Gut Health On 'Stiletto' And Being A Live Band: 'Playing Live Is Like 100 Rehearsals To Us'

When Athina Uh Oh Zooms in from her partner/bandmate Adam Markmann’s house in Naarm/Melbourne, Gut Health are in the midst of a string of dates supporting Hiatus Kaiyote.

Her band recently graced the Forum Theatre stage, and Athina beams while recalling, “It just feels like you're in this surreal, starry night, which was really special.” So, how do those illuminated Greco-Roman-style statues look from the stage? “It was funny, we have this song called Statuette and, in my head, I was like, ‘I'm channelling these statues over here’,” Gut Health’s frontperson shares, chuckling. 

Prior to hitting the Forum stage, Athina admits she suffered from pre-gig jitters: “It was this bucket list goal, so I’d worked it up in my head. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, playing the Forum!’ And then Myka [Wallace, drummer] was like, ‘We've played in bigger places before, earlier this year supporting Queens [Of The Stone Age]...’ – but I just forget that, it kind of all meshes into one.

“You need to catch those things that your brain is telling you that are actually ridiculous. Sometimes, before I go on stage, I'm like, ‘Oh my gosh, I've forgotten everything!’ And it's like, ‘No, we rehearsed yesterday. It's fine,’ you know what I mean?’

“But I have some self-talk mechanisms and, over time, you just have to learn to regulate and breathe... And there's definitely some people in the band who are so good at, like, calming me down – Myka, for example, has been playing drums for years and years. They kind of treat every gig like, ‘Oh, it's just another gig. We can do this.’ So having those people around me has been really helpful.”

Gut Health’s saxophonist of choice, Yang Chen – Athina’s “old friend from high school” – has also been joining them on stage for these Hiatus Kaiyote shows, about which Athina enthuses, “It’s been really fun having her. She kind of just goes for it, and we're like, ‘That sounds awesome!’

“Yang's incredible, and she doesn't do much sax or live stuff anymore, but we've worked a lot – collaboratively – on different things. She's just started her own booking agency [Kast], which is amazing, and she's working with some amazing artists, but yeah! She’s always been there in the music community, just being awesome. We really wanted sax on the album and approached her. She plays on at least three of the tracks on the album.”

Yang’s delightfully unhinged playing – electrifying enough to stimulate hair follicles, surely! – brings maximum chaos to Stiletto’s conclusion. “That's a culmination of three improv takes that have been layered over each other – the only three takes she did!” Athina marvels, “And then Dom [Willmott, guitarist/producer] decided that layering all three takes, and sort of like panning them left to right, sounded good.”  

Of the ten tracks on Gut Health’s debut album, Athina reveals, “There's a mixture of songs from the band’s beginnings and songs that are quite new. I'd say we've been playing half of them forever. I think we played Stiletto, which is the title track, at our very first gig. But it was quite a different song back then; the bones were there, but we transformed the song as we played it to audiences – to see how people react and what we wanna fix, and all of that.”

“The approach that we took from the inception of this band was: we just wanna play live. Playing live is like 100 rehearsals to us, because we can feel – we're quite a kinetic, energetic band and somewhat of a live band in a lot of ways.

“It's a very bass-heavy band, because often that's where the song started. It was originally [bass player] Adam and I who started the project in lockdown times, and Dom was the first person Adam had in mind for the band, ‘cause they'd been in other projects and they work quite well together. So, the three of us started the demoing process.

“But then we've also just literally been jamming in rehearsal, and then we're like, ‘Oh, okay, that's a song’,” she recounts, laughing incredulously. “[Album opener] Uh Oh was written halfway through a rehearsal. It is really nice when everyone's minds just come together in this one moment. 

“We all collaborate really well together, and the writing process can be different. It kinda is this melting pot of different backgrounds and that lends itself to be, like, quite exciting in the writing process, ‘cause we're all pulling from different areas and styles and things like that.

“Everyone had played in different bands, but in all different genres,” she clarifies. “Myka comes from a more jazz, improv and hip hop/R&B background – kinda similar to Angus [Fletcher, synth/percussion], but he's done a lot of beat-making, and he's a drummer.”

While guitarist Eloise Murphy-Hill was previously producing “more singer-songwritery stuff”, Dom’s former musical output included “some punk and more psych-y, shoegaze sort of things” and Adam specialised in “brash punk”. Athina has previously released some “soulful stuff”, but also draws from “a lot of punk and other genres”. 

One of the band’s freshest cuts, Scripture – with its swashbuckling bassline and laidback tempo – was actually written and recorded within three days at Bakehouse Studios. “We got this little grant – well, it was basically, like, femmes and non-binary people could apply to have a rehearsal space for a couple of days, some free sessions. 

“And that was the first time we had three days to focus solely on music; usually we just have one big rehearsal a week. And so we utilised that time to write some new material, and then we're like, ‘How about we try writing something now and then go straight into the recording process?’ Because we were already recording our album at the time.”

After sharing an embarrassing mondegreen moment – during Scripture’s outro, we misheard “Take my closeup” as ‘Get my clothes off’! – Athina cracks up. “It's so funny. There's been a few times that people have misinterpreted our lyrics, including: our first EP is called Electric Party Chrome Girl, because I was saying, ‘Electric, kind of homegrown,’ and Myka thought I was saying, ‘Electric party chrome girl’. So we ended up just calling the EP Electric Party Chrome Girl, even though it's not a lyric in any of the songs.

