Bitching Out

Many stoner rock fans will attest that in the majority of cases, it's all about the power of the riff. If this element hits the spot, everything else tends to fall into place. Therefore, given that latest record The Local Fuzz is a 42-minute, single-track instrumental essentially bolting dozens of riffs together, for fans of the style it likely resembles a psychedelica-drenched, '70s-worshipping nirvana.

“It's funny the way it worked out,” bassist/vocalist Chris Kosnik says, chuckling at the suggestion. “When I write music, I write at home, on my computer and I'll just keep on noodling until I find a riff that I like. I'll just record the riff. Then I'll take like three or four of them and bring them to band practice, with a drum beat, like a drum loop or something so everybody can get the idea of what it's supposed to sound like. But I ended up having like thorty of them at the end of a couple of months,” he laughs. “So we just got the goofy idea to start connecting them and see which ones worked with which. Each one of those riffs that's on the record was a potential song on its own. Then it just became this one big mix of all of them.”

Beginning life in the early '90s as a side project for Kosnik (formerly of metallers Godspeed) and now featuring drummer Bob Pantella (a current member of Monster Magnet), the trio didn't release their first record until a half-decade later. “If you listen to the first record, that's like five years of jamming. That's usually why everybody's first record is everybody's favourite too, because that's the purest version of the band, you know what I mean? I don't know how old the average stoner rock fan is, but I'm forty-three, so I grew up playing those kinds of riffs. So it's completely normal and natural to me; that's the way I've always played. I played that way before the word stoner rock became like a genre. We just sorta fell into the stoner rock thing; we weren't intentionally trying to be a stoner rock band or anything like that. But I guess people need to put you in a box and label you somehow. But I like a lot of stoner rock bands, so we're in good company I think.”

The band will also make their Australian debut in fine style, headlining the heavier-than-a-busload-of-Sumo wrestlers Doomsday Festival. “We usually do two songs from every record and then we play twenty minutes of the latest record. We play the first half then throw a couple of Pink Floyd covers in.” The festival will feature countless examples of gigantic riffage, prompting a request for his all-time favourites.

“That is putting me on the spot. I couldn't just say, 'this is my favourite riff.' [With] a lot of riffs, it's not necessarily that you're playing something technically difficult, so I guess it's more the attitude you're playing it with. You can play the same thing ten different ways. You can play it slow and melodic, fast and heavy, super distorted, and it's all the same riff. Nobody's reinventing the wheel; they're just kinda using whatever else they're influenced [by] around [them] to play the same riffs. Here we are, forty years later from the first Sabbath album and so it's everybody's version of those riffs. It's the time period you grew up in; there's kids half my age playing those riffs. So we're not reinventing anything, but at the end of the day, I really love doing it. We've been a band for over fifteen years already, so I must like it,” he laughs. 

The Atomic Bitchwax will be playing the following shows:

Thursday 11 October - The Tote, Melbourne VIC
Friday 12 October - Sandringham Hotel, Sydney NSW
Saturday 13 October - ANU Bar, Canberra ACT
Sunday 14 October - Northcote Social Club, Melbourne VIC