How To Not Get Your Science Teacher Expelled With A Fake Email: Slowly Slowly Frontman Plays 'Two Truths & A Lie'

Slowly Slowly took over Australia’s hearts pretty damn fast. When I first heard Aliens I thought it had a really solid Kisschasy vibe – took me back to my early high school years! – but listening to their second album St Leonards was a really lovely, honest journey through bands like Jimmy Eat World, Motion City Soundtrack and, well, themselves. There are a lot of joyous peaks, slow burns, dark builds and pared back storytelling, but believe me when I say the 13 tracks will lead you gently by the hand through life and love.

And with such honest songwriting… honest stories seemed like they’d come easy! So ahead of their sold out album tour, I caught up with frontman Ben Stewart and hoolie doolie, did he have some corker stories for me.

Truth

Ben: Alrighty, so, my first story involves myself, my brother and my sister. My brother and sister are twins, and what happened was, we were playing tiggy in the house that we grew up in.

Uppy: Tiggy, did you say?

B: Yeah, tiggy, like tag. We called it tiggy at my primary school. So yeah, we’re running around and I knocked over a bowl of potpourri, like a bowl of dried flowers that my mum had, it smashed everywhere. And in the heat of the game, I forgot about it and just kept going and later that day, Mum lined us all up against the wall, screaming at us about who had broken this thing. And we didn’t own up to it – there was no way I was gonna own up, so I was just standing there at this stage. And then my poor brother, the sweetheart, steps forward – he’s so young, he’s like 6 years old then – and he just says, ‘Mum, I did it.’ And he didn’t even know who’d done it! [laughs] He just thought he’d take the blame so that she’d stop yelling. He’s such a sweetie. And then it was about two years ago I think, we’re all older now and I told him that it was me! We had a big laugh about it. I thought I’d start off my stories with something nice and innocent!

U: That’s too funny. So are they younger than you?

B: Yeah they’re younger and they’re twins. The context of it is like… they were young and sweet and I was sort of the mischievous and annoying older brother!

U: Ha! What’s your age difference, they were six and you were?

B: We’re four years apart!

U: Gotcha. How funny! It’s actually interesting that you say a story like this, because people seem to have similar! I also had a chat to Jesse from Grenadiers and he had something similar where he had said a naughty word and he also has twins, younger twins, and he just lied and told his mum that his sister did it! And his sister was like, ‘what! No, I didn’t!’ and he’s like, ‘yeah!’ I mean, so it’s a bit different in that… he put the blame on them! But your siblings sound very sweet, that’s cute as.

B: They’re both very sweet. I actually know Jesse really well, I’m gonna bring that up to him next time I see him!

U: Are you and your siblings still close? B: Yeah, yeah, we’re all extremely close. We all get along really really well.

U: That’s awesome.

B: Do you have any siblings?

U: I have a brother, yeah, he’s older than me by six years so we were never really THAT close. I think we definitely got closer when we got older.

B: Yeah, that’s a bigger bracket I think.

U: Totally, and it was the difference between, like, I was starting school in Year 7 and he was finishing high school and he wanted nothing to do with me! Because who wants to talk to their lame Year 7 little sister? No one!

B: Awww.

Truth

B: So my second story I thought I’d tell a funny tour story. Um… the last time or maybe a couple times ago that we were touring down in Tasmania. I should probably set the scene – our guitarist Albert is an awful snorer, especially when he’s had a few drinks. We just hate sleeping with him. So a few times ago, we made the trip down to Tassie, and we were in the common room of the accomm, like the shared living space. And we were getting perpetually hassled by this really weird character who had an eye patch on. He was telling us that he was in a bikie gang, and he kept coming up to us and like, having a small conversation and he’d just kind of like, wander the halls of the hotel that we were staying in. He was like, reallllly creepy. It was quite scary. So that’s the context there.

Then the next time we went down to Tassie like months later, we were staying at the same place. We were all pre-show complaining about sleeping in the same room as Albert and then, we’re sitting in the band room and we’d just been given the keys to our accomm. And Albert said, ‘oh, which room are we in?’ And I was like, just off the top of my head, I thought it’d be funny to say, ‘hey mate, you won’t believe this. It’s really strange, but that guy with the eye patch is STILL at the hotel, like he’s been living here, and they didn’t have any spare rooms so they’ve put me, Pat and Alex in one room, but apparently you’re in a shared space? I hope that’s cool, but apparently that dude is staying IN that room. So you have to stay with him.’ And it’s like the most outlandish, stupid lie that you’ve EVER heard, anyone else would just stare you in the eyes and go, ‘gimme the keys, I know you’re bullshitting’, but Albert is a real sweetie and gullible and was just like, his face was drained of all the colour! He proceeded to go speak to the promoter of the venue, the hotel staff, EVERYONE, to try and chat to them about how he didn’t wanna stay with the eye patch guy!

U: Old Patchy!

B: [laughs] And we just let it go! It was the funniest thing in the world to just watch him run around, try and fix something that didn’t exist. And like… it was SO stupid. As if this guy would still be at the hotel. But I dunno if that story’s contingent on knowing Albert and our personalities, because we seem to find that one real funny but I dunno if it translates.

