Connecting NT Musicians
Gigantic: An interview with Crassic Park.
There’s a quiet crusade going on in Darwin. Bands and musicians have taken it upon themselves to keep original music alive and well in a scene that has up until now been less than ‘original music friendly’. Darwin ain't called ‘Covers Town’ for nothing...
One such band is Crassic Park. Read the ‘About Crassic Park’ section on their MySpace and you can’t help but be struck by their determination to keep new music on the local agenda. Starting with the one-two punch of “The music scene in Darwin, Australia is pretty much dead, or at least dying…”, their finishing move is equally as bare-knuckled, reconfirming the band's low tolerance for compromise and high commitment towards NT music:
“Crassic Park are determined to keep the town's flailing music scene alive!”
Often it’s the younger bands who reflect this most intensely and articulately – you can hear it in the way they talk, and Crassic Park are no exception. Hailing from Darwin suburbia, Crassic Park are Liam Parry-Mills, 17, (vocals, rhythm guitar); Alec Goodsell, 17, (guitar); Olivier (Olive) Hassan-Fourcard, 16, (bass) and drummer Lachlan West (he's the dude with the green tongue pictured above). Already they’ve played some impressive gigs, winning a local Battle Of The Bands competition and supporting triple j Unearthed darlings, Fire! Santa Rosa Fire! from Adelaide. These four band mates are still in high school, and while they can’t agree on uniform influences or the style of music they play – funk/metal/punk/heavy rock (just so long as it’s not “screamo”!!) – they are in perfect harmony with each other. They know where they’re going, what they’re on about and are doing their darndest to get Darwin to sit up and take notice of its awesome original music.
It’s a tough job but somebody’s gotta do it. And it definitely helps to have humility and a sense of humour...
Music NT: How did Crassic Park evolve - the story behind the band getting together?
Lachlan: Well I was really keen on making a band early last year and I heard about Alec and Liam being good musicians so I asked for a jam, and it sort of came from that. When our ex-bassist Oliver left, Olive - who rules at bass - joined.
Alec: I was brought in to the band by Lachlan. When I first arrived at the school we go to, he wanted a one-on-one jam session with me. In the middle of the session though, Liam walked in and said I was in the band, I had absolutely no idea what was going on.
Olive: Yeah, I joined after the first bassist, Oliver, left. I was friends with Liam and Lachlan at the time when Oliver left and was invited to join the band…
Liam: It’s actually been really confusing that both our bassists have had such similar names, you have no idea!
Music NT: What inspired the band’s name?
Alec: It was a play on the word ‘crass’ which means ‘to be rude and vulgar.’ We were all coming up with names. But the names I was coming up with mainly had the ‘Jurassic Park’ motif (i.e. Eskimo Park.) It was actually Liam who came up with the name, eventually.
Lachlan: So Crassic Park is Jurassic park but really immature and rude.
Liam: Yeah, the dinosaurs swear a lot, and the humans make a lot of fart jokes. We went with it for out first gig in the absence of anything better, and it just stuck.
MuNT: How do you like describe your music?
Alec: We all have our different influences. At first I was skeptical as to whether I would enjoy the music we would play, because Liam was right into the simple punk, 3-chord riff kind of thing and I was right into extreme, technical metal. I think we managed to create a writing style I can only describe as ‘punk without the simplicity.’
Liam: I agree, I think we’ve got the aggression of punk along with the rhythm of funk, and with an alternative rock feel. Plus we’re heavier than punk.
Lachlan: Well I love anything with an awesome ‘feel’ - hip hop, jazz funk etc. I wouldn’t call us punk I would say more hard rock than anything
MuNT: If it’s possible to ask such a question of a band… What is your 'mission statement'? (!!!) Meaning why form the band, what are your priorities, ambitions etc?
Liam: We just formed the band to have fun and for the challenge of playing with each other!
Alec: I just wanna see how big we can get! I’d like to get my name out there and just be able to be in a community with other musicians.
Olive: To make great music?
Lachlan: Just really enjoy playing and have a shitload of fun doing so!
MuNT: Who are Crassic Park’s influences?
Liam: Shit, we’re all over the place - we all like different things. My musical influences are kinda eclectic - The Ramones, The Stooges, Eminem, Lil’ Wayne, Rage Against The Machine, Bright Eyes.
Alec: I haven’t thought about influences in terms of the music we make, but my personal influences in terms of guitar playing include Marty Friedman, Jeff Loomis and Al Di Meola.
