Interview by Kris Peters
Private Function are possibly Australia's best kept musical secret. Their infectious and highly contagious brand of punk metal is a step back into the days when music was fun and, while being abrasive, is also delivered with enough tongue firmly planted in cheek to keep them at bay from those who wish to sanitise the music scene.
With album titles such as St. Anger, Whose Line Is It Anyway and 370HSSV 0773H already under their belt, the punk outfit recently unleashed ¯_(ツ)_/¯, an album that, despite being impossible to pronounce, is also impossible to resist. It is a typical slab of excellence from the band, complete with red herrings and the world's first microscopic album cover, and one which sees them embark on a national tour of Australia before heading overseas for a 35-date European tour.
Never having had the pleasure of spending time with the band before, HEAVY was a little unsure of what to expect, but within 30 seconds of chatting with vocalist Chris Penney and guitarist Anthony Biancofiore we knew we were in familiar territory. We start by talking about the new album and its early reception.
"Great," Biancofiore smiled before Penney cut in.
"Everyone's loving it. It's good stuff."
"I've been getting heaps of messages from people I don't even know saying they heard the album, and it's great," Biancofiore continued. "They like specific songs, so it's interesting."
HEAVY asks if anyone has been able to pronounce the title yet, which was greeted by fiendish laughter from the pair.
"I don't care," Penney laughed. "It's not our problem."
"That's for you to figure out," Biancofiore laughed over the top.
We ask about the album musically and what Private Function were going for.
"It's kind of a different one," Penney measured, "because we wrote most of the songs in the studio. All of our previous albums, we've had the songs 100 % finished, and we'd knock them out in a weekend, but this one was a far more collaborative effort between all of us. We've all got pretty different styles of music we come from."
"For sure," Biancofiore nodded in agreement. "There's room for all of it on this album. Even the songs that aren't your natural genre, there's a path for you to follow and have a moment in as well. There's a six-minute electronica song that's not really any of our forte's, but you listen to it, and you can hear everyone on it."
"We've got sea shanties, we've got a sick 80s… It's like a KISS type thing…" Penney added.
"Like a glam rock song, it's all over the shop."
In the full interview we talk more about the new album and the songs on it, the title and where and why they came up with it, starting the album with the heaviest song Animal, Chris' obsession with vegemite, their live show and what to expect, the microscopic cover and the thought process behind it, meat raffles, their cheeky sense of humour and pushing the envelope, the national tour including the final show at Thrashville, touring overseas and more.
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