Since 2013, hard-working Perth grunge rockers The Love Junkies have wrapped up two albums and one EP, and come the start of October they will have toured them all. On the day they got the hard copies of their new album,Blowing On The Devil’s Strumpet(and popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate), I spoke with singer Mitch McDonald about the touring life and how the album almost got lost in the matrix.
“It’s like a Shakespearean term for whore,” McDonald explains when I enquire about the album title. “So you think it’s about a trumpet, but it’s not … There’s a song on the EP that’s called ‘Blowing On The Devil’s Strumpet’ and the theme to that song is inspired by the name. I initially didn’t mean it to be like, dirty, but I guess the more you think about it the dirtier it gets.”
It marks a departure from the trio’s 2013 album Maybelene, via the flourishes of R-rated subtexts that come from aging. “Lyrically [the album] touches on some pretty confronting issues,” McDonald says. “It’s hard to say but it’s definitely darker than Maybelene. Those songs were written [when we were] 19 or 20 and a lot’s happened since then. It sounds like everything that I’ve absorbed over the last couple of years.”
Those last couple of years have taken The Love Junkies on tour with British India and to every venue in Australia worth playing. They’ve even gone to Singapore, where they played to K-pop-thirsty crowds on 20-watt amps and tried to get their buzz on with $20 pints. “It was interesting,” McDonald says.
Unlike the Singaporean gigs, their bouts at home are usually friendlier on the kitty – but only to a point. “The only free thing you get being a musician is piss,” McDonald says, perhaps realising he should’ve been asking for sandwiches on their rider instead of making requests to mess with organisers (in the past, they’ve asked for things like batteries and a beer ensemble to cater to the band members’ differing tastes in ales).
Of all the touring and various shows, their Big Day Out set the year before last still stands at the forefront. “It was pretty boss to see so many people get down there early to see us,” McDonald remembers. But their proudest moment is when they first sold out their hometown venue, Mojo’s, for the Maybelene album launch. “It sold out in eight minutes,” says the singer. “That was sick. It was mind-blowing.”
Though they’ve come a long way since then, Blowing On The Devil’s Strumpet mightn’t even have made it to an album launch. The computer that held their magnum opus gave them technical issues, and it became difficult to extract the music from a problematic hard drive. There was no contingency plan – “I probably just would’ve given up,” McDonald says – but eventually they “took the hard drive out and we got [the music] back, thank Christ.”
It’s because they’ve always managed to stay one album ahead of themselves that The Love Junkies have been able to maintain an unrelenting release and touring schedule. “We’d already demoed [the new album] before the Maybelene release,” McDonald explains, “But heaps of songs have been written since then.” Does that mean another release will come on the heels of BOTDS?You bet. But after they almost lost their baby to the matrix in the rush of touring, the boys might take some time to chill before they do it all again – “At least for a couple of months.”
Blowing On The Devil’s Strumpet out now through Butsikatsic / MGM atSpectrum onSaturday September 20.Also appearing at Hamilton Station Hotel, Newcastle on Sunday September 21.
