Party Dozen ProfileWhen Party Dozen emerged a decade ago, the Sydney duo sounded like an unholy instrumental squall of punk, noise and jazz. But in the years since, saxophonist Kirsty Tickle and drummer Jonathan Boulet have gradually shaped their work into something more palatable than punishing.
Tickle began introducing more and more vocals – either sung or shouted directly into the mic’ed bell of her effects-laced sax – and Boulet’s layered loops of guitar, bass and other instruments have taken on a diverse life of their own.
On the band’s fifth album, 21 Bum Salute, there’s a thrilling sense that any given genre might be ripe for plundering. Meanwhile, the live shows feel less like an onslaught and more like the body-rocking celebration promised by that band name.
“It’s getting less difficult to win people over,” Tickle confirms over Zoom. “Maybe the songs are a little bit more fun and less all-out noise. A bit structured in a way that people can get on board with. So that side of things is getting easier, which is nice.”
Even for a band that once kicked up an almighty racket impressive enough for Nick Cave to lend vocals to a track – 2022’s Macca the Mut – there’s still a limit to their sheer intensity. “That’s definitely on our minds,” says Boulet. “We don’t want a record to be too crazy [or] too much. It’s good to have a couple of crazy songs, but if it’s not something that we’d want to listen to, we’re not gonna make it.”
He points to the opening of their 2020 LP Pray for Party Dozen. That wild splay of free jazz and noise may have been an insolent way to kick off a record, but Tickle and Boulet aren’t about to chuck that song (World Prayer) onto their set list. As Boulet explains: “We’re always trying to find that middle ground where it does tick that intense box, but it’s still fun to listen to.”
Tickle echoes that sentiment, acknowledging her wish for Party Dozen shows to be a safe, supportive space – especially for women and gender-diverse people – in a way that isn’t always the case with such heavy music. “I’m always thinking about how people can have a really good time,” she says, “and how we can have a really good time – and marrying that together.”
Conservatorium-Core
The pair first met when Tickle was playing in the Brisbane band Little Scout, and Boulet was in Parades. Tickle’s sister invited Parades to stay at their house while on tour, and friendship led to a strong musical bond.
Tickle studied clarinet at Queensland Conservatorium, but she swapped out that instrument for saxophone not long after graduating. As for Boulet, he also plays in the Sydney band ARSE and has produced records by bands like Body Type and These New South Whales.
This particular project was born in long-gone DIY venues like Black Wire Records, where Tickle fondly recalls Sunday arvo gigs with longnecks in ample supply. “It was a space where a lot of experimentation could happen,” adds Boulet. “The range was heavy bands, singer-songwriters, noise stuff … everything went at that place. So it was perfect for us to try and test this stuff.”
That free-wheeling spirit meant that a two-piece drums-sax duo with a sampler in tow wasn’t such an outlier at Black Wire gigs. “It helped inspire the band too,” Boulet continues, “because it was like, ‘What can we get away with in this space?’ It was a real good breeding ground for creativity. People weren’t judgy in there; if something was different, people were psyched on it. Like, be weird. Try some shit.”
While many DIY spaces in Sydney have come and gone since then, there are still the odd gigs that capture that energy. Tickle describes playing a benefit gig earlier this year to help fund a new space from the organisers of shuttered venue Lazy Thinking. “It felt really fun and nostalgic,” she beams. “I had a really great time: people were crowd surfing onto my gear and dropping beers on everything.”
Larrikin Representation
Whether you’re a newcomer to Party Dozen or a rusted-on fan, 21 Bum Salute is packed with surprises. There are still primal bouts of cacophony, but also a deep well of variety and nuance.
Opener Special Unit brandishes a darkly portentous guitar hook, while PMFD makes the sax sound like a rusty blues harmonica before the noise drops away for some unexpected respite. And Toss My Coin boasts a dance-punk edge that should go down a treat live – despite Tickle calling its first taste of sax “surprisingly disgusting, in a really, really satisfying way.”
Don’t worry if you can’t make out Tickle’s lyrics through the ever-changing effects and general tumult: there actually aren’t any. She just sings, screams or shouts, and any proper words that come out are just a fleeting side effect of that approach.
