The Love Junkies are honest and humorous on their new EP, Cough And Splutter

We've always been long-time fans of The Love Junkies, and for a good reason. The Perth foursome have always been ahead-of-the-pulse when it comes to their distinct, Australian-tinged alt-rock sound, which has recently, allowed the group to soar and tour the states with performances at SXSW, Canadian Music Week and a whole heap of others. The group took a little bit of time under-the-radar in the second half of 2016 but now they're back, most recently releasing a five-track EP Cough And Splutter last Friday, with a whole heap of tour dates to come. Cough And Splatter sees The Love Junkies return to their former form, with the vocals of frontman Mitch McDonald soaring above high-energy instrumentals, heavily reminiscent of acts like the Australia-bound Queens Of The Stone Age.

On Cough And Splatter (which you can grab on iTunes HERE), McDonald's honest, yet quite humorous lyrics really shine, detailing his personal accounts of emotionally drowning and turning to alcohol and drugs to solve problems. To better understand these lyrics, we got the man himself to walk us through the EP's five singles, which you can catch live in action at upcoming gigs at Fremantle and Melbourne (dates at the bottom of this article).

Cough And Splutter

This song has some very strong themes. The river/drowning metaphor is a popular one and this is my take. How life is trying to stay afloat but sometimes people become too exhausted and just let themselves drown because it's easier. The whole "Taxidermy Boys" line refers to people who just float without any depth. They're so light yet so stuffed full of shit.

No. 2

Is about absolutely nothing. Just a couple of one liners I pulled out of some old diaries full of drunken babbling and shitty poetry. The idea of the music came from Rob. He wanted to write a song based around a negative power chord and I always wanted to write a song with a one chord chorus.

Dog Meat

This one came together last. I was really struggling for lyrics so instead of constructing full sentences I just ran with singular words to paint out the whole rat race theme the song has. That whole "birth, breathe, eat, piss, shit, fuck, work, die" thing that Bukowski was always carrying on about. I've always liked that rant and have been guilty of it myself obviously.

Past Intense

This song is about taking drugs and drinking to try to suffocate your issues, to then only abuse so much of both, you begin making nonsensical conversation about said issues to your newfound 5AM friends, which is a situation you were trying to avoid in the first place.

Johnny Horner

This one’s an ode to the "Perth-o-nality". It's dealing with those people who hold themselves in such high regard and put themselves in hot spots where punters tend to encourage their egos. It's about being in venues where these people go to socially jack each other off in the faces of their fans. The only way I've ever known how to deal with these types of places is with drugs or alcohol, but these things cost money and I never seem to have much of it. I have been lucky enough to find stuff on the ground from time to time, which is the chorus's lyrics.

Tour Dates:

Thu July 13 - Hidden Treasures, Fremantle

Fri July 14 - Yah Yah's, Melbourne

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