Sloane took a discrete leave of absence and quickly ran around the corner to his house where he showered, changed his clothes and returned to The Tote to apologise to his unsuspecting date. “I saw Marty [Baker, Batpiss drummer] and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to call the band Batpiss’,” Sloane laughs.
The genesis of Batpiss occurred a short time before the infamous golden shower, when Deadocracy, Sloane and Baker’s previous band, buckled under the weight of internal conflict. “The lead singer and the drummer didn’t get on, or some shit like that,” Sloane says. Sloane and Baker were keen to keep working together, and recruited Paul Pirie, Sloane’s former housemate. “Paul and I had always talked about getting a band together, so I gave him a call and he was keen,” Sloane says.
Despite the band members’ natural predisposition to the heavier, punk end of the musical spectrum, there was no particular sound in mind when the band formed. “We basically just wanted to get out there and play,” Sloane says. “When we started out, we were just playing one-minute punk sort of songs. But we’ve all got different tastes, and as time passed we just found our sound by exploring the different genres of music we like.”
In 2013, Batpiss released their blistering and brutal first album Nuclear Winter. In 2014, the band returned to the studio to record their follow-up album, Biomass. “We were under the pump a bit because I was going overseas and we wanted to record it before I left,” Sloane says. “We had the songs pretty well written before went into the studio – it was just a matter of going in there and doing it, and we got there in the end.”
On Nuclear Winter, the band sought to capture the rawness of their live show, but the approach to Biomass was slightly more nuanced. “We mic’d things up a bit better, so you could hear different definitions and tones clearer – so we had more of a room sound,” Sloane says. “It’s still raw, but it’s definitely cleaner.”
The publicity material accompanying the album says Biomass explores “the darker nuances of human existence”. “Paulie’s pretty good with his lyrics,” Sloane says. “It’s a got a lot of stuff in there – personal issues, darker times, how people can be shit. I guess he worded it pretty well.”
The intensity and occasional brutality of Batpiss’ music overlays the lyrical frustrations with a sense of catharsis. Sloane agrees, though for him, the catharsis is in the physical act of playing. “I reckon if I didn’t play music I’d be a serial killer,” Sloane laughs. “I’m pretty relaxed, and I like to keep it that way, but I like playing loud angry music, and that keeps me chilled. It’s important to have that release.”
In recent times Batpiss have travelled out of Australia to play in Indonesia, joining other Melbourne punk rock bands, such as King Parrot, My Disco and High Tension, in exploring the burgeoning Indonesian punk rock market. For Sloane, playing to the young, enthusiastic Indonesian crowds was both revelatory and rewarding.
“The scene over there is amazing,” he says. “The punk community really looks after each other. It’s one of the biggest punk scenes in the world these days. I’d definitely encourage bands to go over there.”
BY PATRICK EMERY
