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A Moment Of Realisation With EZEKIEL OX From MAMMAL · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Get a heavy mag listeners, watches, viewers and readers. My name is
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  a Zekee or Ox. I'm the lead singer of Mammal, and today we
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  are here to talk about our new album, The Penny Drop. Beautiful,
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  Zeke, thanks for joining us this afternoon. It's an absolute pressure. As
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  always, Chris, it also has been. I have to comment again this
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  background is I'm almost ready to hang up. To be honest, I wish
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  I could do like a full screen and I'd put my socks on and me
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  boxes and I'd get the full kiting convened on for you. It's your funeral,
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  mate, it's your funeral now. Mammal will return with your new album,
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  as you say, The Penny Drop, on March this sixth. So
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  how you feel about it, mate, It's been a while since albums.
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  Yeah, Look, it was a huge process for us getting it together because
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  we had the transition of bass players which led to this record. Since Mammal
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  has been back since twenty seventeen. We put out Community, Virtue, Signaling
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  and Dead which we're all with Nick Adams, our former bass player, and
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  then this album. We put out crime Scene and The War, and then
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  this album was our first long player, and you know, we're a rock
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  band and a metal band, so we felt like we needed to put out
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  an album. We you know, apparently now he's supposed to just do singles,
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  but we feel like we wanted to make a statement. And I don't
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  think there's any doubt. We have full credit to you know, speaking in
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  forty parlance, full credit to the boys, but full credit to the producer,
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  Jimmy Rutis, full credit to Tyson Fish and also to Forrester, to
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  Savile who mixed and master this record. You know, you're only as good
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  as your team, and we had the absolute bomb on this record. So
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  it sounds the way it should. Everyone's performances are great, and yeah,
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  we felt like we had a chance to stretch our legs on this, so
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  we just pumped for the release on March six. You know, So tell
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  us a bit more about the album from a musical point of view and what
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  you were going for. Is it what Mammal fans had expect? I think
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  so, I think. I don't think it's a massive departure. I think.
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  I mean what happened was the main thing that whether people notice it or
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  not, is that Nick used to always write the first riff. So when
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  we started writing this album, we didn't we didn't really know where to start.
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  So Pete, for those that don't know Pete, our guitar player,
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  is a farmer and he sort of operates this huge acreage up in northwest Victoria,
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  and he sort of went through a point of view where he just started
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  writing a riff a day for thirty days and just rinsed everything he could.
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  And that was new for us. So as opposed to starting with the groove,
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  we kind of started with the riff, which obviously leads to the groove,
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  and then Zay sort of went through a process of putting those together into
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  songs, and then I went through a process of freestyling over two. I
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  just went down to Melbourne and got drunk and had a bit of fun with
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  the boys and they throw ideas at me and we came up with I think
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  we ended up freestyling to like twenty of them, and seventeen of them ended
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  up getting written, and then five of them got dropped and you end up
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  with the twelve songs that you have on the Penny Drop. So different process
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  for us, but it's a weird thing. Chris, you don't really I
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  think it's a negative thing to do to monitor yourself when you're working. You
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  just want to be working with each member as a whole and as an individual.
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  With the individual part. You want to be really conscious of just doing
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  your job, not self monitoring too much, and letting the produce, letting
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  the producer and letting the engineers focus on what the whole thing is. That's
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  a really important thing to do, and I think we all did that really
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  well. I know that Caid came in last, which we thought was fair.
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  We didn't want Aid having to do too much sort of development because we
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  thought that would be unfair for a new member. But I think the next
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  album we're going to want k to be a lot more involved because he's sort
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  of not a new guy anymore. He's been here for over two years now
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  and he's played shows with us, and he's just such an instrumental part of
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  this record. I can't wait for everybody to hear what he's doing on that
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  Warwick of his. So you mentioned you said to the fact that you freestyled
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  the lyrics. Does that mean that you didn't have the lyrics written when you
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  went into the studio, that you just made them up on the spot.
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  It's both. So at the start of the process, before the bass tracks
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  went down and when we were songwriting, I went into a rehearsal studio.
