The Goon Sax - A jangle-fuelled house party

I love the way Naomi plays bass, she's probably my favourite bassist of all time! I remember when Riley joined the band. James and I were relieved that she'd only been playing for a month, because it meant her drum parts would be very simple and the focus would stay squarely on the lyrics and melodies. I remember during the early rehearsals we told her that it would be totally fine if she just hit the snare every now and then, so we were really thrilled when she started doing actual fills. She completely exceeded our expectations. I don't think we were thinking of Naomi when she joined us, but we definitely appreciated people like her, in the sense that we saw being amateurs as an advantage, rather than a problem.

On Chapter Music's website you're described as "three songwriters". I'm curious, how do you write and arrange the songs? Do you all come into the rehearsal room together with an idea and develop it together, or something else?

We all write separately, usually each of us brings a completely finished song into the rehearsal room and everyone works on their own part alongside the others. We've tried jamming, just to see what happens, but it doesn't work, at least not for us.

It seems to me that the album's lyrics are almost all about growing up today (correct me if I'm wrong), and two tracks on the tracklist have a name in the title ("Susan", "Maggie"). Is there a connection between the songs and the stories they tell? If so, what is it?

Yes, the lyrics weren't meant to be specifically about growing up, but I guess they are, because that's what we were going through when we wrote them, so it comes through. As for "Maggie" and "Susan", the two aren't connected, I've always liked songs with names in the title - the Monkees have "Valerie" and "Mary" and it's something I've always loved. I remember reading that their songwriters were told to give the songs common girls' names, so that all the girls with that name would buy the single. I found that idea fascinating.

I find myself wondering how Australian indie-pop can still sound so similar after 30 years - looking, for example, at your labelmates, Twerps and Dick Diver. Much more so than indie-pop bands in Europe or America. What do you think about that?

I don't think we sound that similar, one of the things I love about Australian bands is that I think that sound has been explored and changed a lot without losing one very distinctive element, which I guess is the common thread running through all the different bands. Groups like Cannanes or Apartments definitely had an influence on a lot of young bands, but I think Twerps and Dick Diver are a good example of how far you can push that sound and keep reshaping it, making it sound really fresh.