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Making A Stand With EZEKIEL OX From MAMMAL · HEAVY Music Interviews

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Get a guys. My name is Ezekiel Ox and I am so stoked to
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be being interviewed again by the wonderful Chris Peters from Heavy mag and we are
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here today to talk about Thrashville, the little boutique festival in my neck of
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the woods now and the Hunt of Valley. Beautiful Zeke, thanks for joining
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us today, mate, thank you for having me my pleasure. I said,
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We've got a fair bit to cover today, but we'll start with Thrashville,
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which will be held over September eighth and ninth, and the Absolute Middle
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of Nowhere made at a place called Dashville. It's got Mammal, has got
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cog as a two main headlining acts, So what could go wrong? Mate?
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Middle of Nowhere bands are like that, Yeah, I mean from Singleton.
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Then next the middle of Nowhere just down the road. But then again,
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Singleton's in the middle of I think that. I think there's also some
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other great bands like down Girl are doing really well, fantastic stuff. Bloody
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Hell are a Newcastle band that I've been super impressed with. Interestingly enough,
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for anyone that's wants to find Bloody Hell, they are not on social media,
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so if you want if you if you want to find them, then
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slide into my DMS and I can get you onto their text message lists.
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They've gone super old school, um, and they're They're an amazing punk band
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and very heavy. So I just think the lineup sensational. We can't wait
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to get back on the same bill and we are in the same bill as
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our old touring buddies COG. Of course I've narrated their documentary, I performed
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the River Song with them live with two counts times on their headline tours and
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also just seeing them on festival festival. So U how good's it going to
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be Mamalan Cog in the same space. It's um, it's about time,
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I would say, yeah, and you mentioned the other bands. Of course
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there is Mamal and COG, but you've got Civic, There's Shady, Nasty
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down Girl, Wide Heart, Crocodilias Buddy Had like you Sailor. But how
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good is it you see such an Australian only lineup on the festival and not
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waiting to worry about the internationals. Yeah, I think it's great, um,
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and I think that you know, losing home Baker though I always super
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disappointed with that. You know, Mammal was lucky enough to play on the
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two thousand and eight Homeboat with the divinyls Park Bay Drive crowded house, you
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know, because it was always New Zealand bands as well, which is good
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because we've got that Anzac spirit flying. But you know, I think that
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was a huge loss. And so to see festivals like Drashville bringing back and
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you know, just it might be a boutique festival, but it's it's a
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chance for us to really flex our muscles and show what we're capable of down
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here, because I mean, we've got the best bands in the world of
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course to do there's good bands from everywhere, and yeah, you don't have
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to spend so much and you don't have to go far from home to see
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the best in the beers. I totally agree with you, Chris. Mammal
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have got a well deserved reputation as being one of the very best live bands
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out there. But how good is it going to be planned to nature and
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Friends with no noise restrictions or guidelines though you're going to be able to cut
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sick man, which if anyone seemed mamma um. If there's the level we
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go to it, you know, that's kind of that's that's always going to
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be a matter of interest. But look, it's such a great opportunity.
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I'm lucky enough to have played thrash Field before with another one of my projects.
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And it is such a good festival. It's just got the vibe.
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They've got tattoos said, they've got so much else going on. It's worth
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getting the tents out, it's worth coming to camp for the two days.
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And it's right it's a family operated festival. So yes, all of those
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things you said about it being a little bit almost off the grip, I
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think it's really cool. It's going to be pretty fun. Come, come,
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get loose. I've already you're already book the time off made. I'm
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jumping in the car and I'm driving down for it. Are you seriously going
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to do the road trip? I'll be down there, brother. Well how's
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that forty endorsement? Heavy mag listeners may man man, I love it,
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hopefully, hopefully hopefully. When you go to fuel the car up two dollars,
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A leader looks a little further away. I was only listening to that
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song that they had r in the car. I'm fall into that's playing I'm
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live? Fuck? Is Heke? He got it right? I don't prediction
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with the way in flat basic level of economic knowledge would knowledge would get you
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there? And I think it was more the fun. I was still alive
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to see that happened. That's what brought me. We're sort of touched on
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this before. But is it just coincidence that Madel and Cogre on the same
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festival line up again, like he's got a long history of sharing the same
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bill is I mean the bands, the bands are run by separate entities.
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I mean we've you know, they've got their management, we've got ours.