U: Nah, nah, it’s funny for a couple of reasons – first, there’s a random eye patch dude trying to… be in the band! So he definitely wasn’t there right?

B: He definitely wasn’t there! But poor Albert, we let him stew on it for a couple of hours and told him, and he didn’t wanna talk to us for a couple of hours.

U: Poor thing! I thought your story was leading up to you saying that you lied to him and then SUDDENLY… the eye patch dude ended up actually being at the hotel. So what was he saying to you guys?! Like asking about music or?

B: He’d walk up to us and go like, ‘hey boys, hey boys…’ and we’d be like, ‘yep?’ and he’d go, ‘you ever heard this song?’ and we’d go no, and he’d go, ‘oh. Good song.’ And we’d go ‘okay…’ and he’d just walk away and come back five minutes later, ‘hey boys, do you know I’m in a bikie gang?’

U: Haaa, I haven’t been to Tassie but I have heard about some colourful characters from there.

B: Yep, it’s a beautiful state, we absolutely love it down there.

U: Sooo that was a pretty good lie story though!

B: Oh, my lie story’s pretty out of control…

Lie

B: So when I was in Year 7, I created an email address which was our principal’s name @hotmail.com…

U: Ohhhh… I don’t like where this is going already.

B: And I sent like, a resignation notice to my science teacher because I hated him.

U: Wait, like you fired him?

B: Yeah! Then he didn’t show up on the Monday and I was called to the office, and I’m sweating pretty hard thinking they’d tracked the IP address or something. I was like, ‘oh god, what’s happened here.’ I’m like, shaking in my seat and then the middle school principal at the time was like, ‘you know, we know it’s you.’ And I was like, ‘yeah, I’m so sorry. It was a stupid idea.’ And they’re like, ‘we DIDN’T know it was you, but thank you!’

U: [gasp] NO!

B: Yep. So they sweated me sooo hard and assumed it was me and I was so stressed out, I was like waiting to get a big expulsion notice in the mail. They said, ‘we’re gonna have to think about your punishment and get back to you’. So then I’m sweating pretty hard about it, every night when I got in the car to go home, I saw my mum and I’d wait for her to explode when she found out. And it turns out that it was that week that our middle school principal was leaving. And there was a huge ceremony and blah blah blah around him and the new person being initiated into the school or whatever, they had a big assembly, and because of all the hullaballoo and all the fanfare… they completely forgot about it! And that principal left, took the story with her and I was never reprimanded. For the rest of high school, I had to look at my science teacher in the hall, and we both made eye contact and he knew what had happened!

U: Oh my goddddd. That’s mental! You cheeky— how cheeky are you!

B: I’m not so cheeky now.

U: Okay, I have a few questions. So the main principal stayed?

B: Yeah, they were still there. So I was only reprimanded by the middle school principal, who left. The big principal who was a guy, he never left but I don’t think he ever got word of it. He hated middle management. I think the issue was put on the shelf and never taken off, and I survived!

U: Wowww. And you did this in Year 7?!

B: Yeah.

U: I can’t believe you weren’t expelled straight away, your parents would’ve been livid!

B: Yeah, I was very lucky.

U: So you think the middle principal before they left told the science teacher?

B: Um… I don’t know! I never had a conversation with the science teacher about it, he used to always pick on me. So that’s why I kind of always… I didn’t like him at all.

U: Yeah, wow. And did you have him after that year?

B: No, never had him again. Thank god.

U: Imagine that, imagine if you’d been stuck with him for six years!

B: Oh my god, he would’ve made me pay!

U: And did your mates know or was it all kind of under the radar?

B: I told a few mates but I didn’t want it getting out and bubbling up. After a few years I was like, it’s not coming back to haunt me, but you never know. I was just waiting for an expulsion letter or a notice or a suspension.

U: And did you like, delete that email address to try and wipe your tracks?

B: [laughs] Maybe, yeah! I was in Year 7, I didn’t know much about computers. The only thing I had reference to was the movie Swordfish, I was like, ‘they probably hacked my computer!’

U: Imagine if you found that email now, and it was just like… riddled with typos and totally unprofessional but you thought that was totally legit and passable!

B: Yeah, totally. With no doubt, it was completely unbelievable.

U: The science teacher probably just took a day off on the Monday to have fun with it!

B: Yeah, I dunno, because we didn’t have science that day. It’s not that he didn’t show up, we just didn’t see him anywhere. I was super stressed, I was like, ‘oh my god, it worked!’

U: That’s wild. Well, you might have a very, very late suspension coming your way. How old are you now – in your 20s?

B: I was actually saying in my head, I’m not gonna mention any names or the school, in case it dredges up any old shit!

Slowly Slowly’s second record, St Leonards, is out now via UNFD. They’re currently on the road on the St Leonards album tour.

If you’re a musician and have some stories to share and some secrets to tell – be it hilarious or heartbreaking, humiliating or honourable – send us an email at twotruthscolumn@gmail.com.

We might be telling the whole world about the time you accidentally killed your brother’s pet snake and replaced it without anyone knowing in no time.