When it comes to bands like Naarm/Melbourne's Private Function, it's near-impossible to work out what it is that makes them so arresting. 

Maybe it's their unique command of music and humour in equal measure, maybe it's their contrasting utilisation of high-concept and low-concept art, or maybe it's the fact that every member of the band feels like your new best friend you met down the pub. Or maybe it's all of it combined?

The Private Function story can be traced back to 2016, when the band released their Six Smokin' Songs cassette EP without even playing a show first. A live debut did follow, as did their Rock In Roll EP and a reputation as one of those bands you just had to go and see if the opportunity presented itself.

Albums such as the Metallica-referencing St. Anger arrived, before 2020's Whose Line Is It Anyway? hit the ARIA top ten. 2023's 370HSSV 0773H saw them nominated for an ARIA amidst a South Australian ban due to gambling restrictions related to their album cover, and intense touring has seen them go from national favourites, to repeat international offenders, and even supporting Green Day on their recent stadium tour of Australia.

In some ways, Private Function almost feels like a joke that very quickly got out of hand, but equally, it's the result of six musicians who operate with pure intention, albeit with their tongues planted firmly in cheek.

As drummer Aidan McDonald recalls, the band had never started with the intent of bringing their show to stadiums. Instead, they were simply content with getting the kudos from the people who mattered most—the clientele of the Melbourne music scene.

"When I first met Chris [Penney, vocalist], I was pretty impressed by how enigmatic he is and how much ambition he's got," McDonald admits. "But I have a vague recollection of being in the Old Bar after we released Dial Before You Dig, and we'd made a music video for it. Someone actually came up to me and was like, 'Hey, I really, really love this new song, and I'm so excited for this new band.' No one had ever said that to me before.

"I played at the Old Bar a million times, but no one had ever just randomly come up to me and gone, 'Oh, I love this new song,' or 'I love this new band,'" he adds. "I think everyone has always wanted huge ambitions and big dreams, but there's definitely things that we have achieved that were on the bucket list that I didn't really ever expect to tick off."

Those early days for the band reflect their humble ambitions and how quickly things first began. Truthfully, it seems very representative of the Private Function experience as a whole – what begins as a simple idea soon snowballs into something much larger as it becomes realised and tangible.

Casual conversations about starting a band soon turned into band practices in a garage in Footscray, and recording a batch of songs that Penney had demoed in his shed soon turned into an EP, which in turn resulted in another EP, then an album. Before you know it, you're rubbing shoulders with Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day at Marvel Stadium – standard fare, really.

However, much like fellow Melbourne outfit TISM (a noted influence of Penney and others in the band), the group have long seemed somewhat adverse to any kind of success. After all, releasing records which contain (alleged) bags of speed, or vinyl filled with members' urine, doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would translate to sales and recognition. But maybe it's because of this subversion and alienation that the band thrive, rather in spite of it?

"At the end of the day, it's one of those bands where I'm not too sure how we've really achieved half the things we have," McDonald notes. "I'm always shocked at even the name getting us this far.

"In the early days there were people who were like, 'That's a shit name, you'll never get a gig,' and now it's like, 'Fuck this band played Meredith!' But our fans seem to be really loyal and have always supported us from the first moment they became Privateers, as we call them."

Though the band's name might have seemed like a turn-off in the early days (the ABC even included Private Function in an article on bad band names in 2018), it too has become something of a unifying experience for their fans.

"People often message us with signs and whatnot, saying 'Private Function', which is just funny because when they see that, now they think of us," McDonald says. "I've seen places even have to change the wording to say 'Not The Band' after 'Private Function' or change it to 'Private Event' instead."

Despite any of the roadblocks that may have been present within their journey, Private Function's journey has been one of gradual growth, with the band's near-decade long existence filled with the constant achievement of minor highlights that translate into big wins down the line.

"I'm sure a lot of bands would agree, but there's certain levels of different venues and stuff like that," McDonald admits. "This is just for me personally, but I remember selling out the Old Bar for the first time, and I remember thinking that was just insane. I couldn't believe that we had sold out the Old Bar. Then the next one was selling out The Tote, which was just an unachievable dream I've had since being a teenager. 

