Taking Aim

Formed in 2008 by twin brothers singer/guitarist Alex Palmer and drummer Owen Hughes (and, no! The question of different surnames wasn't asked), Ten Cent Pistols began as a two-piece blues project. By 2010 they were a four-piece band and last year expanded to five, though the departure to Berlin of guitarist Sam Hall for a year meant that when the band went into the studio to record their second 12” vinyl EP, Vultures, it was as a three-piece, with guitarist Johnny Hird guesting on the last track.

“We started out being quite minimal,” Palmer explains, “but I suppose when we went into the studio, we were, like, 'Fuck it!' We layered tracks a bit more and just made it more kind of a full sound, and as we evolved we just needed people to play the stuff we were recording. So we just expanded the band. I mean, shit! I always wanted to be like The Stones and have a piano player and everything,” he chuckles. “It's definitely a good moment.

“It's great having a full band with a bass player [Nick Masman] and stuff – awesome. They're all friends of mine. Sam, our guitarist, is just an all-'round legend, he's been a friend of ours for years, so I suppose when we were talking about getting new members it was really obvious who to get. It works well, I suppose, because me and Owen are such a tight little unit that you need friends to fit into that. Basically we had to find someone to play drums because Owen always hated being the drummer, even though he's really good, so he could move on to be the organ-slash-electronic-noisemaker dude.”

Though the band did a couple of gigs, Hall's absence prompted them to cut the new EP, scamming some free studio time, the money saved directed to printing the EP in vinyl, which, as Palmer reckons, “is much cooler”. “We listen to heaps of shit on vinyl – we've got a really good collection. You know, it's one of those things – chuck on Exile On Main Street and let's get fuckin' wasted! But the thing is, vinyl just becomes this really lovely experience. It's really warm and does sound better, you know?”

With the expansion of the band, Ten Cent Pistols have also expanded their musical boundaries, moving away from the essentially blues core of their beginnings to a more late-'60s sound that, to these ears, moves them closer to another band that evolved out of the blues – The Doors – though not to Palmer's ears.

“It's becoming a lot more psychedelic and I suppose more like the music we've been listening to. We're all pretty heavily into Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, so I suppose we just wanted to create something that was more… I don't know, it's like if I died tomorrow, would I be happy with the record? And I'm like, 'Yes',” he laughs. “It's all good!

“I suppose we were just trying to get a bit of a different perspective than what most music is about. Shit, we're living in this period of time, probably the most interesting, exciting and dangerous periods of human history, ever, you know? And, like, no one fucking sings about it. So I suppose that was a big part of it for me: writing songs that talked about how I'm kind of feeling about the state of the world.

“We just went through this huge shift last year, with 2012 and everything, and everyone thought it was about doom and gloom, but I think it's actually a giant spiritual awakening for people. So that's definitely part of it for me, talking about that shit because no one else does.”

Ten Cent Pistols will be playing the following dates:

Saturday 30 March - Cherry Bar, Melbourne VIC