This week get to know the members of Baby Shower.
We are once again focusing on up-and-coming Melbourne bands that deserve to be seen in their full glory on stage. Get to know each group with our fortnightly deep dives into their worlds and you might just want to grab a ticket to their next show.
Baby Shower consist of Shaun (bass-player) and Alison, who plays the electric ukulele (in a cool way, not in a folk way) and writes the words and sings the songs. Having formed their current, three-piece line-up two years ago, including drummer Katie, Baby Shower have been playing across the Melbourne scene with bratty, piss-taking abandon.
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“Our sound is pretty all over the place,” says Shaun. “Alison and I have been playing music for eight years and so we’ve had so many different influences in there, making it really hard to narrow down our sound.” But the main appeal of this band is their marriage of personality and rocking tunes. “We’re punk 50% of the time and sweet, little angels the rest of the time.”
I sat down with these little angels on Zoom to discuss their love for Delta Goodrem’s debut album and their call to fight Alex Turner.
If you could remove one artist from popular music, who would it be?
Alison answered this question pretty quickly. “That’s an easy one for me, because it would be my ex… just kidding!”
The consequences of removing an artist from popular music interested them more though. “Imagine looking at a parallel universe where you just removed the Beatles and seeing where music went…” Shaun was quick to chime in: “Wasn’t that a movie though?”
Who would you say is your most unlikely source of inspiration?
“There’s a Venn diagram where there’s a lot of cross-over between the three of us,” says Alison, “but Delta Goodrem comes up a lot more than you’d expect. She’s a huge influence. We have a lot of pop influences for a little punk band.”
“We love music that, for whatever reason, is authentic,” Shaun adds. “You could tell that Delta Goodrem, on her debut album, was 17 and just trying to get it all out. We’re really drawn to a lot of bands that you can tell that it’s coming from somewhere other than the money-making machine. That’s something we look out for lyrically and musically.”
What is one band who you would be the support act for?
“I’m really obsessed with Wet Leg at the moment,” says Shaun. “But it’s because, not only do I literally love all of their songs, but in all of their behind the scenes stuff they’re just silly and wacky and taking the piss out of themselves: I really respect the energy they bring.”
“I feel like they’ve gotten a lot of influence from us in that way,” jokes Shaun. “Jokes aside, I think they would be super fun to play with.”
What has been your worst gigging experience?
Alison remembers their most traumatic and strange gig the best. It was “in St Kilda, at the Espy, like a thousand years ago. One: I was wearing a backwards flat-cap, who did I think I was? Two: I was going through a break-up; I was just crying all day. Three: I forgot my instrument to the gig and we were about to play. I was like to Dave, ‘Where’s my uke?’ and he was like ‘Oh… I didn’t pack it.’”
“Such a nightmare. We went up to the headlining band and said ‘Sorry, we can’t play’, because no-one ever has a spare electric ukulele! We even asked the headline act if we could swap places with them and they were like, ‘Weird flex, but okay’. We sounded terrible and suddenly we were headlining!”
What band would you have a Battle of the Bands against?
“I love the Arctic Monkeys,” says Shaun, “but I would want to go on a showdown with them. Because I secretly think that, because they take themselves so seriously, that the crowd would be on our underdog side. So we would get the victory of being the winning band in the end. You got to aim high.”
“I’m putting it out there. Alex Turner, this is the official challenge. Are you a coward or will you face us live on stage?”
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Lastly, why should people who don’t know you come and see your gig?
“We do a totally improvised song each time,” Alison wants you to know. “But it’s not comedy! We’re not a comedy band. It is something a little bit different. I don’t know too many bands, probably for really good reason, that make up their songs entirely on the spot.”
“You’re going to get a lot of banter,” says Shaun. “A lot of audience interaction. We’re not one of those bands that play the songs through and that’s what you’re going to get.”
Check out Baby Shower on Instagram and Facebook for upcoming gigs and follow them on Spotify to listen to their self-titled EP.
