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Making Some Noise At BIGSOUND With GRECCO ROMANK · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We Greco Romance. I'm Damien and I'm Billy.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: We're from Tamiki, Makoto, Alti or New Zealand also known
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: as Auckland, and we are coming.
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  Speaker 1: To Skip Sound in September.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: Very nice, guys, thanks for joining us today.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, thank you.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Chris By Pleasure.
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  Speaker 4: So Greco will be one of more than one hundred
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  Speaker 4: and twenty bands playing across eighteen stages of Big Sound
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty five, which is going to be held in
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  Speaker 4: Brisbane's Fortitude Balley from September two to five. More than
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  Speaker 4: one hundred and twenty bands, guys, that's a ship down
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  Speaker 4: the band to be playing.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I feel sorry for them.
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  Speaker 2: You you had a day and afternoon listening to everything.
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  Speaker 1: I've listened to every single act list. Yeah, it's gonna
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  Speaker 1: be it's gonna be a good year. I'm excited. It's
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  Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of fun.
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  Speaker 3: Rich five stood out to you the most.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: You say, Spike, fuck, ugly, mumfighter shock at all. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I was a test to see if you haven't done
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  Speaker 3: your homework, and you were me.
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  Speaker 1: You've done the.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Home of Guy.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, we're don't we're doing a little side show
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  Speaker 1: with Spike Fuck as well, which is quite exciting.
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  Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, nice.
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  Speaker 4: Before we get at anything else, I was like, I'm
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  Speaker 4: sure there's people over here on this side of the
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  Speaker 4: ocean that haven't heard too much about Greco, So tell
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  Speaker 4: us a bit about the band and a bit of
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  Speaker 4: history at this point.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's three of us. Mikey right now is
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: driving a bus on an island, who's our third member,
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  Speaker 2: And we have been performing and writing songs and putting
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  Speaker 2: out music for five years now. Yeah, we've got three
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  Speaker 2: albums under our belt. We play a lot in Auckland
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: and around the country, and in terms of what we
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: kind of sound like and what our buzz is, it's
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  Speaker 2: kind of electronically. It's it's got a bit of kind
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: of operatic vocals. I'm a classically trained singer, so that's
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: where that kind of comes in, and it's kind of ravy.
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  Speaker 2: If you like hard, rave industrial things, then maybe you'll
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  Speaker 2: like us.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's like too too kind of shitty
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  Speaker 1: to be like proper techno music and also not qualified
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  Speaker 1: enough to be, you know, a band with musicians playing stuff,
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  Speaker 1: so it's like garage uncle rave that's got you know,
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  Speaker 1: crazy operatic falsetto singing over the top. But it's a
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  Speaker 1: little bit industrial as well. That was interesting, people say,
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  Speaker 1: despite despite that, it's actually kind of fun as well.
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  Speaker 4: Well, there we go, actually come to be part of
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  Speaker 4: beachwe guys.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I know that big sound every year is a
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  Speaker 2: it's a big deal for us killies because they only
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  Speaker 2: take sort of a handful of us. So we went
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  Speaker 2: through all the the channels.
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  Speaker 1: I think I think I think some people spied our
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  Speaker 1: live show. We're pretty fun live act.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we try and we try and like, yeah, put
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  Speaker 2: on a put on a good time.
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  Speaker 1: It's like the Blood Rave, but without the blood Rave budget,
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  Speaker 1: you know.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got to say without the blood.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah we want the blood, but we need the budget.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Blood's bloody expensive these days, isn't it.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's a little blue life. It's a
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  Speaker 1: little bit cheap all around the place. You know, if
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  Speaker 1: anyone's willing to step up, well we'll take your plasma.
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  Speaker 4: Do you know what gigs you do it over those
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  Speaker 4: three days yet or is that like a bit of
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  Speaker 4: a surprise.
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  Speaker 2: People, So we are doing we should look at our
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  Speaker 2: blonden notes like yeah, the Tuesday and the Wednesday. So yeah,
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  Speaker 2: on the Tuesday it's nine o'clock at the Wonderland upstairs
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  Speaker 2: and and then on the Wednesday it's the Prince Consort
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  Speaker 2: Hotel that's at ten o'clock.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: These are very very very like I don't know what's
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  Speaker 5: the weird gracious times for us, where we're often the
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  Speaker 5: band that's put on right when people are getting very
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  Speaker 5: skanky and scongey with it.
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  Speaker 1: So these are like one.
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  Speaker 2: Am band typically, so tough for us because we're also
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  Speaker 2: often the oldest.
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  Speaker 3: Band making the track from New Zealand. You deserve a
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  Speaker 3: good place.
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  Speaker 1: Just ye, it's nice and we're doing like an afternoon
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  Speaker 1: show as well on Tuesday the second. It's an unofficial one,
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  Speaker 1: but that's going to be a show the Jump Bar
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  Speaker 1: Junk Yeah, yeah, that'll that'll be fun. And then I
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  Speaker 1: mean not really related to what we're talking about, but
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  Speaker 1: we are doing one show over at the Tote in Melbourne,
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  Speaker 1: number sixth with Pit Split and Electronic Girl Epic.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Very nice.
