Q&A with Bayonets For Legs

My name is: Nathan James Mulholland

I play in: Bayonets For Legs (bass)

We sound like: the kids who were listening to emo ten years ago all grown up and out of image. Still punk kids at heart, but looking at music so one dimensionally is real boring.

Inspired by: lots of stuff: Last Days of April, Paul Kelly, Wilco, Crowded House etc etc

We reside in: Sydney, except our drummer, he's from some place called Picton. I went there once, there's a creepy church that has a picture of Mary in the stained glass window out front. There's also something called "the Picton tunnel". Obviously it's a tunnel, but there's ghosts there or some shit. I guess however you can turn a buck, right?

Our local music scene is: It's always changing. I'm loathed to say it's bad, because it isn't... But it's not amazing either. People get out and support each other, and some really good people are starting to put together some really good mini festivals. I'd say "it's getting there", but really, what is "there". It's swings and round abouts. A few inner city venues are closing down, but there are more suburban places opening up which is good news for everyone.
The most annoying thing about our scene is: I'm gonna say two things here. The first is djs who think they're bigger than the bands they're spinning after. Look, a guy who's spinning house music for a dance club, dropping beats in, scratching etc, I can see the merit in that, I see how Girltalk can be considered art... The guy is incredible. You go to a dance club and they're the talent, because they are. Then you go to one of these fucking "alternative" clubs where there's three rooms and the room with the band in it is the empty one, and the rooms with the djs are packed. I don't see the merit in simply owning Fall Out Boy and Paramore's entire catalogue of singles and knowing were each song stops so you know when to hit the fader. Why are these guys the stars? We've got it wrong, it's like there's all icing, and no cake. I enjoy hearing songs I know as much as anyone else, but there is such a reluctance for people to look for anything new. We just keep recycling the same fucking formula to try to fill the same venues with the same people looking for the same thing three-four nights a week. Soon, hopefully, it's going to reach critical mass and the landscape will change. That excites me.

The second is (and I'm sure there's a more apt name for it that I don't know) cultural gentrification. Basically it's all these upper middle class assholes who buy property around established venues and complain about the noise coming from them in order to get them shut down. Shut down the venue, you remove the "unfavourable element" (although I'm quite sure there is much, much less trouble at the end of a night of live music than there is at 4am outside just about any suburban pub in Australia packed with assholes trying to prove their alpha male status). Seriously, who the fuck moves into an area like oxford st. or close to the Annandale hotel looking for peace and quiet? Two kinds of people. Fucking idiots, and people looking to turn a buck on property. State governments and local councils REALLY need to look at this. Look at the occurrence of incidents outside the Annandale hotel compared to those outside the Mean Fiddler and see which one should be shut down. It's a war on culture, and it's a war on anything that doesn't fit neatly into their neat little paradigm as to what's acceptable for them to live near and for their kids to grow up near, and the kind of boring as shit, middle of the road Australia assholes like Allan Jones and any other motherfucker who picks up a microphone on most any AM radio station in Australia (read 2GB and MTR) want. Fuck that. We can't let it happen.

Our best gig to date was: Our Sydney launch show was incredible...

The song that gets me dancing is: This site is "white boy dance floor", right? Imagine a six foot eight, kind of out of shape, white as white can be white boy on the dance floor... Nothing good comes from it... So no song gets me dancing... Sorry.

First album I bought: smash hits '93... Yep, pretty credible. The first "real" album I bought, however, was Nevermind by Nirvana.

If I could have written any song it would have to be: uh... If we're talking love/relationship songs, Ten Minutes by The Get Up Kids is pretty great... If we may talk protest songs (don't give me this shit about there being no good protest artists nowadays), Slow Down Ghandi by Sage Francis pretty much encapsulated every single fucking retarded thing that has happened in this world in the last 15 years and (except for a lack of references to The Jersey Shore and Social Networking) is still a relevant song. Oh, and "Question" by Old 97's... I wish I could have written that for when I propose to my girl.

Do you play Fifa? Nah, not really a gaming person.

Favourite Restaurant: one of the only "real" restaurants I've ever been to is the Orange on Chapel st.

The thing I hate most about bloggers is: hahaha... Loaded question much? Everyone has an opinion, bloggers, sometimes, are able to articulate theirs fairly well. At the very least, bloggers aren't tied up with commercial agreements that tie their hands as to what they can give a kicking when it's needed. I'm a pretty firm believer in speaking your mind. I don't hate bloggers, per se... Some of their opinions, however, can get fucked (mainly because they don't match my ideology).

Melbourne vs. Sydney? Shit... Simply because I live there, Sydney. Melbourne is a fantastic place though.

My Musical Guilty Pleasure is: I'm just putting this out there... Out of every band in that scene, My Chemical Romance are fantastic.

The sporting team I follow is: the MIGHTY South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Sydney Kings

*thanks for stealing Inglis... sulk - Nancy

If I weren't a musician I would be: a much better employment prospect, a much better boyfriend, a much lower credit risk to banks.

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