Psychedelic Porn Crumpets hit Sydney’s Factory Theatre for the Jack Daniel’s Live At Last concert tour – a series to celebrate live music’s return to Australia
The band started out as a bedroom project for guitarist and vocalist Jack McEwan. Despite this, the Perth fivesome are a quintessential live act. The word “psychedelic” implies inner journeying and off-map adventurousness, but the average Psychedelic Porn Crumpets live show involves plenty of immediate gratification and physical activity.
On record, McEwan and his band mates, guitarists Luke Parish and Chris Young, bass player Wayan Biliondana and drummer Danny Caddy, have a habit of cramming as many riffs, rhythmic accents and guitar harmonies into four-minute glam- and psych-infused rock songs as possible.
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets first made an impression with their debut album, High Visceral, Pt. 1, from 2016, which drew on McEwan’s affection for artists such as The Mars Volta, Tool and Karnivool. By their third album, 2019’s And Now For the Whatchamacallit, PPC had begun peppering their songs with the sort of krautrock-inspired drumbeats that power the discographies of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard and Osees.
On 2021’s SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound, McEwan made a more concerted effort to add 1960s pop melody to the mix, without sacrificing the bulldozing tempos of Whatchamacallit. “[SHYGA!] was definitely a benefit of having more time—maybe even having too much time,” McEwan says, speaking to Rolling Stone Australia from his home studio in North Perth.
SHYGA! came out in February 2021. Production was underway before the dawn of Covid, with the album originally slated for a May 2020 release. A couple of songs survived, including the carnivalesque lead single, “Mundungus”, but McEwan says the whole idea for SHYGA! changed once the band knew they had more time to work on it.
“It was the first time we could sit down and get a concept together for a record that was all sort of the same vibe,” he says. “That’s something we only had the time to really do on the first record.”
SHYGA! is a more tuneful and lyric-oriented record than the band’s first three LPs, but it’s still rooted in Caddy’s pounding drumbeats and McEwan, Parish and Young’s competing guitar fireworks.
Things are a bit different on Psychedelic Porn Crumpets’ fifth album, Night Gnomes, which is coming out on Friday 22nd April. McEwan has called it the PPC equivalent to Radiohead’s Kid A/Amnesiac left turn. To be sure, it sounds nothing like either album, but it marks a break from the pell-mell nature of the band’s two previous releases.
“When we were doing SHYGA!, it was so pumped up from the previous tours,” says McEwan. “With Night Gnomes, we were very much settled in quarantine in Perth. We just wanted to make some songs that were nicer, a bit more melodic.”
The two recent singles, “Bubblegum Infinity” and “Dread & Butter”, are more measured and sentimental productions than what we’re used from PPC, and both tracks grapple with existential themes. Even Night Gnomes’ hard rocking single, “Lava Lamp Pisco”, includes some darker atmospherics that distinguish it from the headbanging fare of Whatchamacallit and SHYGA!
“There’s a couple more slower tracks and a bit more trialling recording techniques and seeing where we could go and how to fill up the speakers,” McEwan says. “It feels like a nice listening record.”
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are currently preparing for their first run of east coast tour dates in two-and-a-half years. The trio of shows begins with a headline slot at Sydney’s Factory Theatre as part of Jack Daniel’s Live At Last tour, featuring support from Sydney garage rockers The Buoys.
Proceeds from Jack Daniel’s Live At Last ticket sales are going to Support Act, the music industry charity that provides crisis relief services to musicians, managers, crew, and other industry personnel. In addition to Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, the Jack Daniel’s Live At Last tour includes upcoming shows from San Cisco (in Brisbane, supported by Wafia and merci, mercy) and Ruby Fields (in Melbourne, supported by Adam Newling).
A week after Night Gnomes comes out, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets will premiere Levitation Sessions, a concert film and live album recorded at the Gnomesville tourist attraction in south-western WA. McEwan wanted to optimise the listening experience on Night Gnomes, but Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are still in their element as a live act.
“Just hearing [Levitation Sessions] back, hearing the mixes, you’re like, ‘Oh, actually, these songs are playable live,’” he says. “I just feel a little bit more confident, and I feel like we’re just such a better band in terms of musicianship.
“I’m pumped to go away again and play some shows.”
Jack Daniel’s Live At Last Tour 2022
Pond
Tuesday, April 12th
SolBar, Sunshine Coast, QLD
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets (SOLD OUT)
Thursday, April 21st
Factory Theatre, Sydney, NSW
San Cisco
Sunday, April 24th
Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane, QLD
Tickets: Ticketmaster
Ruby Fields
Thursday, April 28th
The Espy, Melbourne, VIC
Tickets: Moshtix
