Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Pushing The Needle To The Red With GEOFF O'LEARY From PISTONFIST

Transcript

Pushing The Needle To The Red With GEOFF O'LEARY From PISTONFIST · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:14
  Good guys. Jeffroy here from Piston Fist. I'm just talking to Chrispy from
• 0:29
  Heavy Magazine. We're off to Europe this Sunday, Europe in the UK for
• 0:36
  a pretty extensive six and a half seven week tour and looking forward to it.
• 0:42
  Are you doing, Chris? I'm good, Jeffrey yourself. You look
• 0:45
  all right up there. Made Is it cold in your neck of the woods?
• 0:47
  Yeah? Yeah, she's getting a little bit cool in here. I
• 0:51
  don't even have the dressing gown on at that this point. But I've got
• 0:55
  these ones who always keep me. Notice they don't break that hot flavored coffee,
• 0:59
  do they? So yeah, yeah, copy. Now We've got a
• 1:03
  ton of stuff to talk about in the future. But before you get there,
• 1:07
  I just gotta ask a live in the past a couple of days,
• 1:11
  man, Like, how fucking good was last Thursday night? Playing with Cancer,
• 1:14
  Backs, Fangs and Strange Fiction at the bright Side of Brisbane? Yeah,
• 1:18
  what a crack a night. It was amazing. Strange Fiction first up,
• 1:23
  just set the tone for a hell of a night. They were awesome.
• 1:26
  It had been it's probably been three or four years since we played with
• 1:30
  them boys, and they've improved immensely. Really really liked them boys and them
• 1:34
  Fangs, good lads, easy to tattoo. I got on really well with
• 1:40
  Fangs. I definitely look forward to sharing the stage with them boys again.
• 1:44
  That they're for me personally. I believe that, you know, the epitome
• 1:51
  or just where Australian heavy music should be. Them guys, even though they're
• 1:56
  not metal as such. And then they weren't kind of what we do,
• 1:59
  damn. Were good and clean and tight and just on the money. And
• 2:04
  then hands Bats, my god, they well. First as soon as we
• 2:09
  turned up, they were just good guys, good to chat to, really
• 2:15
  really got on well with him. And then when they hit that stage,
• 2:21
  God, you've got no choice but to listen. You sit there and you
• 2:23
  listen and you watch. He just owned that stage. Liam was a beast.
• 2:28
  The whole band just owned it. And yeah, I was so impressed.
• 2:34
  And then they got off stage and like talk about humble, like you
• 2:38
  know, I do these once when it comes to cancer. Bats they're all
• 2:42
  that. And they walked off stage and said thanks so much for playing with
• 2:46
  us to us, and you know why you weren't thanking you, You don't
• 2:52
  think us. But it was just so good, and you know, it's
• 2:54
  it's it's just really good to see. I believe bands at that level be
• 3:02
  humble. It's so so rad. So you know, I've played with a
• 3:07
  bunch of bands, international bands, some amazing what you might call superstars,
• 3:14
  that have been a little bit not so so decent. Yeah, yeah,
• 3:20
  to bands like us, you know, to the local bands or whatever.
• 3:23
  But they were just awesome. And I will go out of my way to
• 3:29
  you know, if we ever play shows in Canada or whatnot, I will
• 3:31
  go out of my way to go and see them guys and have a beer
• 3:34
  because they were just absolute legends. You're going to say, you go outny
• 3:38
  where you put their name on the door so they can come and watch you
• 3:39
  for free. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not like that.
• 3:44
  No doubt on the subject of international bands made. And I'm not saying
• 3:49
  for one minute that any of these guys who you were just talking about not
• 3:53
  pits, But it's just things have just been so good in the Pisson fiscamp
• 3:59
  for the last aid so you've been ticking boxes made like supporting Jane's addiction,
• 4:02
  smashing pumpkins, the Poor Alice caf for now, the Cancer Bats, it
• 4:06
  must feel good to finally get respected, I guess in the industry enough to
• 4:11
  get these supports, like you been tilling for a while, but it's coming
• 4:15
  full circle. Yeah, it's an interesting one. We have. We've definitely
• 4:19
  busted our bums. We did the Australian New Zealand tour last year with with
• 4:25
  Anders and Whalen, really really good guys and we had a fat time Smashing
• 4:31
  pumpkins was great. But yeah, it's you know, the one, the
• 4:35
  one for me that's a bit of a standout was was the Allison Cooper Show.