“I feel like, over time, I've been learning to articulate more. But I think with a six-person band that plays a lot of noise, things can get a bit muddy – with the lyrics, as well.” 

Athina’s savvy vocal choices and quirky delivery literally make Gut Health sing. A squeaky vocalisation during Memory Foam even somehow manages to conjure the titular material’s texture. “Oh, great, I love that!” Athina enthuses, before namechecking Ludus singer, Linder Sterling, as an inspiration. “[Ludus is] one of our favourite bands of all time – Adam, Dom and I, in particular. She [Linder] would do all these wild sounds with her vocals and I think, early on, that was partly an inspiration, but, yeah! It sort of comes out naturally based on how I react to the demo or the jam.” 

When asked whether her onstage persona is consistent with her personality, Athina shares, “I've had a couple of friends say, ‘Oh, it feels like you're playing a different character, based on which song is playing.’ That might not be my intention, but I guess that you do wanna have that tone to it. And not just tone in terms of music, but, like, what is the tone of the piece that you're trying to get across as well, you know? 

“Our performance has been described as a bit theatrical, but I still feel like it's a part of me. I'm really just letting out – I'm not afraid to go for it on the dancefloor, whether it's a hardcore gig or in a club or a doof or something like that. On stage, it's the same. It's this place where you can just allow those feelings and emotions, and have that sense of catharsis in a safe space. Other people are there, and they're with you.

“We think a lot about that sort of kinetic movement, whether it's about the energy that's being shared or the movement that we're doing on stage, or the way that our instruments are moving throughout the show. So, yeah, that kind of ties into it. And I do think a lot about these performative and real states of mind, but they're still, like, fragments of yourself, and it's still what feels authentic to me. It's not like I'm trying to pull from anywhere but my own inner realm – you know, whatever's coming out.

“Performing is my favourite thing to do, because once I get up there on stage – you just kind of lose a sense of yourself, and you're living completely in the present moment. And I chase that feeling, really; there's not many other places where I feel super-present.” 

We read somewhere that Athina loves The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which makes total sense in light of her own uninhibited stage persona. So, how did she discover this cult musical?

“We had it on VHS, or video, and I would just go into my bedroom and watch it on repeat when I was, like, quite young. And then I think my parents rewatched it with me one time, and they were like, ‘Oh, I forgot how inappropriate this was’,” she recalls, laughing.

“It's sort of a culmination of a lot of my different interests, whether it's, yeah, that sort of rock’n’roll performance, queer history, sexuality – all of these things, like, meshed into one. It was sort of this awakening for me, in a way, as I was growing up, and it being such a cult classic.

“I've been to those [audience-participation screenings] at the Astor [cinema]. I grew up near St Kilda, so [I] would go there all the time. And it was just such a fun experience getting to dress up and everyone being in this moment together, just being absolutely ridiculous. But, yeah, I love the campy nature of it, and it sort of combines all of my passions as well.”

So does she get involved in The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s famous callbacks, when audience members shout out responses, scripted or otherwise? “Yeah, I always get involved in them,” Athina confirms. “And you can also bring things – like, when they say, ‘Let's have a toast,’ everyone throws toast at the screen. It's just absolutely ridiculous and that's what I love about it.

“When I was in New York a few years ago, I was lucky enough to see it on Broadway. So that was crazy-special.” 

When asked whether Gut Health is a goal-driven band, Athina shares, “We've definitely caught up and been like, ‘What do we all want? Does it all match up? Do we all agree with this?’ And that's been really nice because at the end of last year, we wrote down some of our goals for the next couple of years. And we actually realised the other day that we’ve already fulfilled some of them! So to all realise that together was really humbling. We just feel super grateful. But, yeah, it was nice to have written that down and be able to sort of quantify it.”

We’re tipping that playing Meredith Music Festival made that list, then? “Meredith was on the list, for sure,” she allows, laughing. Tick! By all accounts, the band owned this legendary festival’s 2023 edition. 

“And touring Europe,” she adds. Been there, done that – multiple times, too! “It was our first time touring overseas [earlier this year], and we were so grateful; we didn't think we'd be able to do that at this time, especially twice in a year! 

“But we got this quite surprising, funny offer from St. Pauli – which is this leftist, anarchist football club over in Hamburg – and that allowed us to come back the second time. And we'd already made some friends the first time around. So that one happened quite quickly, but it was still quite meaningful. 

“We were like, ‘Should we do it? If we can do it again, we should do it.’ But the Europe tours have been amazing. And it's just so fun getting to roll around with your friends and play all these different venues, from smaller headline shows to bigger supports and festivals, and, like, DIY shows – we had a really good mixture of everything as well.

“Our last show, for this round, was in Paris with The Judges, who are close friends of ours in Melbourne. So it's always surreal being like, ‘Oh, my gosh, we're here in Paris together!’” 

Gut Health has achieved so much since their formation in late 2021 that we can’t help but wonder whether it sometimes feels difficult to say no to opportunities that don’t feel quite right. “100%,” Athina answers, without hesitation. “I think that's such a lesson, especially with imposter syndrome – that's quite common here, I definitely feel that a lot. So, yeah, learning to say no has been one of the biggest lessons. Speaking to a couple of front people [from bands] who are much bigger than we are, that's the advice I've been given: just listen to yourself.” 

Stiletto is out October 11 via Highly Contagious/AWAL.