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  We literally pumped the demos through the PA and I just had a fifty eight
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  And I remember Keanue Reeves is a good example. Pete just said seeing something
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  about Keannie Reeves, and so I did, and that's how that happened.
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  So at the very big point, some of some probably twenty five percent of
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  what you hear on the record was just freestyle on the spot and then redone
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  in the studio when we went back in with Tyson, But eighty percent of
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  it was my voice and my sort of my rhythms and my sort of sometimes
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  a word, sometimes a hook, but always an energy. Five days,
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  I remember came out really strongly in the freestyle. But the freestyle is really
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  there to establish that immediacy, that moment of inception when you get the energy
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  of the track with Mammal, you don't want to be too sort of brain,
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  you know, it should more be heart and probably ruin really, and
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  we sort of tried really hard to keep that real immediacy to it. But
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  that involves me just freestyling for two seven hour sessions. It was long,
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  hard days. But in the end what you hear on the album, which
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  goes for forty five minutes, is sort of fourteen hours dense down. So
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  it's a lot of work that goes into it, and then a lot of
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  me just playing sort of crossword cryptic crossword and picking words and trying to make
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  work. You've been quotally saying that this album is not for the kids,
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  it's grown up fun. Can you elaborate on that? Well, yeah,
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  I mean it's mammal. I mean, I mean, if you I think
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  there's ways to expose your children to the politics we're talking about it, I
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  really do. But I mean the album's it's sweary, it's got moments of
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  real violence on it. It's I think children can enjoy it, like I've
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  never been one With my son, who's now fourteen. I never minded if
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  Griffin wanted to listen to NWA's Fuck the Police when he was four years old.
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  I think it is about the energy. But mammals mammals for people that
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  want to think about ideas, and some of those ideas are incredibly complex.
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  You know, this album discusses everything from genocide, to rape, culture,
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  to misogyny, homophobia, queerphobia, you know, the ruling class. There's
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  a line on one of the songs Guillotine the Billionaires and on with the show.
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  These are ideas that I think you can talk to your children about.
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  Those the general idea of the fact that too few have too much or too
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  many have too little. I think that's okay to bring your kids up on.
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  But when it comes to the solutions for those problems and ideas about like
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  fascist violence, that's not something that I would be exposing my child to because
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  these are serious things, and the genocide in Gaza is I can imagine,
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  would be incredibly, incredibly traumatic for a child, and I think we need
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  to protect our children somewhat. So we raise our children to know what's right.
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  But sometimes it doesn't mean that an eight year old or a nine year
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  old is ready to fight, and nor should they have to. And that's
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  why we fight for them so that hopefully, fingers crossed, they will get
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  to a point whether where it's all fixed. By the time they get there,
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  I don't think it's going to happen, but we leave a legacy for
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  them that they can learn about as they get older. But yeah, I
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  mean, there's some pretty heavy shit on this record, and I personally would
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  say that it's got an explicit warning on it. You know, I wouldn't
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  be showing I'll show my six year old some of these songs. That's actually
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  a good point. I want to raise it this because I've been fortunate enough
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  to listen to the album and Mammal are known as a political band, especially
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  yourself. You're known as a political person because you are outspoken. But I
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  didn't once feel like you were preaching for me on the album like it didn't
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  once feel like you were trying to force your point down the listener's throat.
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  You were saying what you had to say, and you were making your point.
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  Can I just interrapt? What about the line? What about the line
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  at the end of the agree to disagree where I say never mind because I'll
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  be there to shove it down your throat. You didn't even feel it then.
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  I didn't feel that was political. No, No, I'm glad to
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  say that. But it didn't feel political or no. It felt it felt
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  like you were shoving the music down our throat. You've got that, You've
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  got that inateability to combine your music and your political views into a package that
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  doesn't come across like you're sitting in a classroom being spoken down to. I
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  don't know if that makes sense. Well, look, I mean I've spent
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  a lot of time on the street organizing, whether it saved the Palace,
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  through to refugee rights movements, through to you know, even pushing for gay
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  marriage. Before we got it, I was on the street doing that.