• 4:40
  Was it was amazing and it was it's really high, Like, you
• 4:48
  know, we've never been looked after so well at a show. We really
• 4:51
  really got looked after by the crew and yeah, that was amazing. We're
• 4:56
  you know, we're fortunate, no doubt. But the same time, away
• 5:00
  from us, we worked hard. Yeah, yeah, we've we've we've we've
• 5:05
  worked on on all the things too, and this is this is one for
• 5:09
  the kids that are listening to the young bands and stuff, you know,
• 5:12
  the social media, the consistent rehearsals, the just busting your balls. I
• 5:17
  don't know, it's well worth it. And I think I think the point
• 5:21
  that the thing is we love it. It's not you know, we're not
• 5:28
  we're not making money. It's costing us money, no doubt, But we
• 5:30
  love it. That's that's where it's at. If and I think, if
• 5:34
  you don't love it, don't wastet, don't start. Yeah yeah, And
• 5:40
  you know you're in the same place with the magazine, no doubt. You
• 5:44
  know you don't You don't make millions of dollars or anything. But if you
• 5:46
  didn't love it, you just wouldn't do it, simple as that. This
• 5:49
  has got to be my quote of of the last few years. I'd probably
• 5:54
  say it on the weekly. If you don't love it, you wouldn't do
• 5:58
  it. I've heard it a couple of times. Yeah, yeah, no
• 6:00
  doubt. Speaking of playing and touring, Piston Fist aren't far from boarding an
• 6:06
  international flight and taking yourself over to Europe for a massive run of twenty four
• 6:11
  dates over just five weeks. Like are you ready? Rave? Like fact,
• 6:15
  I know you've done a lot, and you've been doing it hardier,
• 6:16
  but are you ready? Like it's a big emotional thing as well as a
• 6:20
  financial and communit'sis are you ready? I guess like all over I don't know.
• 6:30
  You know, we're doing it. We're absolutely doing it. That the
• 6:34
  work involved behind the scenes to make this happen has been absolutely monstrous and mental
• 6:42
  with I've got massive thanks for Joel Chaosis, for Lexi and serv since so
• 6:48
  though even from Ryan Piston Fist he's worked really hard and myself to make all
• 6:56
  this happen. It's it's been a massive, massive, massive effort. But
• 7:03
  I have no doubt if even like at the very worst, if there's problems
• 7:10
  consistently through borders or whatever. You know, we don't know what we're in
• 7:14
  for. We've never done it before, so we will We'll see what happens.
• 7:17
  But you know, at the very least, we're going to have a
• 7:19
  fat time. It's going to be a hell of inexperience and we'll walk out
• 7:23
  of there going, holy shit, we did it. And it's something that
• 7:26
  man, you know, as a you know, I've had I've had guys
• 7:30
  from older bands that I played in when I was a very very young man
• 7:33
  ring me up and go, dude, you're doing it. It is serious.
• 7:38
  So it's it's a huge thing for me. It's something that I've wanted
• 7:40
  to do for a long time and it's something that I thought was unattainable,
• 7:46
  So to actually be doing it pretty stoked, no doubt. Yeah, for
• 7:50
  those who don't know, and there's probably a few made because you're the sort
• 7:54
  of blake that's not going to tell people. I'm not going to bitch about
• 7:56
  this. But the tour, they're very nearly fell over the last hurdle,
• 8:01
  Like there was. It was an organized initially with a big headliner that would
• 8:03
  have guaranteed bums on seats. After you'd paid for everything done, all the
• 8:09
  planning, that all went to ship for whatever reason. So there's left to
• 8:11
  you guys to salvage it yourself and put it together. But how close were
• 8:16
  you just to thrown your hands up and go and put it into two hard
• 8:18
  basket? Well, I think I think between at least between two of us,
• 8:26
  two of the bands that were doing it, I think we pretty much
• 8:31
  had mentally pulled the pin. We were like, oh, well this is
• 8:35
  that's just we've just thrown away some money and I'll take my hat off.
