Yo Gubba Gubba

‘Hey man, what the fuck is this shit?’ I will say ‘Thank you.’ That kind of reaction means I’m doing something right

“There were the riff sessions in my bedroom before I left, so things were already heading that way,” Boulet admits. “Our shows were getting heavier, we were getting more distorted with more impact, and people were reacting to it much more than when we started. I used to have an acoustic guitar – what was I thinking? So there was this folder on my laptop that read ‘New Boulet Stuff’, and inside were other folders of stuff I’d been trying – there was some electronic stuff there and some other weird shit. Then there were these riffs and I was enjoying myself way more when playing with them than anything else I was doing, and it makes more sense; it was easy to understand straight off the bat.

“For a long time we wanted to move. We had gotten to that age where you think I’ve been here a while and I need to see other places, and Berlin was the obvious destination. We just wanted to expand; there’s an easy striking distance to a lot of cities, a lot of culture and a lot of people in a smaller space that is useful for a band. Just the usual when people make that jump really. But Berlin was like starting anew, where nobody knows your name, yet it is surprisingly small yet warm – there is enough going on there within a population the size of Sydney that it was obvious that we would revel in that.”

Gubba is the result; Boulet’s third album is a doom-laden smorgasbord of eclecticism, jumping from sun-drenched psychedelia to raucous adrenal-punk and garage pomp without pause for breath. Akin to the cracked whirr of Thee Oh Sees or the self-assured shift in rock dynamics bands like The Men or Ceremony have employed, Gubba is an ambitious effort – and an assertive statement of intent.

"Music lovers aren’t as particular as is often made out – people will love metal and pop and rock and variants of all that."

“Berlin put us outside the comfort zone, but I think I was already in that headspace; Gubba was going to happen no matter where we landed. It was freeing and fun to jump into something outside everything I had done previously. And the people who get it will get it, y’know? Music lovers aren’t as particular as is often made out – people will love metal and pop and rock and variants of all that. It shouldn’t be a shock that I could do something, anything remotely heavy. When I listen to Ceremony or The Men for example, I think it’s exciting when they decided to do something that was out of the ordinary, and that made it sacrilege to many of their hardcore fans. They made a conscious decision to do something different and that is inspiring for anyone.”

This aggressive shift in tone and pace may irk some more in tune with Boulet’s intricate indie sensibilities, but those who more aware of his wicked sense of humour will find Gubba a more natural progressive burst.

“I hope they know I take the piss, otherwise there’s a lot of offended people out there,” Boulet laughs. “You think about it a little bit, but by the time I started properly writing Gubba, We Keep The Beat was almost four years old. By the time that came out I was over it, so imagine how I felt years down the road. I was starting to get over this ‘happy vibes’ thing that I had somehow created for myself. Many people were like ‘What the fuck is this? This isn’t powerviolence!’ when Ceremony brought [2012’s] Zoo out. It was a bitter pill to swallow for those people, but the band had freed itself from the constraints of genre. They can do what they want now. They went out and made something as powerful as their other stuff, if not moreso because it wasn’t so ridiculous, it was cohesive. So the more that someone says ‘Hey man, what the fuck is this shit?’ I will say ‘Thank you.’ That kind of reaction means I’m doing something right; you have validated the entire thing by being negative towards it. Now go away.”