Olive: My influences are also a bit out there - I like classical (Bach, Holst), jazz, (Greg Howes, Ruby Braff) and heavy metal sub-genres such as experimental (Boris), sludge (Mastodon), progressive (Tool) and death metal (Opeth).
Lachlan: I’m big on ‘feel’, and I have a soft spot for 70’s music such as Led Zep and Black Sabbath - music that has a lot of punch and balls.
MuNT: How do you find the music scene and culture in Darwin?
Olive: The music community is so small it's hard to get people coming to gigs. But we make the best of it and take advantage of what we can.
Alec: The music scene in Darwin is great because there’s a bit of everything. There’s never an influx of ‘scene’ musicians or pop musicians.
Lachlan: Honestly I think at the moment metal is everywhere which is good. But sometimes it would be nice to talk to someone who doesn’t just love metal and that’s it.
MuNT: How long have you been playing live, and can you also tell us about some of your favourite gigs?
Alec: We’ve been playing live for about a year now and the reactions we’ve been getting are getting better and better. I guess people just really like our music. My favourite gig was probably the 18+ gig on September 4th. I was very nervous about how the audience would respond, but they really supported us and had a good time.
Lachlan: Fuck! The 18+ was awesome!
Olive: We've mostly played at the Happy Yess but we've played at the Darwin Show and at Brown's Mart supporting Fire, Santa Rosa, Fire! at the "Big Gig". Gigs at the Yess get boring though when there's nobody watching us play...
Liam: I respectfully disagree; I love it when there’s no one there! Then you pretty much HAVE to jump around and be ridiculous. Or at least, that’s how I get over it… Giant vs. The Sun and Test Theory are easily the best bands I’ve seen in Darwin I think they’ve been even better than most of the bands that have come about in the past few years. But not everyone agrees, Lachlan hates ‘screamo’ with a passion!
Alec: In terms of local bands Zed Major know how to write catchy rock tunes. We’re also good friends with the guys from Surrender The Dead, whom we’ve played with on several occasions - they know how to put on a good live show.
Lachlan: As Liam said above I despise anything ‘screamo’! In my opinion it’s really sissy. But by far playing with Zed Major would be my favourite…
MuNT: Do you have a regular following, how does your audience respond at your gigs? And how do you stay in contact with them?
Olive: Our audiences seem to like us.
Liam: Staying in contact with the audience? I’m very nervous about that, I like to talk like I’m talking to no-one, and make jokes, and just say stupid shit in general.
Alec: I haven’t really seen a regular following of fans. If anything, all the people who come to our gigs are there to see the other bands.
Lachlan: Well it’s been getting better and better. I feel that we are starting to branch out to people which is awesome!
MuNT: What's the best thing about playing live?
Olive: Playing live I guess, being there, where people are enjoying what you've created.
Alec: The experience. Just having the chance to be able to play in a live situation is a great skill for all musicians.
Lachlan: I love playing in front of people, it’s hard to describe; it’s my thrill and I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t play live. We definitely try to gig as much as possible.
MuNT: Do you have anyone in the NT that you might consider mentors, or influential or supportive in Crassic Park's evolution?
Olive: John Graham, a Music Teacher at Kormilda College was really supportive of us from an early stage.
Alec: The bands and people we play with. We get a lot of our ability to interact with the audience from watching other bands.
Liam: So true. I only started jumping around and stuff after seeing Surrender The Dead a few times. Jaiden, you influenced me something mighty lad!
Lachlan: I would have to say Michael Duckworth is my biggest influence/mentor, he is my drum teacher and has taught me a lot, big ups to you man!
MuNT: What's the best thing you've learned as a band, that you could share with other young Darwin musicians?
Liam: Fucking get it together! Very few bands in Darwin are organised at all! Bands cancel gigs at really short notice WAY too often, and it REALLY pisses me off!
Olive: You've gotta have the motivation to pick up the band and throw it out there to get gigs and get noticed.
Alec: Being in a band is a good thing to have as a musician. You learn about teamwork, collaborative songwriting and performing as an ensemble.
Lachlan: Alec is totally right. As for support for original bands, Darwin really lets them down!
MuNT: How far would you like to take the band? Make it full-time and professional, or is it likely to be a 'transitional' band for all of you, to lead to others later?
Liam: I’m perfectly happy with this band, the interaction between everyone is golden, I love it. At the same time though, I wanna have side projects. But I don’t think any of us actually want to leave the band.
Lachlan: I’m fully behind the band and I think all the attention should be put into one serious band not some silly side projects.
Olive: Haha, it would be great to become a full-time band and I don't think that we will break-up any time soon.