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  And one of the main things you'll learn when you're trying to strive for social
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  justice, when you're trying to turn people's ideas around, trying to get them
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  to join so you can win, is that you've got to be able to
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  talk to everybody. You've got to be able to frame what you see as
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  the truth. Politics is about numbers in the end, and you know,
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  what I see is right and just is. I know that a lot of
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  other people think that. But if I'm trying to convin someone, then the
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  last thing you want to do is be pushing them away. It's important to
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  be convincing, it's important to not be preaching. It's important to give people
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  good reasons to join your movement. And in Mammals case, you know,
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  we're right, don't worry about that. We are right and we are righteous.
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  But the music makes it very easy, Chris, because I think that
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  it's really fucking easy fronting a band like Mammal. I mean, the three
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  guys, you know, Cade, Pete, and Zane, they're just phenomenal.
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  And I find that both in the intent they have, the instincts they
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  have as musicians, and what they bring to me, it leans itself towards
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  the aggression. But you know, I'm not here to preach. I'm just
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  here to try to express what I feel, and what I feel is that
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  we need more justice. And what I feel is that we're going fucking nowhere
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  and we need to start moving forward. And it's baby steps with politics,
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  but post you know, we're a really interesting time, very polarized, and
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  Mammals all about bringing you to us, not turning you away. You know,
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  we're not. We're not asking you to pick a side except against basically
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  a genocide or something. It's not that complicated. You can hold a conservative
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  position, you can you can choose not to get the vaccine, you can,
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  you can come to the party. We will have that discussion with you.
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  But the main thing is we just don't want people that are that are
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  trying to kill all the Jews or whatever. Now, how would you say
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  that the Penny Drop differs musically to the Majority. It's heavier, It's way
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  heavier, and it's production wise, it's it's probably more modern. We spend
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  a lot more time on wanting it to sound more As a recording. We
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  still haven't figured out how to play all the songs live. It's not like
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  layers of stuff like Beach Boys, pet sounds or anything. But the majority
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  was very much recorded off click track. It was with Eric Saraffin, who
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  did a much wider it's almost more Black Crows or something. The majority,
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  it's more more live, more funk. This album's much heavier, it's got
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  more metal overtones, and I think, look, I love both records,
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  but it's definitely more of a more of a production this album, and we
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  spend a lot more time in the studio. The majority was recorded in twelve
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  days. This album took us about nine months. Now. There's a couple
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  of songs on the album that I want to talk about particularly. The first
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  is the first actual collaboration you've had on a Mammal album. So it's a
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  song with Fresh Violet forward bottom end, So tell us a bit about that.
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  Yeah, look, were at the track. I came up with the
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  idea of just wanting to sort of rant about, you know, wanting to
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  have the base of the working class and wanting to have the base of Cade.
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  And it was a bit of a manic kind of pre style that one
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  a lot of that's one of the ones on the album that a lot of
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  what you hear is literally what was freestyle. And then we were looking for
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  something to sort of make it a bit more angular, probably give it a
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  point of difference. And you know, Violet had toured with Mammal in twenty
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  seventeen eighteen, I think it was, and we just thought, why not
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  get Violet in. We'd always love her work. She's an absolute pro,
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  you know, she's just unbelievable in the studio. She has just released another
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  album, and we just thought that it would be a good fit. We
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  knew it to work, so we introduced Violet to Tyson. Violet came down
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  to the studio and we had a couple of sessions on the track and I
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  think it's wild. You know, Violet went with this sort of I don't
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  know, like Missy Elliott kind of like fucking fem sort of bitch slap kind
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  of thing. I don't even know what it is. I couldn't describe it
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  either. I know, I know I liked it, I couldn't describe it.
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  Yeah, I think that's a really good way to put it. So
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  I can't wait for everyone to hear it, and then you know, you
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  can get around and anyone that doesn't know about Violet already then they can get
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  around that as well. But yeah, it was just seemed fitting. We
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  also wanted to look at the idea. Mammals a quite a butch band.