• 8:39
  Because SHERV and Lexi from Sinsoo they were like, oh hell no, I
• 8:45
  know, and they pulled us up and we pushed forward with it pretty much
• 8:52
  because they said we've got to do it, and they're dead right. We
• 8:56
  did have to do it because we worked so hard, you know. So
• 9:01
  what happened, long story short, was we we put it. We put
• 9:11
  to the venues that we were that we were booked with to play the shows
• 9:18
  that will bring two cover bands so or two tribute acts that that we would
• 9:28
  bring bring on board to play the shows. So between the three bands,
• 9:33
  long story short, we put together a slip Knot and a Prodigy tribute act
• 9:39
  each and they're now our headlining acts. So there's a bunch of us that
• 9:46
  are playing more than one show a night. There's a couple of lads in
• 9:50
  there that are actually playing three shows on the night, and yeah, we're
• 9:54
  just the show must go on, you know, We've That's exactly what's happened.
• 10:01
  So we're going to be busy, We're going to be tired, we're
• 10:05
  gonna be crazy to fight through. Yeah, we might be a little cranky.
• 10:09
  There's there's not many days off in there for rest and relaxation as such.
• 10:13
  I'm hoping we still do a bit of touristing and see some some rad
• 10:16
  stuff and stuff. But yeah, we just did what it took and you
• 10:22
  know, there's there's a lot of bands out there that talk the talk,
• 10:24
  but I dare say ourselves in Soto and Chaosis, where we're actually walking the
• 10:31
  walk, we're doing whatever the hell it takes to make it happen. So
• 10:35
  really stoked. Yeah, but you're not fucking around when you say personally that
• 10:39
  you'll literally do whatever it takes. Because one of those tribute bands you're talking
• 10:43
  about, Prodigy, you're going to be trading your gravelly boys for makeup at
• 10:48
  a funny hairstyle when you assume the role of Keith Flint from Prodigy made like,
• 10:52
  how the fuck did they talk you into that? I mean, it'll
• 10:58
  be fun, you know, like the Prodigy, there's there's not a great
• 11:03
  deal of lyrics in there, and and it's just we'll just be bouncing shves
• 11:09
  shurfs jumped in it with me. He's the other half of the Prodigy,
• 11:11
  and Ryan's playing drums and we'll have a ball. It'll be It'll be rather
• 11:16
  fun, I have no doubt. You know, how are you going to
• 11:18
  do your hair? Though? If you put on one of them like swimming
• 11:22
  cap wigs with a hair, what are you going? No? No,
• 11:24
  No, it is it is what it is. There is, there's there's
• 11:28
  no hair there. We're just I'll just I don't know. We're just gonna
• 11:35
  make it happen. I suppose, and and and just try and enjoy the
• 11:39
  moment. I have no doubt, no doubt, it's going to be a
• 11:43
  hell of a lot of fun. We're lucky enough, we've got to We've
• 11:46
  got the legend coming with us to do sound. Maddy Maddy Cutlass. He's
• 11:54
  all over it, so he's going to make us sound amazing and make it
• 11:58
  work. We've got plenty of lighting and stuff like that, so you know
• 12:01
  it's going to be. It's going to be a heavy metal Dolf stiff going
• 12:05
  on all over Europe. As far as me and URV goes. We will
• 12:09
  have a ball. I'm actually looking forward to it. I was very I
• 12:13
  was very concerned when it first came around. But I've been rehearsing it a
• 12:16
  bit and me and Sherv had a really rad rehearsal the other night. We
• 12:20
  did a dress run and it was sick. We had a ball. Yeah,
• 12:22
  well I might be wrong if I'm pretty sure A prodigy a British,
• 12:26
  aren't they? Yep? And in your best Pommy voice as Keith give us
• 12:31
  the intro for fire Starter, well fucking put on the spot in it there,
• 12:41
  Chrispy in there. It will bet the fire Dart and we'll get the
• 12:43
  rock and roll and we'll get some pieces bounce in in there. There you
• 12:48
  go. That's about how it's going to be. I think we're going to
• 12:52
  roll from the Australian version of the Prodigy, and we're not going to overdo
• 12:58
  the British accent, especially in the UK. I reckon, I reckon.
• 13:03
  We might have to find our way out of a few venues if if we
• 13:07
  pushed that UK accent too much, because I know, personally I'm pretty shit
• 13:11
  at it. So started off bad. You started off bad and got worse,
• 13:16
  set mate, so I'll probably shelve it. Yeah, it'll be fun.
• 13:20
  We're going to have a fun time. But I still like, you
• 13:22
  know, I reckon, we're going to overdo the Aussie accent on the Prodigy
• 13:26
  thing. And it's a bloody fire Starter, isn't it. Your bastards get
• 13:31
  moving, you know. That's that's how we might take that one on.