“At the beginning, it didn’t seem like it mattered that much what was being said,” she explains. “Because I feel like you can still understand the rage and the expression of it. We just continued down that path. You can definitely hear words in the moment, but they’re not intentional. And rather than go back and make up what I said, it’s whatever you want it to be.”
But while lyrics aren’t usually a concern, the pair’s playful way with words comes through in past song titles like Coup De Gronk as well as in the new album’s title track, 21 Bum Salute. That’s a cheeky (ahem) nod to locals up in the Northern Territory mooning the posh tourist train The Ghan as it passes by. Similarly, 2024’s Crime in Australia drew thematic inspiration from Australian crime television from the 1980s.
“We are not patriotic people,” Tickle clarifies, “but there are elements of the larrikin personality and the idiot down at the pub that are quite charming.”
Boulet chimes in: “I think because we don’t have lyrics, we rely a lot on titles to get a vibe across with very little. It’s in our identities, I guess: we need to put across this part of us that’s real. I think it always needs to be a representation of this culture.”
Although Tickle admits to vetoing certain titles that Boulet suggests, the two obviously have a soft spot for the sillier ones. That said, the new album’s uncharacteristically stark and mellow closing track, Age of Fools, was inspired by a line from a climate scientist. Tickle even sings a proper, poignant lyric on it: “We’re living in the age of fools.”
Keeping Gig Fit
As you can probably tell by now, it’s a little misleading to simply call Party Dozen a drums and sax duo. After all, the sampled guitar and other instruments are equally integral to their sound. Jamming in their studio with assorted pedals and gear, the pair explore until they find a promising instrumental idea to latch onto.
“There will be days where nothing comes through,” explains Boulet, “and there will be days where a five-second loop sounds awesome, and we jam on that. The door is wide open with the stuff, which is really inspiring. Because it’s not just drums and sax. You’ve got a whole base layer that sets the mood, and then you can do whatever you want on top.”
“The loops used to be just a drone or one idea, and not many B sections,” says Tickle. “We’ve realised that for the band to evolve, we need to come up with a few more textures in the samples. Otherwise it’s going to feel a bit samey. We’re always looking for different colours in the sand, so that it’s interesting.”
Yet if something goes wrong with those samples during the live show, these guys aren’t exactly panicked about it. “I live for something going wrong on stage,” Tickle admits. To which Boulet counters: “You want my sampler to fall off.”
“It’s so much fun, not knowing what’s going to happen,” Tickle explains. “It’s like, here we go: we’re in the trenches now. We have to figure out how to get back.”
As for the current live show, it features six songs from the new album, which is more than usual for Party Dozen. “This set is blistering,” promises Boulet. “The whole thing is rockin’ from start to finish.
“Because we keep making these end-of-set songs, and as soon as we make a new one, the last one gets bumped up in the list. The last three or four songs are [now] set-enders, so it’s like a quarter of the set. They just need to one-up each other, all the way to the end. It’s a real physical set.”
So do Tickle and Boulet need to keep themselves in shape to deliver that rising level of physicality? “For sure,” answers Tickle. “It’s so exhausting. It’s jumping and running around, for me, with like four kilos around my neck. And then screaming. Now that there’s so much singing and yelling, I have to take care of my voice a lot more. And we both do a lot of stretching before I play.”
“We’ve both taken up weight lifting and exercise,” adds Boulet, “because that’s the only way we can do this indefinitely. We need to be on top of that stuff. And I love that about the band: the fitter we are, the better our shows will be.”
21 Bum Salute is out now on Grupo/Remote Control.
PARTY DOZEN
2026 TOUR DATES:
Thursday 5 November - Ed Castle, Adelaide
Friday 6 November - Brightside, Brisbane
Saturday 7 November - Crowbar, Sydney
Wednesday 11 November - The Bridge, Castlemaine
Friday 13 November - The Night Cat, Melbourne
Saturday 14 November - Whalers Hotel, Warrnambool
Tickets are now available.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