MuNT: If you all weren't playing music, what else would you be doing?
Olive: Gaming.
Alec: I’d probably do something with animation. I did it a lot before I got serious with music.
Liam: Honestly? I’d have to be dead before I stop playing music. The only other thing I do is hang out and watch TV really.
Lachan: Without music, without my drumming, I would be nothing.
MuNT: What's the best compliment you've been given about Crassic Park's music, and the biggest insult?!
Olive: Not having received anything close to a compliment for our music, we can conclude an unspoken insult until then...
Liam: He’s joking! We usually get a few compliments after gigs, some of them are really awesome, it’s really nice to get feedback.
Alec: I got some really good compliments about my playing at a particular gig at Happy Yess, and to me that was really flattering. The biggest insult was from one kid we knew for about one minute (I won’t mention any names) who apparently talked to Liam about kicking me out of the band and hiring him instead.
Liam: Yeah, he probably knows who he is, so if he reads this, no offence man, but you were being a massive dick. We’re very happy with our current line-up.
Lachlan: Um, just cheers for me is the best compliment, and if someone has a complaint I’ll listen if it can better my performance.
MuNT: Do you have any plans to record an EP or album?
Lachlan: Hell yess! As we speak!
Liam: By the time this is published we should have recorded drum tracks for our upcoming EP entitled… who knows, we haven’t decided on a name. Look out for it over the next few months!
Check out Crassic Park on Myspace and their next gig is at Happy Yess October 24, with Semishigure and Zed Major. And an EP launch is just around the corner in November '09. Stay tuned to the MuNT Forum for details!
One such band is Crassic Park. Read the ‘About Crassic Park’ section on their MySpace and you can’t help but be struck by their determination to keep new music on the local agenda. Starting with the one-two punch of “The music scene in Darwin, Australia is pretty much dead, or at least dying…”, their finishing move is equally as bare-knuckled, reconfirming the band's low tolerance for compromise and high commitment towards NT music:
“Crassic Park are determined to keep the town's flailing music scene alive!”
Often it’s the younger bands who reflect this most intensely and articulately – you can hear it in the way they talk, and Crassic Park are no exception. Hailing from Darwin suburbia, Crassic Park are Liam Parry-Mills, 17, (vocals, rhythm guitar); Alec Goodsell, 17, (guitar); Olivier (Olive) Hassan-Fourcard, 16, (bass) and drummer Lachlan West (he's the dude with the green tongue pictured above). Already they’ve played some impressive gigs, winning a local Battle Of The Bands competition and supporting triple j Unearthed darlings, Fire! Santa Rosa Fire! from Adelaide. These four band mates are still in high school, and while they can’t agree on uniform influences or the style of music they play – funk/metal/punk/heavy rock (just so long as it’s not “screamo”!!) – they are in perfect harmony with each other. They know where they’re going, what they’re on about and are doing their darndest to get Darwin to sit up and take notice of its awesome original music.
It’s a tough job but somebody’s gotta do it. And it definitely helps to have humility and a sense of humour...
Music NT: How did Crassic Park evolve - the story behind the band getting together?Lachlan: Well I was really keen on making a band early last year and I heard about Alec and Liam being good musicians so I asked for a jam, and it sort of came from that. When our ex-bassist Oliver left, Olive - who rules at bass - joined.
Alec: I was brought in to the band by Lachlan. When I first arrived at the school we go to, he wanted a one-on-one jam session with me. In the middle of the session though, Liam walked in and said I was in the band, I had absolutely no idea what was going on.
Olive: Yeah, I joined after the first bassist, Oliver, left. I was friends with Liam and Lachlan at the time when Oliver left and was invited to join the band…
Liam: It’s actually been really confusing that both our bassists have had such similar names, you have no idea!
Music NT: What inspired the band’s name?
Alec: It was a play on the word ‘crass’ which means ‘to be rude and vulgar.’ We were all coming up with names. But the names I was coming up with mainly had the ‘Jurassic Park’ motif (i.e. Eskimo Park.) It was actually Liam who came up with the name, eventually.
Lachlan: So Crassic Park is Jurassic park but really immature and rude.
Liam: Yeah, the dinosaurs swear a lot, and the humans make a lot of fart jokes. We went with it for out first gig in the absence of anything better, and it just stuck.
MuNT: How do you like describe your music?
Alec: We all have our different influences. At first I was skeptical as to whether I would enjoy the music we would play, because Liam was right into the simple punk, 3-chord riff kind of thing and I was right into extreme, technical metal. I think we managed to create a writing style I can only describe as ‘punk without the simplicity.’
