Figuring Out How Much Of Herself To Put Into Her Debut Album

The rising Melbourne hard rocker Ecca Vandal is dropping one of 2017's most anticipated Australian albums. And, with her fierce, eponymous debut, this future feminist heroine is demonstrating that the personal is political and punk is pop.

Vandal is diligently conducting interviews on that feverish Friday before the AFL Grand Final in Victoria. "How crazy is it that we've got a public holiday?" she laughs. Vandal toils non-stop. Aside from wrapping her album this year, she has played the Melbourne leg of Laneway and opened for Josh Homme's Queens Of The Stone Age. Next she'll embark on a national headline tour, then hit the UK. Vandal will close 2017 by joining Falls Festival. But today she's spruiking Ecca Vandal - its prelude, Broke Days, Party Nights, a combustible millennial 'fuck austerity' banger.

There is a long tradition of iconic female musicians utilising punk for maximum pop transgression - from X-Ray Spex frontwoman Poly Styrene to the East German Nina Hagen to the raw (like sushi!) Neneh Cherry. Vandal's energetic, contemporary take is omnidirectional - veering off into hip hop and electro(clash). She's as defiantly post-genre as MIA, Grimes or Alice Glass. Crucially, Vandal revels in pop hooks, but without sacrificing punk's intensity or attitude. "I'm in love with melodic music - that's where it comes from," she says. Vandal's hip-hop pal Joelistics has sagely tagged her oeuvre "punk rock/future dancefloor".

Vandal has a complex heritage. She was born in South Africa to Sri Lankan emigre parents. But, when Vandal was four, the family left South Africa's repressive apartheid regime for suburban Melbourne. Vandal fondly remembers the soundtrack to that flux. She was exposed early to Sri Lankan festive music and South African gospel. Later, Vandal latched onto R&B and hip hop, raiding her older sisters' CD collections. Having picked up various instruments through childhood (and formally learning violin), Vandal successfully auditioned for the Victorian College of the Arts. Ironically, while studying jazz, she discovered hardcore - Washington, DC's Bad Brains proving transformative. These influences have all bled into Vandal's sound. "When it came to writing my original music, I didn't wanna let go of anything," she says. "I just thought, 'I wanna be me'." As such, Vandal's hybrid is a proclamation of diversity. Still, she's posited Ecca Vandal as an album "for the misfits". 

In 2014 Vandal discharged her first single, White Flag - recording in DIY-mode with her now regular cohort, Richie "Kidnot" Buxton. At the start of 2016, she stealth-released an EP, End Of Time - encompassing the popular Battle Royal. On Ecca Vandal, the singer further explores her own identity and dilemmas. "I guess it's a portrait of who I am right now," Vandal ponders. "I wanted to encapsulate all the moods and emotions I was going through over the last year, year and a bit as I was writing this record. The world has really grown dim over the last year, especially. A lot of things have happened politically that I felt very passionately about. But, at the same time, I was trying to write and create in my lounge room. I was trying to work out where I fit in amongst that - you know, how political and how much would I allow myself to get involved with it, or do I just wanna sort of protect myself a little bit? Because, first, as a person who experiences things very vividly and passionately, it sometimes affects me quite negatively. I get very sad and I feel a bit helpless. So sometimes it was a matter of me working out, 'Okay, how much do I wanna talk about... Do I just wanna be in my bubble?'"

Vandal was compelled to pen the Beastie Boys-like Price Of Living (which, astonishingly, features both Refused frontman Dennis Lyxzen and Letlive's Jason Aalon Butler) as a protest song about Australia's mistreatment of refugees after viewing Eva Orner's searing 2016 documentary Chasing Asylum. "It was a massive thing for me."

The album's most empowering moment is the grunge stomper Future Heroine, which is accompanied by a female-centric video. "It's about a death of a relationship," Vandal reveals. "It was an observational thing - it was actually what a friend of mine was going through recently. Unfortunately, it was due to addiction and things like that [which] really led to the death of this relationship. It was really speaking to her being empowered to go, 'Well, actually, I'm not gonna settle to be second best.'"

Curiously, Vandal conceived Future Heroine on her inaugural writers' camp - "one of those speed-dating/songwriting sessions," she jokes. Travelling to the APRA AMCOS SongHubs in Auckland, Vandal connected with American "heavyweight" Mike Elizondo, famed for his work alongside Eminem (and, latterly, Muse). Although Vandal admits that attending SongHubs was "nerve-wracking", she readily adjusted. "Usually, I like those sort of atmospheres, because I'm a very spontaneous person by nature."

Vandal's buzziest album collaboration will inevitably be with Sampa The Great on Your Orbit - a Native Tongues-style hip hop throwback. (The track originated on another writing trip, when Vandal bunkered down with indie-type Darwin Deez in New York.)

Currently, Melbourne is attracting international attention for its avant-soul scene - epitomised by Hiatus Kaiyote. However, in the '80s, the UK music press salivated over the city as the incubator of Nick Cave and The Birthday Party - gothic punks. Vandal regrets the lack of cross-exchange between dynamic local subcultures. "I'd love to see people not being fearful or scared to collaborate with others from different schools of thought." After all, that is "where the magic happens".

Vandal has some important champions - Queens Of The Stone Age handpicking her to support their Splendour In The Grass sideshows. "It was amazing," she raves. "They were very warm and welcoming, and that was really special to see; that they actually came out and watched the set. They were very encouraging. When they saw the set, they said that they really enjoyed it. So that was really special. They're just typical rock legends, in every sense of the word. Just what you would expect to see is actually what they're like backstage. You can hear them walking a mile away with all their leathers and chains and boots clinking around in the background! They're just incredible."

In December, Vandal will make her UK premiere as guest on Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes' tour - ticking off her "bucket list" ambition of performing at Brixton Academy. "When I was in London once, I actually snuck in there to see Erykah Badu," she confides. "Don't even ask me how, but I got in. I always thought to myself, 'I'd love to play this room one day'... I'm just so stoked."

And Vandal is antsy to gig again. "I'm playing a lot of these new songs on the record and it's new for me, so it'll be new for the audience," she enthuses. "So I'm very excited about how it's gonna come together playing these new tracks. It's a completely different show to what I've played anywhere, from a support or festival show so far - so it's brand new!"