Making An Impact While Giving Zero Fucks

Tropical Fuck Storm

Tropical Fuck Storm consist of musical powerhouses Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin (The Drones), Lauren Hammel (High Tension) and Erica Dunn (Palm Springs, Harmony and Mod Con). Dropping their debut album A Laughing Death In Meatspace, Dunn explains she can't wait to see people's responses to what has been a mad year of hard work.

"I think with this project, part of the reason why we're all so excited and having so much fun with it is because we really have kept expectations at bay," says the guitarist and keys player. "It's been a real feeling of chucking caution to the wind and, just whatever ideas are coming along, creatively following a lot of different trains of thought through freely bouncing idea's off each other - that's what's made it fun; there isn't that baggage.

"In terms of how it's going to be received, I think people who've seen us play live can have some sort of expectations about it, and hopefully it reaches those expectations, but it's been a good project because of the lack of expectations. I guess that's just from the four of us' point of views - we're just excited to share something different and new."

With such a highly regarded bunch of Australian musicians forming Tropical Fuck Storm, how can there not be a little bit of pressure? But Dunn reiterates that they'll never see themselves as a 'supergroup'. "I think generally when bands get called that it's sort of funny. We just feel like friends. We all have different alchemies, personalities, histories, experiences and musical influences.

"We did our first show in The States, so we didn't really have any promises to keep over there - no one even knew who the hell we were."

Touring the US with Band Of Horses and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard last year was a really liberating experience for the band, Dunn says, since it can be rare for an audience to have such open ears for an unknown act. "It was pretty surreal playing songs that have just been written to crowds of 2,000 people. We went in thinking people weren't going to like us at all, we were anticipating being booed off stage or whatever! But the crowds were awesome, King Gizzard have cultivated a really great, unique sort of crowd who really care about music and are interested in new stuff." 

Dunn describes the process behind the making of this album as extremely experimental, citing track seven, Shellfish Toxin, as a good example: "Gaz and Hammel were really exploring different sound palettes. Composer Ben Morrison helped steer it in a certain direction. The last recording that we did, Gaz came into town and set Hammel up to record. She pretty much had to record this song that she [had] literally never heard... It freaked her out a bit but she did awesome!

"At base level, A Laughing Death In Meatspace is pretty psychedelic," Dunn continues. "We're trying to pull away from traditional rock'n'roll or pop or punk, but there are elements of all of that in there. As a general principle, I think it's really pushing away from a lot of those kind of stereotypical things. I think that's a response from the fact that all four of us just wanted to do something that we haven't attempted before, you know?"

When asked about their band name, Dunn says, "It was in some way an indicator of a lot of our decisions; decisions that were made pretty much quickly and wildly, while all laughing.

"Inevitably, the music feeds into what the name means, so you've gotta chose something as your marker and roll with it.

"We were thinking we'd get some sort of censorship in The States, but funnily enough we had none of that. Our name was up in lights in a lot of venues! It's not an obstacle, it's just a funny way to measure what media is [like in different countries] - straight and or not. We may have cursed ourselves. though... Throughout the whole United States tour, after we left, there seemed to be some sort of 'tropical fuck storm'! After the Alabama show, it flooded, after Oklahoma, there was a cyclone, San Fransisco, there were bushfires... And we exploded two fuse boxes at The Gasometer last year!"