1.The First Record I Bought
Nick Moran: Blink-182 – Enema Of The State / Sum 41 – All Killer No Filler. It’s a tie here. I had a bunch of records bought for me but the first ones I bought myself were these two. When I was a young teenager, these were the soundtracks to my life. Like most teenagers I was up and down like a rollercoaster and the honesty of self-degradation and toilet humour meant the world to me. Also it felt ‘rebel’ to me, even though I doubt pop-punk will ever be thought of that way looking back. I’m sure many people like me were inspired to pick up a guitar after hearing how bad a guitarist Tom DeLonge was (his words) and thought, “Hey, I could jump onstage, play guitar and make jokes about how small my dick is.”
2.The Last Record I Bought
Themba Thompson: Utopia Defeated by D.D Dumbo. I saw him at Laneway last month and was blown away. Amazing and inspirational.
3.The First Thing I Recorded
NM: Our lead singer Themba and I were in a punk band back at the start of high school called Absent. I was playing bass in the clarinet ensemble I think (band geek) and Themba asked me if I wanted to be in a punk band and I jumped. Technically our first recording was a tape recorder in our little jam basement. It sounded like shit but it got us in a band comp or two.
4.The Last Thing I Recorded
NM: We just dropped our debut record Mistakes That Nature Made. It’s been two years in the making and I honestly couldn’t be happier. We recorded it down at Vienna People Studios in Annandale with producer Michael McGlynn. It’s such a cool vibe down there and Michael was vital to bringing out the most in these songs.
5.The Record That Changed My Life
Harrison Hunt: Oracular Spectacular by MGMT shaped our sound from the first listen. When that record dropped, the blend of synths, guitars and drums was a game-changer. As kids, we instantly sought to emulate and incorporate some of this sound, and that was definitely the mark of our departure from school yard rock’n’roll. Even while producing Mistakes That Nature Made, we found ourselves returning to songs like ‘Time To Pretend’ to get a feel for track levels and sounds that MGMT used, all those years ago.
Mistakes That Nature Made by the Kahnz isout now independently.