"When we achieved that, it was like, 'Alright, what's next?' Meredith was always one of the biggest dreams, and my personal dream gig, and I just could not believe that we actually achieved that. From there, it's on to supporting bands like Grinspoon and Green Day and playing Marvel Stadium – it's just always achieving that next step.

"I've always found that this band has just got something in the water," he adds. "I'm not sure if it's to do with the performers like Milla [Holland, bassist], and Chris's wildcard nature, and his insanely energetic performances. As a band, we're pretty tight and things like that, but I've never really quite understood what it is about us. But fun has always been an ethos; we put the 'fun' in 'function.'"

Indeed, 'fun' is a key driver in Private Function's modus operandi. While the band have always made it clear that enjoyment of what they do is key, one could assume that it's easy to have too much fun and to suddenly overlook the important facets of the project. 

Paradoxically, Private Function's immense reach, their myriad merchandising options, their copious amounts of vinyl releases, their omnipresent nature on the touring circuit, and their prolific recording output all amount to a sense of ordered chaos wherein the band appear to be thinking five steps ahead while still operating on instinct alone. 

As McDonald admits, the seat-of-the-pants nature is as important to their success as any well-ordered set of plans.

"I think it's a mixture of both, to be honest; it's the pants and the belt," he quips. "There are still things that we laughed about five years ago or something that will come back up and we're like, 'Remember that?' and we'll do it, or there'll be a brand new idea that makes you say, 'I can't believe we've never thought of that.'

"Chris called me 20 minutes ago with a great idea that we hadn't thought of yet, and I was like, 'That's fucking awesome.' There'll also be times where we'll quite literally follow through with something that's been sitting in the back pocket for a few years.

"I think that's kind of the beauty of it," he adds. "There's always something in one of our back pockets. Chris always seems to have a box full of ideas. But we really do have good follow-through, and we'll continue to try and  achieve anything that we've said."

On May 23rd, Private Function will release their eagerly anticipated fourth album, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Utilising the shrug emoji for the title, the album's artwork utilised 2,590 individual images from Melbourne-based artist Bootleg Comics, amounting to what the band are calling  “the world’s first microscopic album cover.” 

For what it's worth, the album does have an actual title, though you'll have to use the limited edition "PF magnifying glass" that comes with the record to discover it.

However, it's an album which shows a band operating at their peak. From blistering numbers like the opening Animal, the singalong nature of tracks like Koala, the electronic Magical Prawn Door, and live favourites such as Shit and Fuck, it's an incredibly varied album, but arguably one of their strongest.

Throughout the band's existence, the membership has varied somewhat, with McDonald, Penney, and Holland remaining the only constants. Guitarist Anthony Biancofiore would join in 2021, and fellow axe-slinger Lauren Hester would join the next year, with keyboardist James Macleod rounding out the sextet soon after. Now, it's their most solid lineup to date with the new record being a representative sum of their collective musical talents.

"I think everyone has a good family relationship at this point," McDonald muses. "We've all been on tour together a lot now, and I think travelling in a bus together, you either kill each other or you become closer, so I like to think that we've all become closer.

"But even right now, this is the first time we've made an album together with this lineup. On the previous record, Anthony played a lot, but we had parts here and there written for him, and then he kind of brought solos in and stuff. This time, no one was told to 'Play this part specifically,' or anything like that. They're all pieces of the puzzle, which I think is really magical.

"It's all coming from different places and I think while there's a lot of genres on this record and there's a lot of voices, but in the long run it has bonded quite well together and I'm actually quite surprised at how long we've been doing it together with this lineup now," he adds. "It almost feels like yesterday that we were all playing The Forum or something with Lauren and her puppets."

But what does an album like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ say about Private Function in 2025? What does it represent to the world at large?

"I think it says that we really love Ween, that's been kind of the thing that I've noticed a lot," McDonald admits. "But aside from that, there's parts of beauty and then there's parts of aggression.”

Of course, while the recorded side of things is an important part of any band's existence, one could argue that Private Function's live show is where the band turn it up a notch or ten. In addition to immensely arresting, passionate performances, the band's myriad antics and onstage behaviour turn it into a sight to behold.

Alongside tamer examples such as costumes and even Penney entering The Forum in a fake coffin carried by wrestlers while he emerges with a blonde mullet and a gun, more extreme instances have seen Penney administer an alcohol enema on more than one occasion.

