videos are infamous. Here are some of the best.

KING PARROT - Dead End - Official Music Video (2014)

The lads take on Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, trading The Overlook Hotel for Melbourne music institution The Tote, with Ari taking an axe to the front door and former drummer Matt “Skitz” Sanders riding the big wheel for the iconic hallway scene. During filming, cop cars came screaming up to the hotel, after a concerned citizen had seen Ari brandishing an axe in the street and called 000. Best line: “Do me a favour and dick off, Mr. Slattery.”

The band’s 2013 set in AC/DC Lane in Melbourne is captured in stunning fashion using drone-mounted cameras. The production values are so high, you’d think they’d pinched METALLICA’s filming gear. Not bad for a song featuring the lyric “Slutting out the organs of an overcharged walrus.”

Here it is – the video that launched it all. While shot in black & white, Youngy’s corpse paint is actually green and gold, giving the normally frosty black metal aesthetic an Australian twist. The endlessly quotable preamble in the car showcases the comic timing of Wayne Slattery, who has since developed a good side hustle as an actor, appearing in commercials and billboard ads.

This Ugly Produce track captures the tension and uncertainty of bullshitting Centrelink with all the intensity of a Wild West gunfight. Fortunately for the band, their dodgy references check out, and they are free to march their dole payments straight to Preston’s finest bottle shop, before projectile vomiting all over each other. Wholesome stuff.

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