It’s an exciting time for musicians and their fans. After COVID-19 brought the world to a screeching halt, we’re all starting to reconnect with one another and live music. In that spirit of connection, Western Australia’s Last Quokka and Victoria’s Plaster of Paris have joined forces for a “full-tilt punk rock extravaganza” travelling the country this April and May. Before it kicks off, I caught up with the bands to chat about the tour, how the pandemic hit them, and what comes next.
Last Quokka, we’re chatting because you’re about to kick off a national tour, which must be so exciting for you as a Western Australian band. How are you feeling about it?
LQ: Honestly it feels like a bit of dream right now, so until we’re there it’s hard to know how to feel! But we’re incredibly excited. This has been such a long time coming and obviously like every band not having the opportunity to tour these last two years has been a struggle. We’ve also had a bit of a line-up change so it’s going to be rad to get to travel together as a new five-piece. And of course we’re super pumped to be able to hang with Plaster of Paris.
What have you missed most about touring the country?
LQ: Last Quokka is really all about the live energy and the community connection we make through playing so we’ve missed that a lot. It’s also just such a rad thing to be able to travel with your mates and play shows.
Plaster of Paris, you’re joining Last Quokka on this tour. How did that come about?
POP: We just kept talking after our Sonic Masala shows together got cancelled in Brisbane last year and we all just seem connected. Both bands are running DIY gigs and self-releasing and working in these scenes that centralise politics and feminism and community so it just feels symbiotic to come together. And so fun!
After all the lockdowns in Victoria, it must be pretty exciting to simply get back to playing for audiences. How did the pandemic treat you?
POP: We had an album to mix and release during the pandemic so Melbourne’s crazy long lockdown gave us time, if nothing else, to focus on what we wanted to achieve. We drove Paul Maybury a little mad I’m sure with remixes and redos, but by the end we got something we are incredibly proud of and I’m not sure we would have made the same album pre-pandemic. A silver lining perhaps?
Last Quokka, as a Western Australian band you’ve probably had a really different experience of the pandemic than a lot of East Coast acts. I saw photos from gigs that looked almost normal while we were in lockdown, yet you were cut off from the rest of the country for so long. What was that experience like for you?
LQ: It was exactly as you’ve said really. It felt super weird and privileged to be playing shows like RTRFMs In The Pines or Yardstock to thousands of people while our mates over east were in lockdown, but that said the isolation has definitely been pretty intense. While it feels dumb to complain about it, we’re already so very isolated over here and that was just hugely reinforced, especially with East Coast bands not being able to come over. Also, Perth is an odd place. While there is a great DIY and lefty community in general, it’s a very conservative place and can feel very suffocating at times. So it is great to get out.
Plaster of Paris, during the pandemic you released your album, Lost Familiar. What was it like to put that out in the world at a time when you couldn’t tour the country?
POP: Hitting ‘Public’ on Bandcamp and collectively opening beers in our lounge rooms. Doing a band Zoom when we were nominated for Best Rock Punk Act in the Music Victoria Awards and clinking virtual champagne flutes. Connecting with online fans and making email buddies across the globe in places like Estonia and Portugal. Doing interviews on Instagram Live with Spanish blogs at 3 am (and getting the day wrong and having to do it all over again). Making the “Danceflaw” filmclip in the exercise hour we had each day (literally Nicola and Zec exercise/dancing in empty streets of Thornbury with a camera). These are the weird things you do for album releases in a pandemic!
Why did you release the album during the pandemic? Was there ever a time that you considering holding it back?
POP: We started recording this album in 2015/2016 and had a lot of setbacks. By the time the pandemic hit we just went along and kept pushing and took it as another challenge. A big scary one! But being with our creative family was all we wanted to do. The album is so much about the family you create, particularly as queer-identifying humans. You build this new family that let you be yourself and we wanted to celebrate that because lockdowns often separated us from safe spaces and chosen families. Our lost familia.
The music you make is so ballsy and bold, I’m sure it takes a lot of people by surprise. The post-punk genre is so dominated by men. What’s it like for Plaster of Paris playing in that space?
POP: Ha! Ballsy! Imagine if we described music as Breasty! I’m not having a crack … I just wonder if we’ll ever ungender strength and anger and loudness. Even now it scares people when female-identifying people are loud. All you have to do is cross the river in Melbourne and play a crowd that has never seen a punk band and watch them squirm and get confused in 2022! Their idea of loud women is Miley Cyrus covering Metallica. (Hashtag I love Miley FYI). We’re all fans of hard rock, the riot grrrl movement was instrumental to me understanding I was allowed to be in the band not just hang out with them. I used to sit on the floor of my male friends’ rehearsals watching them. All of a sudden I started seeing women playing instruments and I picked up a guitar. We still need representation, especially as instrumentalists. As older women we need to see ourselves too, ageism is real in the music industry. As Zec sings in “State of Emergency” – we “want Social Currency” and “a community to speak to me”.
I was reminded of a lot of female punk pioneers as I listened to your album. Who are some of your influences?
POP: My heart will always be with the ’90s ladies like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile and other affiliated acts like Helium and Sleater Kinney and the ’70s UK punks: The Slits, Raincoats, XRay Spex. Zec loves Siouxsie Sioux, Nina Hagan, Wayne County and her love of Kate Bush and Bowie is clear in her phrasing. As a guitarist, I also love bands like Gossip and Yeah Yeah Yeahs because Plaster is a two-piece band mostly: guitar and drums. Three people just locking in. Having said that, we are touring as a five-piece!
How about you Last Quokka? What artists have made a big impression on you?
LQ: We did a whip around the band: Kirill – Michael Jackson, Carlota – Tool, Justin – IDLES, Ray – Fugazi, Trent – Phoebe Bridges.
What can music lovers expect from these shows?
LQ: Drunken shenanigans, conversations about Geoff Gallop, some booty shaking, and maybe some good music.
After the tour wraps up, what’s next for you?
LQ: We’re working on our fifth LP so that’s exciting and trying to eventually get over to the EU! A few of us are also thinking about getting more pets, maybe learning to play tennis. That kind of thing.
POP: Extend the tour with more dates!! Let’s do Tassie and Darwin and then Europe. Quokkas watch out!
If you’re ready to rock (and let’s face it, who isn’t?), you can catch Last Quokka and Plaster of Paris at the venues below. Check out the Last Quokka and Plaster of Paris socials for tickets and more details about the shows:
1 April 2022 – The Outpost, Brisbane (with Tape Off)
2 April 2022 – Eleven Dive Bar in Maroochydore (with Tape Off)
3 April 2022 – Sonic Sherpa, Brisbane (instore)
7 April 2022 – The Servo, Port Kembla (with The Elastic Waste Band)
8 April 2022 – Graveyard Shift @ The Lansdowne, Chippendale (with Yes I’m Leaving)
9 April 2022 – The Old Bar, Fitzroy (with Zig Zag)
10 April 2022 – Arvo show at the Barwon Club, Geelong (with Zig Zag)
6 May 2022 – The Bird, Northbridge (with Dead Tooth Hottie)
7 May 2022 – Yardstock! Fremantle
8 May 2022 – The Shed, Albany (with Pack Hoarse)
Images used with permission from Last Quokka and Plaster of Paris; photo credit for Plaster of Paris photo: Kalindy Williams