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  Speaker 4: Of course, Big Sounds much more than just turn it
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  Speaker 4: up playing and then going home. By there's workshops, there's showcases,
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  Speaker 4: there's networking opportunities, like it's it's not just all funny games.
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  Speaker 3: Do you guys come over? Is it? No?
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  Speaker 2: And we're definitely we've got a bit of homework to
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  Speaker 2: do on trying to plan our days and make sure
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  Speaker 2: everyone gets to see what they.
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  Speaker 1: Want to see.
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  Speaker 2: Also, we're also bringing our managers so he can he
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  Speaker 2: can go do a lot of that stuff on ourpohoe.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean it's it's definitely an exciting opportunity.
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  Speaker 2: There's just this It's yeah, I've been like so overwhelmed
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  Speaker 2: with all the comms and looking at all the incredible
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  Speaker 2: people coming. So yeah, we need to do some research,
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  Speaker 2: I think, and really.
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  Speaker 1: Plan it out. There is a breathwork class for stressed
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  Speaker 1: out musicians, which I reckon there'll.
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  Speaker 3: Be a few people that one.
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  Speaker 4: So what sorts of things do you hope the band
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  Speaker 4: is going to take out of Big Sound experience?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think it's just for us. It's definitely just
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  Speaker 2: obviously Big Sound. It's not the same as just rocking
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  Speaker 2: up and doing an Aussie tour. So I think we're
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  Speaker 2: trying to just get the most out of this opportunity
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  Speaker 2: and getting in front of people that we wouldn't normally
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  Speaker 2: be able to get in front of and for them
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  Speaker 2: to see our live show and just hang out and
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  Speaker 2: meet people who are in a similar position or who
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  Speaker 2: have had similar experiences to us and can give us
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  Speaker 2: some advice.
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  Speaker 1: We want more Rossies to want us to come back
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  Speaker 1: and play.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we want to come back. We want to
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  Speaker 2: do some festivals and.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fit in the door for us to
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  Speaker 1: be seen by folks that are actually not that far
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  Speaker 1: away from us that we feel like we'd have a
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  Speaker 1: good sell to and folks who have like a good
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: time seeing us.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, you guys drop your third album, Art's Colony Sorry
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  Speaker 4: back in May.
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  Speaker 3: So how's the reception been for that?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been really, really really great. We this album
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  Speaker 2: was a bit of an epic for us because it
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  Speaker 2: was the longest one we've ever done, and also we
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: released it. So we did vinyl on our second album,
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  Speaker 2: but instead of vinyl this time, we decided to do
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  Speaker 2: a book. So we made a three hundred and thirty
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  Speaker 2: page full color art book with contributions from forty other
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  Speaker 2: artists from around alt.
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  Speaker 1: Or photographers, painters, writers. It comes with the free cockering
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  Speaker 1: as well if you buy the book.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're almost sold out of those, we've got
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  Speaker 2: a couple of days.
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  Speaker 1: To be fair too heavy to bring overseas as well.
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  Speaker 2: We're bringing the last like three to Australia, I think.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, like.
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  Speaker 2: It's been, it's been. The reception has been really amazing
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  Speaker 2: because this was our opportunity to just do something with
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  Speaker 2: our immediate community. The thing about GRICO that we've always
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  Speaker 2: wanted to do is invite people that are more talented
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  Speaker 2: than us to collaborate with us. So that seemed like
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  Speaker 2: the best way to do it because we were able
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  Speaker 2: to not just have musicians come and collaborate with us
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  Speaker 2: on the album, but also like artists of all sorts,
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  Speaker 2: of different kinds.
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  Speaker 1: I guess we've got our own kind of the world.
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  Speaker 1: But like you know, nationalist gothic identity song on the album,
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  Speaker 1: it's not that you know national identity gothic kind of
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  Speaker 1: he says, just got something like eight singers on it.
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  Speaker 1: There's there's a track that we did with Tonesa, who's
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  Speaker 1: like an amazing outside artist from I don't know, from Canada.
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  Speaker 1: That that's I feel like some people know, but yeah
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  Speaker 1: it was.
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  Speaker 2: And importantly we also did a track on that album
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  Speaker 2: with Al Carlson, who's from nam Melbourne, who we've played
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  Speaker 2: with here before, So that was really fun having a
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  Speaker 2: bit of a trans Tasman thing going on.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, but the press really says that the album represents
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  Speaker 4: a bold evolution of the band's sound.
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  Speaker 3: So in what way?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think I mean definitely in terms of those
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  Speaker 2: collaborative elements and in terms of I think that, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: this this album more than any other, Like each song
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  Speaker 2: feels really different, and I feel like it's got a
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  Speaker 2: sort of yeah, it's very very there's something for everyone.
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  Speaker 1: I think, would you say, yeah, you know, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: like there's a slow one.
