What are your top four influences (apart from Ennis Tola)?
“The dark secrets hidden in the corners of expanded consciousness, well-timed yet obvious puns, the perfect latte and the desire to become washed-up and addicted to boring drugs.”
What are your top four influences (apart from Ennis Tola)?
“The dark secrets hidden in the corners of expanded consciousness, well-timed yet obvious puns, the perfect latte and the desire to become washed-up and addicted to boring drugs.”
Your music is dark, complex, but has serious groove as well. Are you guys from outer space? Is that why you have a song called Alien Gods ?
“We come from a place where the reverberations of the universe swirl like a double helix. Where one can only travel atop the audible waves of ones own groove. The fatter the groove, the smoother the ride. Myki still doesn’t work with this mode of transport.”
What can we expect from Xenograft in 2011?
“An EP, bigger gigs and gigs outside of Melbourne. Plus a bunch of wanky new songs…”
Have you/will you ever write a song about your drummer James’ fabulous hair? If you don’t, we will.
“Such a song would require the skills of four or five bands. The song would last for 157 minutes and anyone who listens to it would awaken to find they now have a perm.”
If you could recruit anyone, living or dead into Xenograft, who would it be?
“Karen Heath from Ennis Tola; in my opinion she’s holding up the band. Everyone else in the band is the musical equivalent of a game of Jenga played by a drunk with Parkinson’s disease. If you remove Karen from her precariously stacked band mates they all just become blocks of wood with the Parker Brothers logo on them.”
Is it hard to keep up motivation within the band with Ennis Tola sounding so wicked all the time?
“Although it is difficult to maintain motivation in the face of such awesomeness, we as a band, spend all the money we make from gigs on Tony Robbins seminars. That and we steal all the music Ennis Tola throws out.”
ENNIS TOLA being hassled by XENOGRAFT
Does the name Ennis Tola derive from anything or did you just want a pseudo-exotic sounding name that had phallic undertones?
“Originally, we wanted to call the band Penis Molar. A lot of people still call us this anyway. However, after playing around with a few variations, we consulted the oracle (Google) to check if we were saying swears in another language, but were astonished to find that it was Gaelic for ‘Island’ and ‘an abundance of water’. Some months later, we discovered that Ennis is also a first name in Ireland. Like ‘Dennis’.”
Is it true you found your sound in a Persian rug that had been lost behind a gypsy’s microwave?
“Although there is rarely room behind gypsy microwaves for floor coverings, in this case, yes, this is where we found our sound.”
In an article in National Geographic it was mentioned that Karen Heath has seven arms and creates musical instruments while she’s playing existing ones. Why do you and the others feel worthy enough to play with her?
“Karen isn’t all as she may appear. She only has 3.5 arms and generally leans against a mirror to look as though she has more. She’s very vain.”
We haven’t played a gig together since Showdown at The Espy. Is that because only a showdown is fitting of our rivalry?
“Yes. Our next gig on Saturday January 29 at The East Brunswick has a codename: ‘Xenocalypse’. The one after that will have to be called ‘Menace Tola’. Puns.”
What can you offer music fans of the world that Xenograft can’t?
“Free champagne at all of our shows, hookers, and a tidy million dollar reward each time you come to our gigs*.” (*This is a lie.)
If you could travel back in tim e, where would you play a gig?
“This is a difficult choice, as it seems, according to television, a lot of things happened in the old days. Probably we would play supporting The Beatles (I’m sure this would be easy to arrange), making sure someone took lots of photos and recordings, and then make an absolute killing with book and movie deals when it’s discovered in 2011 that we can time travel. Although, if we could travel back in time, we might also just bet on the horses, after first researching who had would have won. With the money, we would then return to the present day, do lots of tours and make music ALL the time!’
ENNIS TOLA and XENOGRAFT play The East Brunswick Club with Indians To Heaven and Shoes For Strings this Saturday January 29. Tickets from The East Brunswick Club, 9388 9794 or eastbrunswickclub.com.