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You know, they have their agents, we have they have. It really
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is just credits to thrash Fille for for pursuing a line up and then I
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don't know how they've worked it out. You know, I don't know what
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else is getting paid. I don't know how it's working. But we're very
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happy and so they've managed to figure it out and so um, yeah we
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were. I was more than happy to say yes when the deal came through
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from our agent, um, because you know, it's gonna be great.
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It's gonna be great to see Flynn, Luke and Luce and Roger and all
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their crew, Yogi, all that crew. Um, it's just going to
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be fantastic. We can't wait. But yeah, here's a coincidence to answer
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your question. But shouldn't we the question for your listeners? Question for your
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listeners? Don't you think it would be good to see Cog and Mammal a
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national together, just two of them? That's a very unanimously the answered yes
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for that Dixon way, like you go. You both of your bands got
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strong social and clinical views, so you avoid touching up for drinks after the
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shows. Just see cases he is supposed or something. Um. No,
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you might find that I'm not going to say who in the Mammal camp,
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but Mamal Mamal Mammal is fifty percent vaccinated, fifty percent unvaccinated. You can
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probably go check out our personal social media if you want to work that out.
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You would find that Cog, like Mammal, probably relating it back to
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the voice vote. Like Aboriginal people, no one's a monolith. Everyone has
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their own politics. What you find in civil society is that people aren't fascists.
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People aren't the kind of people that want to stick the boot into people
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that you can disagree on economic policy. You can disagree on whether we vote
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you to the voice. I really don't care. The point is, is
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it coming from a point of care? Is it coming from a point of
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wanting to find the right thing? Because the fact is, no one knows
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what's correct. We all hold our own views some a form from different reasons,
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different positions. I think that there's a hell of a lot in common
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between what Cog and Mammal are talking about. What you're probably seeing is more
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of a libertarian position coming from COG's lyrics if you analyze them, and probably
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more of a a sort of working class activist perspective and more of a sort
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of an almost like a solidarity trade unionist perspective, which is we get together
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and we fix it and it's not going to be perfect. Um. I
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mean, who knows what's right or wrong. But the main thing is that
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the character of the person, and I just, I just I don't think
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that the guys from Common Mammal and the music that we're trying to create is
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trying to hurt me one. I think we're trying to help and that's the
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way forward. So I think you probably find that there'll be strong disagreements,
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but there's also probably a macro overview of who the enemy is, which is
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billions the rule class machine. If I don't think that any members of All
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Mammal would disagree that those people just thro who knows. Maybe hopefully we can
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give people some songs to sing as they go about their business with smashing the
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billionaires and getting their fair share attacks out of them. Answer, brother,
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I pulled out the calculator earlier and did the mass. And it's been six
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years since Mammal came back to life, mate, so I remember personally being
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excited for new material, and you guys exploded out of the blocks with Community
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and Dead before going quiet again for a couple of years. Was that always
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the playing timeline? I did sort of things just happening getting away. No,
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I mean, you know, Nick didn't just leave for no reason.
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We were going through a fair bit of internal struggle, being super proud of
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those three with the three songs, you know, Dead Community virtually signaling dead,
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but we had a fair bit of stuff we need to figure out.
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And then, of course, the pandemic is just no matter what business you're
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in, whether you're laying bricks or playing music, the pandemic caused all sorts
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of problems, so we had to regroup and attack it again from a post
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COVID perspective. Then as things started to open up, it was just so
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what's it was so like unpredictable for a period for everyone, and what was
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going to happen in what states are doing, because obviously national international travel is
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a huge part of what we were doing. When we came back. We
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played a show with London before Nick left the band, and then we had
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to go through a process of finding Kaid, realizing we had something pretty solid,
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but then also not you can't just put him in the band. You've
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got to think very carefully about where does it sit and making sure that he's
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comfortable, making sure we're comfortable, making sure that we're getting putting the structures
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in place so that we can hopefully move forward in a fruitful and thriving way.
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And there's a song on the new album called Maybe, which is about
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that process. It's about you know, it's about how we chose to rebuild.
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And there's also a song on the album called Agree to Disagree, which
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is about probably more what you were talking about with the cold mammal thing before
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or so the album's kind of built off the back of the personal journey of
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the band with Kade becoming new member. I mean, I have thought about
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lads being a new member so long. He's been so ed. It is
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so involved, so on the phone, on the email, doing the work.
