Jack The Stripper: When Guitars Collide With Heads

Jack The Stripper are "well into the recording stage" of their second album, which vocalist Luke Frizon estimates will be released in the "opening months of next year". "These songs that we're writing, lyrically there's a couple of very direct stories that I wanna be telling about a certain person - or about a certain event," Frizon enlightens, adding these "rough times" he's faced over "the last two years" will inform "this upcoming album". "It's not only a way to work through issues... Personally, I contextualise my place in society, and in life, based around the music that I'm making," he explains. As well as "convalescing from issues" through songwriting, Frizon adds, "It's also a way of declaring yourself, you know, and justifying your position on the planet - and within society - through that music."

"I don't know what fluid they were using in that smoke machine, but halfway through the set my entire vocal cords just completely shut, like an allergic reaction."

Frizon "never used to" take care of his voice, but discovered some "tips and tricks that [he'd] been shown" at a singer's workshop helped him restore his voice after an ill-fated Jack The Stripper gig in Taiwan. "I don't know what fluid they were using in that smoke machine," Frizon recalls, "but halfway through the set my entire vocal cords just completely shut, like an allergic reaction. I pretty much had to sort of whisper-slash-Fred Durst my way through the remainder of the set and just jump around a whole bunch." 

When he was "a kid", Frizon was "in the state Chamber Choir for Victoria doing all those classical songs". "The more I've sort of started training and practising with my voice, the more I remembered some of those aspects and I wanted to see if I could take it further," he divulges. Frizon's initial intention to work towards a more "multi-faceted vocal approach" was welcomed by his bandmates and he commends, "Over time we've found ways to sort of transfer that into the music without it coming off as trite." 

On preserving his voice, Frizon points out, "You have to treat yourself very differently because the instrument is intrinsic, it's within ya. It's not something that you can pack up, put out the back and go out for a few jugs or whatever after a show." Given these extra demands the band's new songs place on his "instrument", Frizon anticipates, "I guess the grandpa behaviour is only gonna increase". 

These days Jack The Stripper are "pretty strict" with their "stretching and warm-ups", "'cause everyone's so susceptible to injury, 'cause it's usually a pretty intense live show," Frizon tells. When asked to detail one of the injuries he's sustained during a gig, Frizon remembers an in-store the band played at the now-defunct Missing Link. "I was doing, like, some sorta front flip somersault kinda thing off a table or whatever, into the crowd, right at the same time that Jules [Renzo], who was playing bass at the time, um, threw his bass back and I collided with it mid-air. It made my head open and all of a sudden there was just blood spraying all over the floor. I didn't actually notice until all I could see was red and then people in the audience started actually screaming [laughs]."

So any chance we're gonna hear any new Jack The Stripper material any time soon? "We're expecting to be playing at least one new song on this upcoming tour. Hopefully two," Frizon promises.