Liam: I agree, I think we’ve got the aggression of punk along with the rhythm of funk, and with an alternative rock feel. Plus we’re heavier than punk.
Lachlan: Well I love anything with an awesome ‘feel’ - hip hop, jazz funk etc. I wouldn’t call us punk I would say more hard rock than anything
MuNT: If it’s possible to ask such a question of a band… What is your 'mission statement'? (!!!) Meaning why form the band, what are your priorities, ambitions etc?
Liam: We just formed the band to have fun and for the challenge of playing with each other!
Alec: I just wanna see how big we can get! I’d like to get my name out there and just be able to be in a community with other musicians.
Olive: To make great music?
Lachlan: Just really enjoy playing and have a shitload of fun doing so!
MuNT: Who are Crassic Park’s influences?
Liam: Shit, we’re all over the place - we all like different things. My musical influences are kinda eclectic - The Ramones, The Stooges, Eminem, Lil’ Wayne, Rage Against The Machine, Bright Eyes.
Alec: I haven’t thought about influences in terms of the music we make, but my personal influences in terms of guitar playing include Marty Friedman, Jeff Loomis and Al Di Meola.
Olive: My influences are also a bit out there - I like classical (Bach, Holst), jazz, (Greg Howes, Ruby Braff) and heavy metal sub-genres such as experimental (Boris), sludge (Mastodon), progressive (Tool) and death metal (Opeth).
Lachlan: I’m big on ‘feel’, and I have a soft spot for 70’s music such as Led Zep and Black Sabbath - music that has a lot of punch and balls.
MuNT: How do you find the music scene and culture in Darwin?
Olive: The music community is so small it's hard to get people coming to gigs. But we make the best of it and take advantage of what we can.
Alec: The music scene in Darwin is great because there’s a bit of everything. There’s never an influx of ‘scene’ musicians or pop musicians.
Lachlan: Honestly I think at the moment metal is everywhere which is good. But sometimes it would be nice to talk to someone who doesn’t just love metal and that’s it.
MuNT: How long have you been playing live, and can you also tell us about some of your favourite gigs?Alec: We’ve been playing live for about a year now and the reactions we’ve been getting are getting better and better. I guess people just really like our music. My favourite gig was probably the 18+ gig on September 4th. I was very nervous about how the audience would respond, but they really supported us and had a good time.
Lachlan: Fuck! The 18+ was awesome!
Olive: We've mostly played at the Happy Yess but we've played at the Darwin Show and at Brown's Mart supporting Fire, Santa Rosa, Fire! at the "Big Gig". Gigs at the Yess get boring though when there's nobody watching us play...
Liam: I respectfully disagree; I love it when there’s no one there! Then you pretty much HAVE to jump around and be ridiculous. Or at least, that’s how I get over it… Giant vs. The Sun and Test Theory are easily the best bands I’ve seen in Darwin I think they’ve been even better than most of the bands that have come about in the past few years. But not everyone agrees, Lachlan hates ‘screamo’ with a passion!
Alec: In terms of local bands Zed Major know how to write catchy rock tunes. We’re also good friends with the guys from Surrender The Dead, whom we’ve played with on several occasions - they know how to put on a good live show.
Lachlan: As Liam said above I despise anything ‘screamo’! In my opinion it’s really sissy. But by far playing with Zed Major would be my favourite…
MuNT: Do you have a regular following, how does your audience respond at your gigs? And how do you stay in contact with them?
Olive: Our audiences seem to like us.
Liam: Staying in contact with the audience? I’m very nervous about that, I like to talk like I’m talking to no-one, and make jokes, and just say stupid shit in general.
Alec: I haven’t really seen a regular following of fans. If anything, all the people who come to our gigs are there to see the other bands.
Lachlan: Well it’s been getting better and better. I feel that we are starting to branch out to people which is awesome!
MuNT: What's the best thing about playing live?
Olive: Playing live I guess, being there, where people are enjoying what you've created.
Alec: The experience. Just having the chance to be able to play in a live situation is a great skill for all musicians.
Lachlan: I love playing in front of people, it’s hard to describe; it’s my thrill and I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t play live. We definitely try to gig as much as possible.
MuNT: Do you have anyone in the NT that you might consider mentors, or influential or supportive in Crassic Park's evolution?Olive: John Graham, a Music Teacher at Kormilda College was really supportive of us from an early stage.
Alec: The bands and people we play with. We get a lot of our ability to interact with the audience from watching other bands.