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  Speaker 2: Fast one, the fast one, really fast one.
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  Speaker 1: It's it's it's yeah. I don't know, Like the first
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  Speaker 1: couple of albums sound really distorted and kind of like
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  Speaker 1: in a good way, which people actually quite like, and
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  Speaker 1: like we haven't we haven't cleaned it up, but we've
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  Speaker 1: tried to figure out what what what what happens if
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: you do take away that merk, like can you still
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: have this threatening but kind of more sonically kind of
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  Speaker 1: clean thing happening? And I think you might find that
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  Speaker 1: if you listen to the album, it would actually be
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  Speaker 1: some good results and that that front, like.
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  Speaker 2: It's yeah, not too much into the national stereotypes. But
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  Speaker 2: our first album did have a lot of sheets on
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  Speaker 2: it in the background if you listen carefully because of
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  Speaker 2: where we were recording. Uh, they were sheep And this
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  Speaker 2: album we've got no and it will sound we do.
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  Speaker 1: We're doing our neighbors have got chickens.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm actually intrigued. Now, can you send
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  Speaker 4: me over a link to the album?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've done you a digital link with your name
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  Speaker 1: on it.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 4: I also read something about a secret version of the
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  Speaker 4: album that could be unlocked using a Spelton key. What's
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: the idea of story by name?
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  Speaker 1: So if you get the book, there's like I mentioned,
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  Speaker 1: the cock ring, it's not just for whistling, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's it's also for decoding some secret kind of things
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  Speaker 1: we've linked throughout the album. And then that basically leads
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  Speaker 1: to a mirror version of the album, which is.
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  Speaker 3: Secret.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I can't it.
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  Speaker 2: Can only be a locked through the book. The book
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  Speaker 2: has a bunch of easter eggs that if you kind
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  Speaker 2: of create the code, you can listen to the bizarro.
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  Speaker 1: Version of the Over the last five years, we've been
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: building our own website and we just keep adding random
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  Speaker 1: pages to it every day because I don't know, maybe
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: social media is going to collapse, but we just want
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: to have this huge kind of like it's like a
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: sewer system that you can roam through on the Internet
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  Speaker 1: that's just made up out of Greco ambience and like
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  Speaker 1: Greco bits and pieces, and yeah, this is kind of
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  Speaker 1: adding to that.
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  Speaker 3: There's one more quoe already.
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  Speaker 4: The press release that caught my eye and said, in
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  Speaker 4: an age of functional music, Greco offers dysfunctional music.
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  Speaker 3: I love that, I love to say, but can you
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  Speaker 3: elaborate on it a bit more?
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  Speaker 1: Well, Yeah, this is kind of inspired by Liz Pela's
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: book The Mood Machine, which talks a lot about how
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  Speaker 1: Spotify has co opted the streaming age in order to
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: you know, create this in list shoot of content that
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: you know, people can just like tap into and listen to,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: and how you know, what was initially an optimistic period
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: of musicians maybe escaping from under the thumb of really
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: horrible you know, corporate record labels kind of turned into
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: something much worse, in which all music was not all
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: music obviously, because there are people who listen to the
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: show and people out there who go and seek it out,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: but you know, you people know because we're out there
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: trying to seek it out. But essentially, you know, things
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: like Spotify have flattened out the landscape of music so
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: that in order to kind of you know, peek and
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: reach to the top and to have any attention paid
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: to you, you sort of have to do certain things
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  Speaker 1: that you know, prick the algorithm.
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  Speaker 2: Well, and that music becomes a means to the to
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  Speaker 2: an end. It's like, I mean, it's like the end
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  Speaker 2: goal is to be on a Spotify playlist that's like
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: chill Vibes or whatever, which is really uninteresting to us.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: And yeah, and you could easily fill that platform as
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: they do with their own kind of ghost ghost artists
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: and bots that kind of you know, do that sort
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: of thing. And a lot of that music kind of
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: comes across to me as Mouzak, you know, the kind
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of functional ship in the background that used to play
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: to in elevators in elevators to get people from A
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: to B so that they could have it piped into
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: their office and they staff in the department st and
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I feel like Greco romance does not sound functional, like
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: we we we make your scalp and you want to scratch.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: I guess you have to kind of pay attention to it,
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: whether whether you like it or not. At the very least,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: you can't really just tune it out.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: It's not friendly. Office music.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: The best place for people to go to find out
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: more about the.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Band, So I would say probably go to our instagram,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Greco romanc and we've got a little link treat thing
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: that's got all the link to our band camp, to
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: our website, as Demian mentioned, to information about the book
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: and all our shots in Yeah.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can go to greco romance dot com if
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: you want to be confused, and I think I get
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the feeling some of you might want that. Yes, it's good.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: It's a beautiful thing, isn't it.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it cracks and skulls open hopefully.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: All right, guys, well, thanks very much for your time
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: for me to pleasure speak with you.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: I'm going to definete out a big sound because sounds,
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: like I said before, sounds intrigue.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Thanks Chris, lovely to me.