M.S.O.L are a band that harken back to the smoke-drenched nightclubs of the 80s. They have perfected the recipe for high-octane, dance floor-ready punk filled with catchy surf-hooks and no-nonsense garage undertones. With a new tape on Stock Records set to be released later this month and playing shows left, right and centre, these guys are not one’s to sleep on.
Jose, Kiel, Matt and Meg were kind enough to let us come down to the jam room and chat ahead of their performance at ALT//FEST on Saturday, March 20.
When I’ve seen you play, there has been new songs snuck into the set list that haven’t been released at all. Are you quite you guys quite secretive about releasing new music?
Matt: I wouldn’t say that we are secretive, but it takes us a really long time to get shit together.
Jose: It takes a long time to write the songs.
Meg: We had written for a whole band with a female singer and then she left, and we had a whole album ready to go. Which means we had to scrap it and start again.
Jose: And then we tried to do some stuff and COVID-19 happened.
Kiel: I’ll also say that we enjoy recording, writing and jamming more than focusing on releasing stuff.
Jose: I think that’s like a property of “…we are done with these songs, we should release them”.
Matt: It’s not so much like we are done with them as soon as they’re finished. It’s more like let’s get them onto tape or MP3 and put it out there, rather than sitting on them forever and not doing anything with it. But it also takes a while to write songs, for me anyways. How many have I written?
Jose: I think you’ve written all of them.
Matt: And this is the first time I’ve written songs ever so its very fucking new and super stressful.
I mean you guys are quite on the nose with that COVID69 single you released…
All: Tell us about that Matt…
Matt: That came about when we tried to write that dumb concept album about it. The whole lockdown thing and that was the only one that stuck. It’s not really about COVID-19.
Kiel: That’s true
Matt: It had a name that was relevant, I guess.
Meg: We kind of sarcastically make up a name for something on the spot and it sticks. So, with COVID69, I think I saw it in the folders Matt sent over and I was like “… is that what it’s called?”.
All: It was kind of like a working title.
Meg: It all just kind of happened. With the artwork as well, Matt wanted to pay another artist. Which is great, but I was like you can draw. Why don’t you do it. We can do it for free and he did; he’s done all our artwork.
Jose: For the tape as well.
Meg: It’s like your own little brand.
Matt: I guess it is kind of my project. Democratic dictatorship.
(Jose runs into the jam room and carefully places a M.S.O.L Tape down and makes a joke about annotating this action)
Matt: So, it’s getting put out on Stock Records, which they have graciously let us do that.
How you guys write this material?
Meg: It’s a big joint sense of humour.
Matt: Someone will bring a riff to a jam and we will work on it. I’ll take it home and I will kind of flesh it out a bit more. Sort of like a demo. If everyone likes that, we will work on that as a full song and I’ll stay up all night to try and think of words that fit. It’s mostly very collaborative. If something doesn’t work then it’ll be left by the wayside and we will revisit it later. Or if someone is learning it and they change it up and it sounds good, then we will move towards that. So it’s quite organic in the way that we write the songs.
I hear a lot of surf, Killed By Death and X-Ray Spex sounds interlaced within your music. What bands or artists would you say influences your sound?
Meg: It’s the same with me and Kiel, like with our music tastes - KBD and all those female-fronted punk bands. We both DJ on RTRFM 92.1 on Burn the Airwaves and it’s so interesting because I’ve learnt so much through Kiel.
Kiel: The awesome thing about this band for me is we all have the same taste in music.
Matt: Same, but very different.
Meg: They talk about bands together and sometimes I have no fucking Idea what they are talking about.
Jose: We will listen to particular style of music…
Meg: …and it will all just come out.
Matt: When we recorded the new EP that is coming out, Kiel and I were listening to a lot of Country Teasers. We were trying to like, make it a bit country. Even in the first demo we did it. Lou Reed is a very big rockabilly, country-ish artist.
Meg: Yeah, it was a lot different wasn’t it.
Kiel: I like those type of artists that take inspirations from different styles of music and try to incorporate it into whatever they do. Biggest one is East Bay Ray from the Dead Kennedys. He used to be in a bunch of surf and rockabilly bands, and he applied that directly to punk music.
Matt: Like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion just take anything they hear and put it into their fucking cannon. Soul, hip-hop, garage…
Meg: Today I was talking to Jose, remember when we used to have a keyboard? Like, I don’t even remember that you didn’t even have a stand for it for ages.
All: He used to use an ironing board.
Meg: But then, all of a sudden, that was gone. I sung a whole song at our first show at Lucky Go and I never sung again. I was just like… “this is not for me”. We were just figuring out our sound and what we wanted, and I was singing behind Matt. I hate every song that I have sung on in this band. It’s because I sing behind girls, I can’t sing behind guys. It’s weird; I don’t know.
