Quirky music maker SPOD goes about things his own way
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07.08.2019

Quirky music maker SPOD goes about things his own way

Words by Holly Pereira

His latest album features a 46-minute closing track and features contributions from Ariel Pink, Henry Rollins and DZ Deathrays.

For most people, the adjustment period between youth and adulthood is a perplexing yet formative time. It’s a journey that many artists explore within their work, and for Melbourne-based musician Brent Griffin, it’s shaped his fourth album under the moniker SPOD. The result is Adult Fantasy, a concept album that has Griffin exploring his mortality and what he describes as the juxtaposition between “what you think it means to get old versus what you are when you get there”.

“I don’t think you ever become an adult,” Griffin says. “You just stop taking the easy way around things. While it’s exciting, I don’t think the fear you also feel ever goes away. When I was younger I saw getting old as getting to a point where you go ‘Oh well I had my fun, now I just sit on a shelf and make sure everyone else is okay’.”

As a large part of the album is concerned with mortality, Griffin reveals in our conversation that he often thought he wouldn’t live past 30. “I think that was just me coming to grips with the fact that I could be old. I think this album is grappling with the idea that I’m this kid who’s an adult. I think there’s a lot of adults that still feel like they’re kids, I guess there’s a lot of people in denial. It’s interesting that we’re allowed to stay as infantile as long as we do now.”

While the album might be primarily concerned with adulthood, Griffin has worked two key aspects of his youth into the release, with a VHS of the songs filmed live, along with a portrait by Zina Kurtschenko gracing the album cover – a homage to a painting that “absolutely haunted” a young SPOD. So instrumental were moments of Griffin’s youth to the album that the memories conjured will likely form a second album, even if it is just to have two Adult Fantasy VHS tapes next to each other.

While this record is peppered with less punch lines than previous SPOD albums, there’s still plenty of Griffin’s trademark shtick on display from the gratuitous ‘Sexual Fantasy’ to the sincere yet mildly comedic ‘Becomes A Wife’. “I find the concept of a wife quite funny,” admits a happily married Griffin. “Purely from a juvenile sense, just calling someone your wife. I still find it ridiculous.”

Perhaps the biggest talking point of the album is the closing track ‘Golden Gaytime’, a romantic ode to enjoying one last ice cream with a lover that turns into 46 minutes of tribute solos to SPOD. For the track, Griffin calls upon a cast of musical collaborators including Ariel Pink, DZ Deathrays, Henry Rollins and Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint to realise an ambitious attempt at a world record for the number of special guests on an album.

“It started off as a tribute to my friends who’ve helped me keep going. The encouragement of friends is all I really live of and what I do it for. People were saying yes so I got ambitious with it and started asking people who had inspired me. The track was inspired by this band godheadSilo who did a 15-minute one-note bass solo on the album Share the Fantasy. The drummer Dan Haugh does a solo on ‘Golden Gaytime’ actually. I was very shocked he said yes, godheadSilo are one of my top three favourite artists of all time.”

As is inevitable, SPOD has morphed significantly over the last two decades. Once a duo, and then a solo project with Griffin stylised as a teen heartthrob ala Mark Holden, SPOD admits the project is a means to do whatever he feels like doing. “SPOD can be serious, it can be ridiculous, it can be beautiful, it can be grotesque. It’s just something that can please my many whims for ridiculous ideas. When I record I don’t want to think about where it goes, I just want to unconsciously make whatever I feel I need to make.”

SPOD shows have been known to be extreme affairs with glitter, back up dancers and a live barista, Jam Master Java. “Because I play to a backing track it’s very rigid,” says Griffin. “It’s everything around the backing track that makes it good. I don’t really plan things too much, but whenever I play a show I do try and hurt myself.”

Although the album reconciles with a bygone youth, when speaking to Griffin it’s obvious he’s content with where he’s at in life. “I’m so happy with where I am, I’d never want to be a kid again,” he says. As for whether his now two-year-old daughter has seen SPOD perform, Griffin recoils. “I think as soon as she sees me live it might be when I have to hang it up, or maybe I’ll pass the reins on.” The name for his daughter’s hypothetical tribute act? Spawn.

Adult Fantasy is out now via Rice Is Nice Records. SPOD will launch the record at The Tote on Saturday August 10 and Brisbane’s The Foundry on Saturday August 24.