Liam: So true. I only started jumping around and stuff after seeing Surrender The Dead a few times. Jaiden, you influenced me something mighty lad!
Lachlan: I would have to say Michael Duckworth is my biggest influence/mentor, he is my drum teacher and has taught me a lot, big ups to you man!
MuNT: What's the best thing you've learned as a band, that you could share with other young Darwin musicians?
Liam: Fucking get it together! Very few bands in Darwin are organised at all! Bands cancel gigs at really short notice WAY too often, and it REALLY pisses me off!
Olive: You've gotta have the motivation to pick up the band and throw it out there to get gigs and get noticed.
Alec: Being in a band is a good thing to have as a musician. You learn about teamwork, collaborative songwriting and performing as an ensemble.
Lachlan: Alec is totally right. As for support for original bands, Darwin really lets them down!
MuNT: How far would you like to take the band? Make it full-time and professional, or is it likely to be a 'transitional' band for all of you, to lead to others later?
Liam: I’m perfectly happy with this band, the interaction between everyone is golden, I love it. At the same time though, I wanna have side projects. But I don’t think any of us actually want to leave the band.
Lachlan: I’m fully behind the band and I think all the attention should be put into one serious band not some silly side projects.
Olive: Haha, it would be great to become a full-time band and I don't think that we will break-up any time soon.
MuNT: If you all weren't playing music, what else would you be doing?
Olive: Gaming.
Alec: I’d probably do something with animation. I did it a lot before I got serious with music.
Liam: Honestly? I’d have to be dead before I stop playing music. The only other thing I do is hang out and watch TV really.
Lachan: Without music, without my drumming, I would be nothing.
MuNT: What's the best compliment you've been given about Crassic Park's music, and the biggest insult?!
Olive: Not having received anything close to a compliment for our music, we can conclude an unspoken insult until then...
Liam: He’s joking! We usually get a few compliments after gigs, some of them are really awesome, it’s really nice to get feedback.
Alec: I got some really good compliments about my playing at a particular gig at Happy Yess, and to me that was really flattering. The biggest insult was from one kid we knew for about one minute (I won’t mention any names) who apparently talked to Liam about kicking me out of the band and hiring him instead.
Liam: Yeah, he probably knows who he is, so if he reads this, no offence man, but you were being a massive dick. We’re very happy with our current line-up.
Lachlan: Um, just cheers for me is the best compliment, and if someone has a complaint I’ll listen if it can better my performance.
MuNT: Do you have any plans to record an EP or album?
Lachlan: Hell yess! As we speak!
Liam: By the time this is published we should have recorded drum tracks for our upcoming EP entitled… who knows, we haven’t decided on a name. Look out for it over the next few months!
Check out Crassic Park on Myspace and their next gig is at Happy Yess October 24, with Semishigure and Zed Major. And an EP launch is just around the corner in November '09. Stay tuned to the MuNT Forum for details!
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Comment by Jaiden.FK on October 1, 2009 at 18:00 -
hahahah I didnt like that blonde kid at all, but good to see you guys kept the show on the road without alec. Never get rid of him!
You guys are amazing! I love gigging with you guys, allways fun!
Yous have being an influence to me aswell (thanks liam :D i look up to as a musician and a bro and a dude with cool hair!) I mean after seeing you guys play a few times and thinking about the lacking scene of realbullsout punk in Darwin, yous inlfuenced me (and daniel) to get shit down and start our side project, voyager kebab mob hahaha.
I love how yous have so much fun when your playing, and yous know how to eat! haha and that gig on the 4th was fun, was awesome as! best first gig iv ever had, launch for slaughtertorall? haha
Seriously keep it up dudes! and we will gig till the end together haha
Ohh and olive IS the look for the band!
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Comment by ZEDMAJOR on October 1, 2009 at 19:01 -
These guys are the best fun to gig with. They just go with the flow and are always consistent with keeping their end of the bargain in terms of being available for gigs.
The Sept. 4th gig we hosted was a huge blast and success, and these guys really helped us out. Not to mention they didn't have a bass player! We would consider these dudes our gigging-army.
P.S. Cheers for the compliment boys!!
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Comment by Mitchell Williams on October 6, 2009 at 15:27 -
I love these guys.
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Comment by Liam Parry-Mills on October 6, 2009 at 17:39 -
haha thanks guys!
Jaiden, you gotta start gigging with voyager kebab, the name is awesome! Zed Major, love you guys, and i can't wait until the 24th! Mitchell, love you right back!
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