• 13:33
  It should change that like bushfire Starter or something like that, like make it
• 13:37
  Aussie absolutely so. Not only are you going to be speaking with a stupid
• 13:43
  accent, cancer like a fucking weird caun't do and everything else, but for
• 13:48
  the first five shows the tour, you're get to step back into a drum
• 13:52
  stool in the role and sing a drummer for the first time in ages because
• 13:56
  the drummer, basically a normal drummer, couldn't get it, couldn't get an
• 13:58
  early harp to go over. So yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly
• 14:03
  what's going on. It's I haven't played drums for a long time. It's
• 14:07
  been it's been probably six or seven years since since I played drums, especially
• 14:11
  in a live setting, so I have been rehearsing a hell of a lot.
• 14:16
  And yeah, then first five shows, I'll tell you what. I've
• 14:20
  had some fitness concerns, no doubt, there's there's some oxygen issues with playing
• 14:26
  drums and singing at the same time. But yeah, I think I got
• 14:28
  to cover it. I'm looking forward to it, and I do enjoy playing
• 14:31
  drums. I do enjoy button shit who doesn't like hitting things, So yeah,
• 14:37
  I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be fun, but I
• 14:39
  dare stay by the time that fourth show comes around, I'll be looking forward
• 14:41
  to seeing Ryan get off that plane as well. At the same time,
• 14:46
  it's funny because you've only just started settling the role of singer without your guitar
• 14:50
  on. Like I've noticed the other night, your hands are starting to go
• 14:52
  in the right places. But hey, you stepping back. Mind the drums
• 14:54
  again. When you come out from that, you gotta be like eating drumsticks
• 14:58
  subconsciously, like it's wicked. I reckon the fact that I've got to sit
• 15:03
  down and not move. It's going to make me want to run around like
• 15:05
  a lunatic the whole time on stage, especially after watching Liam front the Cancer
• 15:09
  Bats, I think if anything rubbed off on me, it was move.
• 15:15
  Oh my god, that guy is just a He's just a beast. He
• 15:18
  didn't stop smiling. But I don't know if you noticed, but from the
• 15:20
  very first song to the time he got on stage, that smile did not
• 15:24
  leave his face. It was it was grinning and like, you know,
• 15:28
  just it just made you want to smile. He just made you made you
• 15:33
  happy. Even a chat too before and after the shows. He just ridiculously
• 15:37
  happy. And and the nice bloke. It's so good. I really want
• 15:41
  to go to Canada. Now, yeah, I got to say since really
• 15:43
  it's changed my view of Canadians, Like I thought they were all digs,
• 15:46
  but that we met two of them, two decent ones in one night.
• 15:50
  Yeah yeah, and the whole band man, all of the Cancer Bats and
• 15:54
  the front man from Fangs, Josh Is. They were all good, all
• 15:56
  just good people. Now, did this tour overseas? Bro, Like,
• 16:02
  You've never actually played overseas to the best of my knowledge, But what are
• 16:06
  you expecting, Like, are you going over there with any expectations or are
• 16:08
  you going over there with a with a view that whatever comes comes. Yeah,
• 16:12
  Yeah, We're going to try and keep an open mind and just enjoy
• 16:18
  it. That's that's. You know, We've we've been rehearsing pretty consistently,
• 16:22
  and the whole general conversation is just enjoy the tour, enjoy the shows,
• 16:30
  enjoy the cultures, take it all in, soak it up and yeah,
• 16:34
  just have a really really fun time and just you know, through through all
• 16:38
  the adversity and all the drama that's that's come with these shows, there's just
• 16:45
  been a whole bunch of just appreciate create the fact that we're able to do
• 16:51
  this, and we're in a position where, you know, we're lucky enough
• 16:56
  to go to Europe and go to the UK and play shows. I've been
• 17:00
  playing I've been playing in bands since I was fifteen years old. I don't
• 17:03
  want to say how old I am now, but I'm bloody old and I
• 17:08
  had, you know, this whole Europe thing. It always seemed to be
• 17:14
  out of reach. It always seemed to be an unattainable thing, and now
• 17:18
  we're actually doing it. You know, there's a lot of boys that I've
• 17:22
  played in bands with over the years, and a lot of them blokes have
• 17:25
  rang me up over the past few weeks and just gone well done and you
• 17:30
  know, holy shit if you're going to Europe and things like that, So
• 17:33
  you know, there's a lot of Most of it, man, is just
• 17:37
  appreciation and being thankful and trying to be humble and just just fucking enjoy the
• 17:44
  moment. You know. Yeah, you're got to be going everywhere from London
• 17:48
  to Wales, to Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria,
• 17:52
  Serbia, Hungary, France, Switzerland. Fuck me, like, where are
• 17:56
  you most looking forward to playing? Oh? Wow, that's an interesting one.
