'I Used To Hate The Ruminaters, Now I Like Them' Explained By The Ruminaters

Feel like I was upstairs (above our studio) making a tea when I first heard this riff blaring through my house. I was pretty certain the boys were mucking around because we often go on ridiculous tangents while we are writing music. I came downstairs and Jarleth and Pencil were playing the exact same riff as each other with these meathead looks on their faces, fuzz pedals on and amps blaring. I knew the only right thing to do was to pick my guitar up, turn my fuzz on and also play the exact same thing. I don't think it's our most well-crafted song, but it's definitely a fun one to play. 

This song used to be called Acid On The Brain. We used to play it live and we even recorded it for release. The chorus was always great but the rest of the song pissed us off. Me and Pencil sat in our studio one day for a few hours and ripped the whole song apart and completely changed the vibe. Went from a hillbilly ditty to a churchy flower song. It's really hard completely changing a song you've played a certain way for so long, because those melodies are stamped on your brain and it's hard to steer away from that, but we pulled it off on this one. There's always hope. Jarleth's bass line rules in this one too. 

Jarleth's dead bunny to thank for this one. His name, Mr Bubbles. Pencil and Jarlo structured the basis of this track one night whilst they watched over Jarleth's little sister's party. I remember Pencil showing me the next day and I thought he was a pussy. Just jokin'. But I do remember Pencil laughing at me when I added my brain-dead guitar part in there. You won't be laughing when you see it on Ultimate Guitar Tabs, Pencil. Nah but I love the lyrics in this song, Pencil has an absolute gift at story telling. All his stories are bullshit, but always entertaining. 

While I was thinking of what to say about this song, I started to think about all the bad shit we have done together. And although we definitely aren't bad kids, we've definitely done some bad things. Mainly to each other. We are pranksters that's for sure. I have one story about a time we played an all-ages show down south. There was a breathalyser mounted to the wall at the venue we played at. After the show we made a bet who could blow the highest alcohol level. Dunno who won. But shortly after Pencil walked out the back to find a crowd of underage kids cheering on as myself, Jarleth and our mate wrestled in the back of a ute. There were three police officers there trying to arrest us but I think they knew we were only tryna set a good example so they let us go. Shortly after, Jarleth got hit by a car, I split Teddy's head open, our best mate ran away and we all woke up with fish guts on our faces (thanks Jarleth). Anyway this has nothing to do with the song but that's a funny story. 

Definitely the nicest song on the album. I can't imagine what mood Pencil was in when he came up with the lyrics for this one but damn. He weird. I'm like a proud brother though. He had virtually no help writing this one. I don't really think anyone could have helped him but. He was probably really aroused and uneasy to be around at the time. He'd have to be. Listen to it. Anyway, the recording process was awesome, we recorded this song at RAK Studios in London with a good mate and a wiz engineer. Rob made us do this one completely live. I love the drums and bass on this track. Everyone nailed it. Love Ted's effortless drum style and his super lazy fills out of the chorus. Makes me want to lie on a laylo in a pool of jelly with Elvis Costello and drink egg yolk.

I'm currently on a plane coming back from a show in Brisbane, I don't have Spotify on my phone nor do I have any music saved on it. All I have is a shitload of voice memos from jam sessions with the band. I just stumbled across one of the first times we would have jammed this song in my vault, and I'm pretty pissed off now. I had a sweet little guitar melody I used to play that I obviously completely forgot about and now it's not in the track. Ah well fuck ya. Anyway the coolest thing about this song is that we recorded it ourselves, in a studio that we built, with instruments we made... that last bit's not true but we did do everything else. It's such a refreshing track. I feel like this whole EP is a bit of a rollercoaster ride of happy, sad and psycho, and this little ditty is just the sunlight at the end of the tunnel. Ted named his new record label after this song, which this album and many many many more will be released through.