Sex On Toast's Frank Zappa Connection

Anyone who's caught Melbourne's nine-piece musical smorgasbord that travels as Sex On Toast will know they're all about the groove – fun times for dancers, mood funk for lovers, musical mayhem for listeners. So, how did the bassoon sneak into the picture?

“It's where it should always have been,” laughs the lead conspirator in this loose collective, singer, songwriter and occasional guitarist and keyboards player Angus Leslie. “I've always liked bassoon. I mean, I studied composition and orchestration, so when I first started hearing bassoon, when I was studying classical music… I mean there's bassoon in some rock music too but you might not know it 'cause it's in the background, in the arrangement.

“Actually the first person to use bassoon, that I first heard in a rock context, was Frank Zappa on the Uncle Meat album, and I was really excited by that. One of the main reasons we have a bassoon player [the erstwhile Johnny Bassoon] is we needed a new saxophone player and I knew a guy who happened to play bassoon who was a really cool guy and really fun to be around and a really talented musician, who also doubled on alto saxophone, and I just thought his personality and skill level as a musician would be perfectly suited to the band, so I just snapped him up.”

Originally forming in an inner city high school back in 2003, Sex On Toast can boast quite a line-up of extraordinary musicians, past and present, that have passed through the ranks, some of them sharing the love with other iconic local ensembles, from Combover and Saskwatch to the chin-strokingly impressive Australian Art Ensemble, but, with a couple of infectious Live At The Toff EPs along the way, it's taken 11 years to finally get around to releasing the eponymous debut album.

“Perfectionism,” Leslie laughs, talking about his reason for the delay. “I started an album for Sex On Toast years ago, when it was really a different animal, and we got to the mixing stage and I realised that I didn't like it, so we threw it out and started again with some better songs. I think the actual writing got a lot better, on my end… I kind of had to learn a lot from making the first record that we ditched, about production and how I wanted things to sound in order to get to the point where I could realise my vision in the studio properly, in the way that I wanted it to sound.”

The band revisit one song from the second volume of Live At The Toff, a live favourite titled Escape – a sign, as it happens, of things to come.

“The original Escape was kind of a big rock'n'roll pyrotechnic sort of number, and I thought that it would be interesting to turn that more like a Doobie Brothers Steely Dan shuffle. I'm always rearranging our songs. I think it's important to not get bored with your material, not let the audience necessarily sit in an easychair with the material – I think they should be constantly being challenged as well as entertained.

“Stylistically, the album is a bit more song-based, but it's funny, we are bringing back some of the old songs on this next tour. Like, we've got I Need A Lady For Some Lovin' and Ear Loaf, from the first EP, that no one would be expecting to hear or even know because we've had a slew of new fans come on board since Takin' Over [lead track off the album, released June last year], which is great, but I think it's good for them to know where we've come from.”