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He's just start of the furniture now. But I think it was incredibly
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complex for us because we had internal arguments about COVID vaccine lockdowns. There was
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a lot of disagreement, a lot of agreement, and then we also had
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internal arguments about having an a structure of the band, and then we had
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a lot of doubt about how the world was going to look, and then
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we also had a member change. So probably we faced even more challenges than
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some bands. But because those challenges were there, I reckon we've come out
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of it stronger than we would of if we just kept plowing on without COVID.
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So as much as by the end of COVID, I'll have a law
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degree, a mammal will be in the strong disposition it's ever been. I
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kind of look at COVID as maybe maybe it well, look the way we
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responded to it has meant that we've we've developed strength and that doesn't I'm not
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trying to push it to sort of bad mouth anyone who struggled throughout it,
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but we have bounced back as a band extraordinarily hard and it's wonderful. Yeah.
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Act like last year came out with Prime Scene in the War and they've
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both absolute belt as the Suns too man like. Are they indicative of what
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new album's going to sound like? Yeah, So we're going to try and
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build on those things. See the decisions the bands making. At the moment,
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we've got two days of revision left. The album will be finished in
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those two days down at the Alamo in Saint Kilda with the amazing, gloriously
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tall Tyson Fish formerly of the kimber Belt and Rook Member listeners may remember those
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bands from the Melbourne underground scene. And then we've also had a producer,
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Jimmy Rudis. The next question is we need to ask ourselves after we finished
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putting everything on it is who mixes it? I mean, we've got offers
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from some serious heavy hitters to mix it. Internationals, people that have mixed
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bands like Lamb of Gods, Straight from the Path, people that have mixed
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bands we've been in communication with engineers that have worked on tool records. But
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then we've also got you know, for us to savile. You know who
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your listeners will understand is responsible for putting in Carnival and dead Letter, the
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circus and a lot of the mammal stuff in your ear holes. So every
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every Australian having music fanos, every international having music fanos for us to safle
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the debt. So the question we're offing ourselves now is what do we want
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it to sound like? And who's the best person should the job? Who's
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the best fit. There's also the option of going with Jimmy Marudis, who
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is our producer but also mixed the Mammally p and mixed the War and crime
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scene. So do you keep it in the house and look, you could
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say Jimmy this is a smaller name, but only to the heavy music scene.
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Because Jimmy worked on the Avalanche's debut album. He works with you and
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I who works at the end. You know, these is legit artists,
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you know, and so I guess to round it up is that manually blessed
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to have to currently be surrounded by people who it's not about whether we can
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get the job done, it's what do we want it to look like?
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How do we want it to sound? Who wants to do artwork? Because
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we've created a reputation where people want to work with us because they know it's
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going to be red hot poked on music and they know that it says something
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I think that you know, because people know that we're not easy to work
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with as well, because we have high standards and we're not We're not in
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it to let's go. We want we want to make statements with these records.
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That's what How do anymore? Since we need an fans want they want
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Jam ten, they want Rage Machine, Eve Lampire, they want tool in
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ten thousand Days or whatever. They don't just want to listen to one song.
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People like you and I creasing your listeners. They want to sit there
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and absorb. You know, you want to machine head the blacking. You
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know, albums you can go back to and always find something new. And
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that's what we're trying to develop with this record, not just snippets, but
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something that yeah, you know, people that care or can sink their teeth
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into the question is who is the right person to deliver the back the way
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we want it? Because we're co producing for Jimmy, So it's it's I'll
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tell you, there's a lot of arguments to come well, and we're actually
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what we're doing is to make to make it count. We're actually planning on
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videotaping all of those arguments. So we're going to we've got to film.
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We've got to sit a filmmaker coming down to shoot the last two days so
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that at the very least our fans will get to enjoy our meltdowns, because
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god, how good? How good is it watching people you know argue and
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fight in the studio and hung it out Later you can make that into the
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best movie later on, we'll see how much we argue. Well, one
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thing that that I've always admired about you and your music, bros. It
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was like you've got an opinion and therefore a voice. So how does that
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being used to best effect lyrically? What's going on on this album? Yeah,
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it's been interesting to something that we we sort of went with the freestyle
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mode, so I was in I was in the very open mode for two
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days, for seven hours, and I recorded seventeen tracks freestyle in two days
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back last year and then Pete's gone away and all of us have had to
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crack, and he's edited dose up into what the songs are. Then you've
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got these things of what do you want to change and what happens? But
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musically it's very much channeling Lyrically, this record has deals with It does deal
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with the pandemic. It does deal not just with we're not talking about.