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  You know, it's a very male band. We have worked in the past
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  with Zanni Kolak, the amazing violin player from Melbourne. We certainly have always
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  had a lot of women come to our shows, and we've always fought against
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  sexism and homophobia and that sort of stuff. But it just felt like it
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  was time to maybe get a woman into the studio to sort of sort of
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  dull the butch a little bit, which I think Violet did most definitely as
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  she did. And there's another song on there called Maybe That It's got you
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  singing clean vocals the whole way through. It's a bit of a personal song
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  too, you yeah, it is. It's a song about what Mammal has
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  been through. Like a lot of bands, we've broken up, we've made
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  up, and now we've been through one member change, and it's really difficult
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  to describe. And I'm sure anyone watching this has been in a band would
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  understand just the amount of heart you've got in the amount your care. But
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  then it's also a very stressful job, and it's very difficult to detach yourself
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  from how personal you feel about the art and stuff, and so you can
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  end up in situations where you actually are quite upset at each other, and
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  then sometimes you just get to a point where you can't do it anymore.
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  And I know that's how Nick felt. I know that's how we felt back
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  in twenty ten when we broke up as a group, and that song's about,
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  you know, the twenty ten breakup and then the transition away and Nick
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  leaving the band. It's always a time full of anger, and I think
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  that song really seeds and I tried to be really honest with it, and
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  I really hope that people understand that it comes from a place of love and
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  it comes from a place of trying to be honest. I guess in a
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  way, if you've ever broken up with someone a friend or a girlfriend or
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  a boyfriend, then that song will probably resonate with you as well. It's
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  about confusion and how easy it is and how close love can be to hate
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  at times. We're talking about the Penny Drove mate, but yea, let's
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  slip before something about another live album coming out soon? Can you tell us
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  about that? We've got two. We've now got two studio albums and two
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  live albums. I think that Madam will again make another live album, but
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  that'll come down to once we've been touring for a little bit on the songs
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  and once we've got the set list down. Our first live album was made
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  at the Evelyn second live album was live at the Aenale Systematic Automatic. We're
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  a bound that really prides ourselves in our live show. And when we do
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  the third live album that will have lots of guests, so we'll be getting
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  we'll make it like the The first live album is just us. Second live
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  album has Zanni Kollak on violin and Eddie Perfect, the Great Eddie Perfect,
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  Broadway composer on vocals. For those that don't know, and shout out to
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  Eddie Perfect, my best mate, if he's out there watching this. And
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  so we'll be looking to have something pretty interesting on the next tour and making
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  sure that live album is kind of punch. I think that the Melbourne Mammals
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  studio albums are kind of like something we have to do to fit in with
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  what the industry wants. But really, if Mammal, I think if Mammal
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  started in nineteen seventy two would probably be the biggest band in the fucking world
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  right now because we are one of the best live bands you're ever going to
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  see. Second second that notion, Mate, I was second, third and
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  fourth that notion on that notion. Any if any band out there that wants
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  to take us on tour as a support and give us the Pepsi challenge,
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  We're up for it, because you know, we're looking for gigs, man,
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  We're always looking for gigs. So yeah, we we're a band that's
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  had to do it ourselves a lot. And sometimes sometimes Chris I wonder if
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  bands don't want us to support them because they're a little concerned about how they'll
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  go after we play before them. Well, it is a valid concern.
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  It's a valid concern, my friend, he's pretty good. That's just fucking
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  soft. That should just head back into the rehearsal room and get better.
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  Never fucking never sh I have a comment. You are, my friend.
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  I love it. I will say though excluding one band from that one band
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  she had, she had, I would never know. No, no,
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  I wouldn't. There's been nights and I think that mammals given cog as good
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  as we've gotten at least. But what I will say is she had I'm
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  that band unbelievable, and I'm certainly not throwing any shade on the Great John
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  too Good. But if you want to take us out again, then you
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  can guarantee we're not going to blow your egg. As she had to get
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  us out into again. She had