Breaking Through | 5 Questions with Peter Bibby
FFO: Jay Reatard, Mudhoney, Black Lips
Self-confessed "trash bag" Peter Bibby may share management with fellow Aussie favourites Tame Impala and Pond, but his crass, on-the-knuckle Australasian folk/garage-rock mash-up is an altogether unshackled affair.
An assured raconteur with a characteristic Aussie drawl, Bibby's lyricism draws from his witty perception on the world around him. What's evident, however, is his deep affection for his home and his working-class roots. A troubadour of folky proportions, the cult figure fits somewhere in the record store between Amyl and the Sniffers and Courtney Barnett - a proud countryman, blessed with wit, self-awareness, and self-deprecation in abundance. With song titles like 'Hates My Boozin' and 'Cunt', you get the picture.
Getting his 'act' together with an all-new thumping, sludgy rhythm section, his new guise Peter Bibby's Dog Act release their first album Marge today. We caught a few questions with the man himself:
Who or what inspired you to make music?
When I was growing up, Mum and Dad were always playing music in the house. I loved some of it and despised some of it. Both inspired me to make music, the stuff I loved because it sounded so good and the stuff I despised because I wanted to grind it into the dirt with my own, superior music.
How would you describe your creative process?
When I have ideas, words or tunes, I write them down or record them, I work on them until they're good and then I record them again. I listen to them over and over again until I'm confident they are actually good and then I play them in public. If they don't become good, I usually forget about them, or return to them when I'm on some kind of creative roll in the hope that I’ll see something fresh, exciting and not shit in them.
Which of your tracks is your favourite to perform live, and why?
That's a tough question, but just for the sake of giving you an answer, I will say 'Death Dhookies', an unrecorded sludgy death metal instrumental which is super-fast and loud, has zero lyrics, and launches into a slow doom-ish jam which I get to shred unholy amounts of poorly executed guitar solo over. A dream come true for a trash bag like me.
If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be and why?
Probably the Coen Brothers, because they make impeccable films and I would be overjoyed to write a score for them.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
"Be the guy you need to be to have the time you want to have."
Marge is out now via Spinning Top Records.