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What it deals with is how do we move forward from this in a world
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where you've got polarization, bashes on the streets, you know, people really
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struggling with. I'm not saying this is any co ord of society. Everyone
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knows whether the innormation they're getting out is the gym, you know, like
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Trump weaponizes the concept of fake news. But the reason it works with that
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disgusting racist, rapist, homophobe, scum bad which just has to be said
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about and Biden's bonds just a fucking war criminal as well. I'm not saying
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he's good that Trump. Trump can use the term of fake news because that
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kernel of truth sits with when he says that I don't of course the users
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bullshit, of course, Fox News, of course everything, it's part of
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part of the truth in the lie is to weaponize it and so if we
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live in a world where you know, we're going to hell in a handbasket,
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everything's either underwater or on fire. Wages it down. You can't buy
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a house, you can in schools are getting worse, you can't go and
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see a doctor, and medicare anymore. Like all these erosions to the actual
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conditions. Well, extreme wealth is through the roof, while wages it down
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all these actual things that affect people. You know, I don't doubt for
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a second that Trump's supporters are pissed off because they're poor. He's not the
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answer. But that's what we're trying to do with this record is to say
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what is the solution and how can we come together? What can we come
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together on and what we can come together on. The lyric on a song
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called agree to Disagree goes white is Black and black is White? Agree to
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Disagree. Probably what this record is most grappling with is what can we agree
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on. One song that you've heard as a premix is Kiano Reeves, which
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has the lyric trees are real and it sounds naive and it sounds stupid.
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But the problem we have right now is we can't agree on what the truth
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is what objective reality is, and that that that's that's makes it very difficult
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to have one way of having civil conversations. So we can move forward on
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what we all want, which what is what kids have got a full ballet.
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You've got a full ballet. You've got a roof over your head.
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We're not We're not like blionaires. We don't need to fucking yachts and rockets
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and shiit. We just want some tunes, beer on Sunday, gouts and
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my mom Dave see all stuff like and and that that mammals trying to We're
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all the same in some way. We have been divided political purposes. In
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some sense it's very intention but in other senses it's just the chaos of living
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in a world where we can do this as a meeting where every information age
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and I think we're getting more prone to holding onto our wrong, incorrect,
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prejudiced views and we all haven't because we've got so much information to coming in
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that we just cannot process it, which and not possibly feel like we're making
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a decision. It's not just the Age or the Herald's son anymore. It's
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any music man. You've got your own journalism it's every facet that he's got
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some sort of opinion coming at you. And of course do they want people
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to be happy? Do they want people to find the truth that they want
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people to have a better world. No, they want clicks, They want
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you want clicks. We want clicks with this article. You know, I'd
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like people to look at this article. But you know the difference is you're
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you're not trying to divide people. It's easy. Yeah, do you like
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every music, come on over. But when it comes to dealing with ideologies
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that are so different, you're going to struggle. But you know, the
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other thing is there's a line on the album which is really important for people
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to remember, which is fight every fucking fascist. Now. We will not
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tolerate people who want to subjugate, who want to ramp up nationalism, ramp
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up the war machine, get in bed with capital and find ways to put
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people in prisons, find most to oppress people through the law, which is
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fascism, Subjugate women, very disabled people on the hill, isolate the other
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in Australians to Muslim. Sometimes it's a Jew and we're just not interested.
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What we're looking for is good health, better wages, better hospitals, all
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that stuff, better schools, and that's what the album's about. So we
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tried to find that, Colonel, that that slim middle that we agree on.
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It's fucking hard, man, because people are just wild at the moment,
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they're insane and yeah, hey man, everyone's in front of their fucking
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opinion of the day. A further that point too, Like one another thing
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I respect the fuck out of you for is that you always back your stands
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with anyone who calls you out for it, and you've always got well researched
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and detailed facts to debate with, Like have you always been the way even
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as a kid, Like did you like to just talk about things? I
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guess or did you developed? My parents, my mother, my mothers always
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have a saying since I was a child, which is that some people say
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I'm not political. Mum's always said everything is political. If if you walk
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out the door, if you have a job and you earn a wage,
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well that that boss is taking profit off that that that's politics. That's that's
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just the way it's set up. Now, you could agree with it,
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and you can be fine with it, but you can't sit outside of it.