But these wild live shows have now broken Australian confinement and have seen the band performing throughout Europe regularly, with word of a US tour also on the way now that Penney's apparent visa issues have been sorted. However, with tracks like Koala, Albury Wodonga, and even No Hat, No Play, one wonders just how the band's Australian leanings translate overseas, or if their success is due to their antipodean origins?

"To be perfectly honest, I think there's a bit of a bug right now that Americans and Europeans have toward Australian rock and roll," McDonald notes. "I think they've all caught the bug. You can see it when you see bands like Amyl And The Sniffers playing Coachella, and even a few years back, Courtney Barnett taking over America.

"With our stuff we are larrikin rock and roll, and even with songs like No Hat, No Play or… actually, Albury Wodonga is a perfect example," he adds. "In Spain, they love that song. We never knew this, but the last time we were there, we actually went on like the BBC of Spain, and we did a radio interview, a live performance, and we played a bunch of shows because we've got a record label over there – FOLC Records.

"We were playing one show and everyone kept demanding Albury Wodonga, we were like, 'Ah, they're not gonna get it'," he adds. "Then we played it at one show and people were flipping out and they were singing along, not knowing what the fuck it meant. It turned out that the song had been getting played on their national radio station. 

"So everyone knew this song that essentially meant nothing to them but had an anthemic chorus, and they were still singing Albury Wodonga regardless of knowing where the hell that place was or if it even was a place."

Could it then be argued that Australian music as a whole, and by extension, Private Function have a certain je ne sais quoi that is globally appealing? After all, Americans might not know where Rae Street is in Melbourne, but it didn't stop Courtney Barnett playing the track of the same name to millions on The Tonight Show in 2021.

At the end of the day, maybe it's a case of bands like Private Function leading the charge when it comes to what the wider world wants from rock music? 

"I think the world loves Australian rock and roll again, which is just amazing," McDonald notes. "And I think in a weird way, we've got a sense of humour and a sense of pageantry. I don't know why the hell it works, but it does. 

"Even if they don't understand what we're saying, I think that maybe our stage show is just fun enough that it doesn't really matter."

While Albury Wodonga might be a hit in Spain, and a live favourite in Melbourne, it does raise questions as to how Holbrook – a unifying track named for the New South Wales town of the same name, which McDonald has performed live – will fare in Europe.

"That'd be an interesting one," he admits. "That's a funny one, too, because I didn't expect that song to go very well live. Chris and James were really adamant that we should play that one live. 

"The first time we played that was while supporting Spiderbait, and I was like, 'Oh, this is just not gonna go down well, people are going to laugh at me,'" he admits. "I was genuinely like, 'Fuck man, you're throwing me under the bus here,' but that one has gone down really, really well."

With such an intense live spectacle up their sleeves each time, are there any ideas that have been left on the cutting room floor for the band? Penney has said in the past they would love to feature a brick in a tumble dryer as their opening act, though it's a little difficult to imagine any venues allowing such an act in the interest of public liability.

"I reckon every single time we come up with a big show, we start planning things," McDonald notes. "I feel like we always try and see how far we can push Chris' body. For example, there was this big plan or this big hope when we were writing the script for the Meredith show that we thought it would be really, really funny if Chris entered the natural amphitheatre on a flying fox.

"That obviously didn't happen, but I would still love the day that he enters the arena, either via flying fox or maybe some wire works where we start flying."

Maybe the key to Private Function's longevity and their apparent invincibility can be seen in groups like the great KISS? After all, they spent a solid 50 years together, Paul Stanley survived many high-flying events, and Private Function's guitarists can often be seen rocking back and forth like the New York City icons were wont to do.

"I just want to note that at KISS' last show, I was standing right where Paul Stanley flew to and my mind was blown," McDonald remembers fondly. "We all bought a treat from the band fund, and we took ourselves to go see KISS for the last time, and it was amazing."

One could argue that the band that sees KISS together stays together, but McDonald looks to his old school days as he drops a profound line that maybe ties together the rich tapestry that is Private Function, their attitude to their craft, and the fact that – above all – they’re still on top.

"'Keep it simple, stupid,'" he says. "That's what my English teacher taught me, and it's always been true."

Private Function's ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ is released May 23rd with pre-orders available now.