Guineafowl
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Guineafowl

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We spoke to Sydney band/frontman/solo artist Guineafowl ahead of his/their Melbourne show tomorrow.

We spoke to Sydney band/frontman/solo artist Guineafowl ahead of his/their Melbourne show tomorrow.
 
Hey Guineafowl! How are you going? What’s it like being an exciting new band in Sydney at the moment?
Hey! Good. Thank you firstly for calling us exciting. Being a new band in Sydney is good, it is a pretty competitive city but it feels like we are making friends with a lot of other new bands and that makes existing here a lot easier. We are busy, which is always flattering, but still all have to contribute to the city with our menial jobs aka bartender, receptionist, auction house … person, etc.

How would you describe your music to the uninitiated Melbourne folk?
Arrgh, I wouldn’t try to! I guess I would say to him or her something like “we are indie pop, with influences from all over the place, here, have some headphones and listen for yourself, oh thank you, I know, this is a nice cardigan, sure I would love to go for a drink”… something like that.

Have you ever actually seen or touched an actual guineafowl?
Seen yes, touched no. The real interesting thing is, in Africa, guineafowl are used as alarms because of the horrible horrible sound that they are able to produce. I did not know this when I chose the name, so I can’t wait till the day that we play a show in Africa. The audience will be so confused.

Tell us a bit about the song Botanist?
It is the first song I demoed. It is a pretty simple love song really. There is a lot of background noise on the recording, as I didn’t have a microphone, just the laptop’s inbuilt one. And if you listen really closely at the start, there is a cat’s “meow” hidden behind all the reverb. We tried to keep all this when mixing the track for the EP.
 
 

What are you listening to and digging right now, both in Sydney or Melbourne and the greater world?
From Melbourne I have been listening to Big Scary’s newer stuff. I really love how they twist their own style on their head and go from beautiful soulful piano music to thrashing rock and roll. I also just got a sneak peek at Oh Mercy’s new album, but lips shut there. Greater world, I am listening to old stuff, mainly Prince for some reason. If you could tell me why I can’t stop listening to Prince, that would be wonderful.

Last year was pretty big for you guys – what were some of the highlights?
At our third gig, the room was so full that the venue were concerned the floor was going to cave in. Being told that is always a nice compliment. We just won a SMAC award for “Best Sydney Song” for In Our Circles, so that was a real highlight. But really the year has yielded a few really memorable moments. Whilst we were driving back from Melbourne once, I had gone a little stir crazy in the van, due to lack of sleep/food, so at a gas station I stripped and ran around in circles. Somehow I tripped over and had a lot of truckies staring at me. That was not the highlight, but my band laughing at me for the next two hours was fun!

Album? When can we expect it?
Next year. I have written quite a lot of new songs over the past year, but I am just starting to demo and writethe album. Obvious the E.P is the priority, so not going to make any promises until that is out there.. and in your hands.

What are you going to do in Melbourne? Any plans?
We went to a rad dumplings place when we were there last, so probably going to go there again. Other than that, hang out. We all enjoy a social drink here or there, the occasional Mint julep, and Melbourne has awesome bars.

What are your plans for this year?
Gig, Gig and more Gig. We like played fifty nine shows last year… we want to top that this year.

Guineafowl play the Tone Deaf Party at Ding Dong on Friday January 28 and later, The Northcote Social Club on March 4. Check out their song In Our Circles on Beat Radio on the front page.