Don't Shave Me

The first thing you have to do when commencing a conversation with The Beards, as any hirsute gentleman will tell you, is mention the state of your own beard. Johann Beardraven is satisfied with this scribe's current level of facial growth. “Yeah, I assumed you did. I can hear it through the receiver,” he says, insinuating that our respective beards are somehow communicating telepathically.

Beardraven's getting new carpet put in on the day The Music talks to him, taking a well deserved break form the usual beard heraldry. “We're all doing really good, all of our beards are at a level we're happy with,” Beardraven shares. “They've reached new levels of volume and length, and I think we're doing really well with keeping the whole beard-awareness thing going.” It's a manifesto – and, as serious as the band are about beards, that's really the best word for it – that has been going on for almost ten years now. It was 2012's Having A Beard Is The New Not Having A Beard that really put them on the map. Housing songs like I'm In The Mood... For Beards, and You Should Consider Having Sex With A Bearded Man, it set new standards for the beard lovers of Australia and the world. They've become an Australian staple due to their dogmatic approach to their ideals, a bunch of support slots for Kate Miller-Heidke and festival shows, like the just-passed Bluesfest. “It was really great, because obviously at Bluesfest beards would be a big drawing point,” Beardraven remarks on the festival. “It's also a [five-day] festival, which means that beards would be naturally a part of the whole experience. Unless you brought a shaver. But you'd look like a crazy person if you brought a shaver to Bluesfest, I think.”

It's slightly disconcerting to hear Beardraven in such a positive mood, given recent events. Only a few days before our talk, the mainstream media was awash with news of a study that showed beards were going out of style. Apparently, bearded men are becoming less attractive as they become more common. “No, we don't believe any of that,” Beardraven announces. “You know, there's so many interested parties out there who want to bring the bearded man down. That's something we've had to constantly fight against. When we started performing songs about our amazing beards, it was pretty uncommon for beards to be celebrated. But we really think that we've come a long way. Beards aren't fashionable now; they'll always be fashionable. And there's always going to be some power group trying to say, 'No, beards are unfashionable, they're gross.' We just don't listen to them. We've spent this long fighting for beard equality, we're not going to stop now.”

With this in mind, The Beards are releasing their fourth album, The Beard Album, and yes, every track will have the word “beard” in the title. The band's official standpoint is that the album will be something like The White Album: a culmination and profession of the road it's taken to get to this point. “We feel like we've reached a point where beards are accepted, and that maybe we've been a big part of that. So this album's going to be us celebrating, really. Like, we've put in all the hard yards, we've raised beard awareness to previously unheard of levels, it's time to look back and say, 'This is what The Beards are.' We love beards, and everyone else does now. So because of that, the music is much more positive, much more optimistic about the whole thing.”

Of course, the question has to be raised: if one of the novelties of The White Album and its associated 'colour' albums is that the packaging is in that specific colour, how exactly is The Beard Album going to be packaged? The clearest way is to use beard hair. “Well, obviously,” Beardraven laughs. “Although that's a whole challenge in itself. I mean, we always have a difficult time finding the right people to help make and produce our albums, and of course that means people with beards because we only trust people with beards. But then we have to find people to help package it, and that's a whole new thing... But yeah, that's what I mean, we're willing to make that sacrifice. I mean, it won't be all of anyone's beard. We'll just take small amounts from everyone or something.” It also adds an extra level of hairiness to their upcoming shows. “There'll be a whole lot of hair all over the merch desk at every show. Well, more than usual, anyway.”