• 18:02
  I think, you know, as well as the places like there's there's
• 18:07
  a place in the UK that we're playing where Iron Maid and played their first
• 18:11
  of a show. That's like how lucky is that, you know? But
• 18:15
  at the same time, playing places like Serbia where they don't get many acts,
• 18:22
  you know, Bulgaria that you know isn't isn't too westernized, you know,
• 18:27
  it might be a little bit of eye opening for the boys and all
• 18:32
  of them places Like, personally, I want to see some of that cool
• 18:34
  shit, some of that history that Europe has to offer that Australia. You
• 18:38
  know, we're pretty young over here in Australia. We don't have thousands of
• 18:42
  years of history, so you know, some of them countries where there's actually
• 18:48
  still standing castles and crazy shit like that that we don't get a chance to
• 18:53
  look at. Man, I suppose the whole thing, the whole thing I'm
• 18:57
  looking for to really really heaps. I think the only thing I'm really not
• 19:03
  looking forward to is sitting in on a plane for twenty hours. So that's
• 19:07
  that's one thing that's got me not concerned. But just like that's not gonna
• 19:10
  be fun, you know, but believes you won't have Jimmy there this time,
• 19:12
  fucking annoying the shit out of your Winson the whole time. Gotty Goby
• 19:18
  that well, you know he would have slept that whole flight. He'd be
• 19:21
  one of them boys that was lucky enough to be able to sleep on a
• 19:22
  flight, no doubt. Now, just say, somebody's stumbled across this interview
• 19:30
  over in Europe and we've got them slightly aroused. You get that message,
• 19:34
  Why should they come to one of your shows? Oh mate? This is
• 19:40
  this is that they're going to cop the essence of rock and roll. That
• 19:42
  It's fine, It's no doubt in my mind. We're hoping just and not
• 19:48
  you know, we we do try to bring a positive message and they you
• 19:52
  know a bit of a bit of something positive when a lot of metal is
• 19:56
  quite negative. And hopefully, you know, you'll walk out of there with
• 20:00
  a big, big dirty grin on your face and looking for somewhere to buy
• 20:04
  a beer on your way home. Had a Piston Fish shirt on and a
• 20:08
  Piston Fish shirt on. Absolutely yeah, Wednesday, where's the best place to
• 20:14
  go to check out? There's a lot of dates there. I can't go
• 20:15
  through all of them. So where do people go to find out where you're
• 20:18
  going to be and when. Mate. You know our website, our Facebook
• 20:23
  page, Instagram page, even on the on the Spotify and YouTube pages.
• 20:30
  Everything's on there. Google piston fist one word, capital peek, capital f
• 20:37
  you'll find us fantastic, all right, Jeffrey, Well, thanks for your
• 20:40
  time, mate, have an absolute ball over there. Bro. Got to
• 20:42
  admit I'm a slightly little bit jealous, but kick us over there. Mate.
• 20:47
  We'll see you when you get back. Yeah, we'll have a ball,
• 20:48
  mate. We'll make sure they they know what heavy mags meg is.
• 20:52
  I've got about four heavy shirts going in the suitcase, so I'm sure they'll
• 20:56
  see something, no doubt. Rise up Melada, bad shot us, spa
• 21:10
  wall play two times and I'm funny. Your ball and you'll fall. Don't
• 21:14
  see darn it all. Find drunk and doctor pray and sound hard and will
• 21:19
  make a bad surprisal to sell us something in your head. Surprise at my
• 21:40
  un the cop. Take a start inside of talk me to bide and now
• 21:49
  dun the game. What you need to do rides bringing about path son sick
• 22:03
  walk back you guy, d sell your walley and y'all don't see your job
• 22:08
  that faid. Well you got Fred, say hard and La ride up so
• 22:22
  stuff in your hair, surprise, bake a pack, step inside of the
• 22:36
  door. Some pot rides D S F F you know an but take a
• 23:51
  past side. Also, people think about blah blah three day a brother pay
• 24:07
  down south to where alot of black yeah, bubble taste time somewhere about the
• 24:37
  tackle pas So don't put the most the black