Widely reowned for being an awesome live band, Papa vs Pretty are a rapidly rising act well worth checking out. They’ve got an Aussie tour looming and a debut album, United In Isolation, hitting the shops this week, so we dropped into their studio to grab a word with Tom Rawle (vocals), Gus Gardiner (bass) and Tom Myers (drums)…
How long have you all been playing music?
TR: Since I was about four.
TM: I got a set of drums for my fourth birthday and just frothed. I went crazy.
Do people focus on your age a lot?
GG: Maybe, when we were underage, people would draw attention to it a lot because we had to sit outside the venues before and after we played.
If you weren’t musicians, what would you be doing?
GG: A scuba diver, getting lobsters and stuff like that.
TM: He’s a religious scuba diver, he’s not taking you on. There’s always dive stuff in the back of our car. I’d probably be in wine. I do that at home when I go back to the Hunter Valley.
TR: I’d be dead or I would be a gumboot. I would be an inanimate object because I just wouldn’t exist.
Where did you name come from?
TR: I used to write all the music when I first started out and this other guy would write all the lyrics and we had this studio time booked. His first word was “papa” and my first word was “pretty”. So we were like, “what should we call the band?” And I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if we started the band and then had all this conflict and we were kinda like versing each other. And then that actually happened. So this ridiculous name stuck. But we could be stuck with something worse, like “Holy Fuck”.
TM: Or Dick.
TR: Or something really ridiculous like Red Hot Chili Peppers. Can you imagine if we were this little band called the Red Hot Chili Peppers and we had to say to you, “well you know, we’re red hot, like chilli peppers”.
What do you do for fun?
TM: What do I do?
TR: You party.
GG: You catch trains.
TM: I like being in transit, that’s my favourite thing to do.
Favourite holiday spot in Oz?
TM: Noosa.
GG: I just got back from Jervis Bay which was pretty sweet.
TR: Fremantle. We’re going there as part of the tour and it’s the last show which will be cool, we all love it up there.
TM: Perth in general is fucking cool.
If you could play anywhere in the world, where would it be?
TM: On top of the Empire State Building.
GG: On top of the Eiffel Tower, just balancing.
TR: I reckon at the Earth’s core, that would be awesome.
TM: Wait, wait, how about playing on an Indian elephant’s back.
GG: Three separate elephants! Although the RSPCA might get onto us…
TM: But we could put a little banner down saying, “save the Indian elephants”.
GG: But the elephants would get tinnitus…
Papa vs Pretty play Newcastle (June 23), Sydney (June 24), Melbourne (June 25), Brisbane (July 1), Adelaide (July 7), Fremantle (July 8) and Perth (July 9). http://www.papavspretty.com/[www.papavspretty.com]