Matt: I guess the main influences would be like the whole mid 00’s garage scene like Ty Segal, Osees, Couch Whips and all that; with like Country Teasers and the KBD comps. What about everyone else?
Jose: I ask for you to send me stuff.
It might not be a huge topic for you, as many bands frequently change names. But how has the transition been to M.S.O.L?
Meg: Really Hard.
Jose: For us, it wasn’t hard.
Meg: Yeah for us, it wasn’t hard. But for everyone else, it was a fucking nightmare ”… oh is that your band?”. Yes! Why would I post that on my Facebook.
Jose: We didn’t care, we just changed it because it was a new band.
Meg: Mascara Snakes (band before M.S.O.L) was a different band.
Jose: We also didn’t want other people we played with before thinking they were booking Mascara Snakes when, in fact, it’s now very different.
Matt: Yeah It was very weird. Even now we are still getting emails ”… oh you’ve changed your band name. Did you want to play this show?”.
Meg: Yeah, they have been messaging Mascara Snakes asking what it stands for.
Could you explain the meaning behind the new band name?
Jose: It doesn’t really stand for anything
Matt: Yeah, it’s ‘Mongrel Shit Out of Luck’. It was an acronym originally from our band chat being named Mascara Snakes Office Logistics. So we had that and it took us forever to find something to fit it. But Kelvin, who films a lot of the Perth bands, put out a video of us and he was trying to decipher the name and one was Mongrel Shit Out of Luck. I was like “…that’s pretty good”. So I stole it off him. Thanks Kelvin. I can’t even remember where that original acronym came from.
Jose: It’s all just bullshit we come up with. That sounds funny, let’s do it.
Mentioning previously about the keyboard, how’s the set-up?
Matt: Yeah, the keyboard was weird though, because I just bought it off Gumtree.
Jose: You still have it right.
Matt: Yeah I still got it. I still try and write shit on it.
Jose: The keyboard was nice, but you got to carry that shit around.
Matt: Taxing.
Jose: And you got to carry your guitar and your amp as well.
Meg: Yeah, we are pretty minimal at the moment. Kiel been lending me a tiny amp. We just have tiny amp jams now.
Jose: The tiny amp jams are great.
Meg: Otherwise, I hate going to jam, it just makes my life so much easier. Thanks Kiel.
Kiel: Anytime.
Meg: I hate lifting it, my cab is fucking huge.
Kiel: Playing is always fine and then it’s time to go home.
Matt: Yeah, fuck that, can we just leave it here.
Punk has ever so gradually increased its grips on Perth, especially with venues like the Bird booking heavier acts. How do you think this shift has happened?
Meg: There still are no proper venues, like the Bird’s a good one because you get paid.
Kiel: For a long time, we were playing shows outside of Perth in Fremantle.
Matt: Most of our shows were played here (Dirty Merkin Studio).
Meg: We struggled to find a good venue for our launch.
Jose: Particularly for us we enjoy more DIY spaces, like here, another spot in Freo and Yardstock shows; I really enjoy those ones as well. There is a reason why we are having our launch here.
Matt: There is some promoters in Perth that hound you to keep plugging it.
Meg: We are not really like that. When you see that same poster everyday for a month, it feels like you’re getting harassed to go to the show.
Jose: It does feel funny doesn’t it; it’s a double-edge sword.
Matt: We need 400 people here on a Monday night, or your not getting paid.
Meg: And it sucks because it is like a job for us.
Kiel: I also feel like punk is more accessible now. People are getting more into punk now. Punk is a thing that you are hearing more and more and more.
Matt: There is a few bands now getting put on at the Bird, plus there isn’t really many venues in Perth. They have all seemed to fade away, like in Northbridge. I know there is a new one that’s opened. Closest venue to that’s the Rosemount?
Meg: Do you have anymore questions where we don’t whinge? It’s fun and weird to be a musician in Perth but you don’t do it to get paid.
Jose: You lose money on half this shit. Stock Records don’t make much money, we don’t make any money.
Matt: We’ve got 30c dude.
Meg: I’m owed 200 dollars from the band.
Matt: Same.
Kiel: We are in the hole.
Matt: Getting back to the question, I’ve noticed that there are a lot of heavier bands coming out of the woodwork. Because there is more coming out, there a bigger demand for heavier music here in Perth. Seemed like there was a period for four or five years where it was mostly alternative pop.
Kiel: The current global situation has afforded local bands the opportunity to perform because the focus is on local music. There are not really any national touring artists, so bands that might not have had the opportunity to perform are being given the platform to do it. So, it’s a really good time for local music everywhere because that’s where the focus is. Who else is going to play?
Meg: We should just let Kiel talk the entire time.
ALT//FEST is on Saturday, March 20 at Badlands Bar. Tickets available now here.