Hometown: Perth, Australia
Album: Dead End Beat, out now via Drunken Sailor Records
RIYL: Beers. Buds. Oi!
So many of us try to go dry during January, and so many fail because the system sucks, and alcohol and friends is usually cheaper than therapy. I know I’ve done it from time to time, a drink (or three or more) deep, and that festering, seeping frustration finally spills out from your mouth: how much your company doesn’t care about you, how little the government cares about anyone not filling its pockets, or about anything really. Alcohol’s really just a filter remover. Getting that angst out in the open is immensely therapeutic when you can share with true friends who have seen you at your highest and drunkest. That spirit of unhindered comradery and honesty gets at why Gaffer are such a damn good time. Like a tasty old-school cocktail of hardcore punk, Oi!, and post-punk (in alcohol terms, whisky mixed with whisky and a shot of whisky), Gaffer are high-proof fun. Funny enough, as the band shared, they didn’t realize until afterward how much of the record recalled those type of bar jokes and commentary:
“It wasn’t until the record was done and dusted that we realized a large majority of the songs were focused on taking the piss out of the middle class. A lot of which is tongue in cheek really, some of my best friends are middle class wankers, ya know. But in saying that we do think it’s good to point an arrow at the heads of those above you sometimes, fire a cheeky warning shot across their throats. Most of the themes running through the record are things that we would talk about at the pub together, and when we think about those conversations, lots of them are based on frustrations and the fact that life seems to be getting harder for the majority of us and that people’s tolerance for swallowing shit seems to be getting higher. With that all being said, if you consider all the issues that have been shoved in the general public’s faces over the last ten years or so, around gender, mistreatment of women and minorities, shit cops, etc., this gives us a glimmer of hope for the future that the good people can win some of the time.”
