As Shrimpwitch, Kim Prawn and Georgi Goonsack are some of the newer magical sea creatures to wash ashore from the depths of Melbourne’s garage punk scene. Covered in glitter and bright makeup, they are glamorous but filthy, all style and John Waters influences.
What Shrimpwitch actually means is hard to pin down, with its origins equal parts paradoxical metaphor and a Meredith Music Festival costume involving a bright orange, witch sleeved op shop dress.
“It was an accident we stumbled across, that has come to work very well. It has a lot of paradoxes within it – which you can say of Shrimpwitch as a band, and how we present ourselves.
“It’s at once, kind of ridiculous, and sexual, and sensual, and fun, and that’s interesting for women because a lot of the time women aren’t allowed to be a lot of things at the same time,” Prawn says.
Though passionate about music, neither woman was an accomplished musician before the band’s formation, learning solely for the purpose of being in a band.
Prawn bought a drum kit behind her mother’s back as a teen, only to take up guitar, and Goonsack discovered her knack for the drums at 2am, playing an electronic kit at a house party.
“I’d never thought I was musical whatsoever. In my mind I wanted to be a singer, but I didn’t think I had a good enough voice. Turns out I just had a different sounding voice,” Goonsack says.
“The first song we wrote,” Goonsack begins, “I just hit the snare and the kick the whole way through, smacked my feet on the high hat.”
“And I play two chords,” Prawn adds.
“And that was our first song, and our golden ticket I suppose. Cause if we can produce that, it means we’ve got a sound. Silly and sexual and ridiculous.”
“It’s always been silly, hence the name Shrimpwitch.”
Rolling along in the current, they have the honour of marking the first ever release from inclusive label Hysterical Records, with their high energy, high glamour, mock rock EP Eggs Eggs Eggs.
“We always wanted it to be silly on some level. And because we weren’t musicians really, it was a matter of what we could do. But that’s good, this is all we’ve got, so we’re not going to try and make it into bells and whistles. We want to see what we can find by exploring our capabilities rather than feeling like we have to explore something else.”
Eggs Eggs Eggs is short and sharp, featuring four bold tracks encompassing those tenets from earlier. From Lust for a Kick, all about casual sex, to Minimum Chips, an ode to fried potato and getting by, all delivered in a brightly political manner.
“We’re only interested in writing hits, you’ve got to make everything a banger. No filler.”
The sex positive, individualistic atmosphere of the label has been the perfect fit for the Melbourne duo, fostering their unique talent and position in the music scene.
“I’m really honoured to be a part of Hysterical, and the fact that we’re the first release,” Prawn says. “Since we’ve been a band, there’s been a really supportive community of female, queer, gender nonconforming people around us, that has sort of sprung up around us.
“All of us in this scene, we were floating around, we didn’t have a solid identity. It’s good that someone finally came out and made a label for it. A place for us exists now.”
Recorded in half a day, Eggs Eggs Eggs was tracked live, in only two or three takes per song. The setting up time was most of the work.
“I made so many mistakes on the EP, but we picked the best deliverance, the energy was more important,” Prawn says.
“Because that’s what it sounds like. I’m not going to put in lots of reverb or change my voice, and start to compare myself to something like that,” Goonsack says.
“I think that’s something people have appreciated about Shrimpwitch, especially at the start,” Prawn adds. “We started playing shows after that first Wet Fest, and we had a tiny, tiny set, and we didn’t have our sealegs at all, so we really learnt in front of people.”
