Hey, Josh! Your new single, No One Wants A Lover, is a catchy number that features some very infectious hand claps — is this the first time you’ve tried to infect thousands of people with The Clap?
I’ve been rocking the hand clap for many years now. Even on
Middle of the Hill, my very first single, it didn’t even feature drums — it only had hand claps. I’m a bit of a veteran of the ol’ hand clap.
Well dodged. You’ve put out an EP called Beaks of Crows, have a side project called Basement Birds, a song called Birdcage on the Faultline, your new album is called Only Sparrows and it features a duet with the singer from Little Birdy — and we thought we were fixated on birds, but you seem obsessed…
Ha ha! Good call! I hadn’t actually thought about all of those different connections. The funny thing is I don’t actually like birds.
Really? Er… not those birds. I like those birds, don’t get me wrong! I don’t really like pigeons. They’re like the rats of the air. I did have a pet canary when I was a kid but my cat killed it so maybe I’m deeply psychologically scarred from that.
Are you sure you don’t have bird flu? No, but I do find them dirty enough that I believe people can get diseases off them — the animal birds, not birds, if you know what I mean.
Not really. We’re avid bird watchers at ZOO — do you have a favourite bird-watching spot? Ours is Bondi…
Well, I do live at Bronte Beach so, you know…
You’ve been quoted saying, “We’re all trying to leave our mark in some significant or meaningful way.” Sadly, the only significant mark we’ve left was in our undies and it took our mum three hand washes to get rid of — what mark would you like to leave on the world?
Ha ha! I’d prefer them not to be skidmarks! I don’t know. I just want to be proud of all the albums I release and be able to listen to them when I’m an old, decrepit, senile man and not necessarily remember it was me that made them and still enjoy them.
Well, you certainly made a mark when your debut album recently placed No. 34 in the Hottest 100 Australian Albums Of All Time, ahead of Aussie icons like Nick Cave, Cold Chisel and Johnny Farnham — your phone bill must have been through the roof that month! How many texts did you send? Ha! Well, I just got an untraceable phone card and kept pumping up the voting. Those charts are funny. I’m obviously very flattered that I got in there, but I wouldn’t have put myself there if I’d been voting. I love the record, but I think there are a lot of albums that came before my record that deserve to be higher up because of the influence they had on everything that came after.
One person who you didn’t beat on that list was Gotye who, like you, is one of Oz rock’s nice guys. His album made it to No.1 on the charts. Do you secretly hate him for beating you? Give us the goss — we want to stir up some nice-guy bitching…
It’s funny with Wally [De Backer, aka Gotye] because I’ve known him for quite a number of years now, and when I was doing my very first string of shows in Melbourne and I was playing a tiny venue, I met this guy after the show and he was like, “I really like your EP — here’s my record.” And I was like, “Oh, man. That’s you!” Because I worked in a record store at the same time, and we played his first record all the time. And I was like, “Oh, man. This is amazing!” So we kind of had this mutual admiration club happening.
You’re being too nice! Fire up, Josh! Okay. Well, I’m upset with him releasing his album in the same week as mine because he smashed me, ha ha! I wish I could be bitchy about it, but I’m really happy for him because he’s a really good musician.
Lame. Well, at least you go by your own name — what kind of Wally uses a made-up name for a solo project?
Ha ha! You know what was funny — the other day I was in a taxi and the cabbie had 2DayFM on, and this woman rang up requesting a song, and she goes: “Can I hear, er… Is it by Goat? I wanna
here the song by Goat,
Somebody That I Used To Know.”
This mate of ours called Danga is infatuated with one of ZOO’s cover girls. Her name is L’elainia and we have been trying to help him write a love song for her, but we hit a dead end after the first line, which is: “L’elainia, I want to explore your map of Tasmania...” As a famous wordsmith, do you have any pointers for writing a soppy love song? Hmm... I think you should probably avoid explicit references to genitalia.
Damn, there goes our only line…
You could change it to something like,“You elicit my sexual mania” or “My heart’s mania”. So, yeah, you should tone down the blue stuff and go for more feelings and that sort of stuff.
As a recent father, riddle us this: if baby pigs are called piglets, does that make Josh Pyke’s baby a pikelet?
Ha! I have never heard that one before!
Tell us a bit about your trademark beard — we can’t imagine you without it. Were you born with it?
I wasn’t born with it, no, but as soon as I was able to grow a beard, I did cultivate one.
When was that?
When I was like 15. I actually don’t know what’s under there. I haven’t seen my face in ten years or so.
Do you get crap stuck in it? No, I try to be pretty neat and not use it as a napkin.
Have you had anything funny happen to you lately you’d like to share?
Yeah, the last time I was in Melbourne playing, I got busted for drinking in public — that seems appropriate for ZOO. I sort of talked my way out of it. I was on the main drag drinking after the show, trying to find a club, and I went up to this cop to ask for directions. I didn’t even think about the public drinking thing because I’d poured it into a plastic cup. He was like, “Put the booze in the bin.” And I was like, “Sorry, man. No worries.” Then I skolled the rest of it and put it in the bin, and he was like, “Right, well now you’re busted for public drinking.” Then I was like, “But it was ginger ale.” And he goes, “You said it was whisky before.” I was like, “Well, now I’m saying it’s ginger ale and there’s nothing in the cup, so…” And I got away with it!
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Josh Pyke’s new album, Only Sparrows, is out now. Go to www. joshpyke.com for gig info
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