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The way you talk to women is political. The way that women talk
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to men is political, the way that gay people have been treating it's all
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politics. So I was raised in that household. I was marching with the
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unions where my teachers would strike. So realistically, I've just been really blessed
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to have parents that were open to developing their children as political actors. And
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then I've always had a very strong hatred and disgust for anyone who kicks someone
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who's vulnerable, and I just can't stand it. I just think it's it's
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cowardly and it's m and when vulnerable people are getting kicked, then there need
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to be people who are less vulnerable, like myself, who's brought up in
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you know, with all those ideas, and also in a middle class house
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who can step in and say let's organize around this, let's stop this.
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So I really think that your politics are formed in your interactions on the street.
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And I've been a protest for many years. I've seen what the police
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are capable of. You know, for instance, you know anti lockdown protests,
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doesn't matter what you think of it. Do you think it's good that
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they're shooting unbabullets of people in Melbourne. You know, it doesn't matter what
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your view is of what those protests are fighting for. What they're doing is
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wrong. What about what the police did if you want that in Victoria?
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Do you want that to be a part of your political life, because that
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is outrageous and it's disgusting and there's no need for it. And so you
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find the thing that is the core of humanity. And and you know,
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I like to tell you it's complicated, but it's not. It's fucking simple.
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Tax the billionaires, stop funding the war, start funding the hospitals,
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start educating people, give children a chance to be critical thinkers, and funds
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healthy. Um, it's it's really fucking sick ship. You know, it's
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could be easy, but they are telling you it's located Mammal with the big
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dune riffs, with the awesome hook. We try to make it a little
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simpler for people and say this is the way forward. So well, every
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all the stuff you've discussed made You've got a lot going on in the media
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confusion. But what's next for Mammal, Like you've got you've got Trashville.
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What's planned after that? Yeah, after Trashville will be we're talking all September
23:45
right eight or nine or foot anyway. Um, look, we won't be
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releasing the album before then, so the next focus will be just to get
23:59
this get this album out, and there'll be film clips and there were all
24:02
sorts of stuff coming. So realistically it's about the record next and then getting
24:07
the what we need together for that, and then there'll be a national tour
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on the back of it and we'll be doing our best to get overseas again
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and just continue to be a band. I mean it's not really, it's
24:25
not rother sides man. We just want to play live and we want to
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put out tracks and something that an album that people can listen to in five
24:30
years and it stands up. We've already done with the majority and that we'll
24:34
see what happens, but we're super happy with how many fans we've got.
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We want more. If you're a Mammal fan listening to this and you haven't
24:41
shown your best mate music, just go and do it. It's always word
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of mouth for Mammal, it always has been, and our goal will be
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to continue our mission which we've been on since two thousand and six, to
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make Mammal well. I shouldn't say to mate, because it was just to
24:56
make us since Ad said, but now it is to continue to hold the
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mantle as the hardest rocking band in the universe, right Australian, No pressure
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at all. But are we gonna have the album by Christmas? Yeah?
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Um, no comments like a lawyer. Wow, I just don't know.
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I guess what I'll say is there's there's too many factors in play. What
25:22
I will say to the counts is I hope so I wanted out uh And
25:26
I just think that. But then the punters we're sure it's wrong, you
25:32
know, because we just want to share, to release spot on. So
25:34
there's a few factors of player. But things said that, there's time train
25:37
and so the goal be two. A lot of people unwrapping new Mammal Vinyl
25:44
under the Christmas tree on December twenty fifth percent. That's probably the only time
25:48
in history you've ever been captured saying no comment to anything. Maybe it's the
25:55
law degree. It's got me in trouble before. It's got me in trouble
26:00
before. My dad used to say. My dad used to say, Zeke,
26:06
you've got you've got two of these. I'm pointing at my ears for
26:08
anyone listening and one of these I'm pointing at my mouth, try to use
26:11
them indirect proportion. One lesson. That's one lesson that I don't think my
26:18
late father ever managed to teach me properly. No comment, al right,
26:26
absolute pleasure as usual. I'll see you at Thrashville on September eighth, the
26:30
ninth. Then, like he says, the new music that I've heard,
26:32
this absolutely sensational. Both said best to luck and take care. Thanks,
26:37
because I can't wait to see that man. It's gonna be so good to
26:40
see you in the flesh and be able to have a cold run with you
26:41
after the set. Oh yeah, start looking forward to it, Bro,