“We released it in October on CD and cassette and then we were awaiting vinyls,” says guitarist/co-vocalist Mark Ryan. “The vinyls took quite a while to arrive – we got those about two months ago now, but on the same day that I got 500 vinyls, I also got a phone call from our drummer saying, ‘Hey I’m going to Germany.’ So the album has been out for a little while and we have been spruiking it, but we figured we haven’t had the launch party for the LP. This is why it’s a two-in-one kind of thing.”
Bite Your Tongue is Spacejunk’s second album, following their 2014 self-titled release. The latest album is similar in its coverage of a range of hard rock genres, from thrash punk to fuzz rock and spookier post-punk sounds. But on this album they sounds less like a group of enthusiastic music fans than guys with the ability to spin something captivating from their taste for noisy rock music.
“The first record, we did it really quickly,” Ryan says. “We had a whole bunch of songs, which we just went and recorded in our rehearsal room. We were like, ‘We’re going to be playing gigs. Let’s just make an album that we can just sell at gigs.’ We didn’t do any clips or any promo. We didn’t really think about that at all. But it turned out quite a few people [liked it] and we got a couple of nice reviews. I think maybe the style we were playing was a little bit different from other bands going around at that particular point in time.
“With the second one, we just spent a bit more time on it, spent a bit more money on it. Bite Your Tongue is in a similar vein. It’s probably a bit heavier, it’s a bit angrier, it’s pretty pissed off, it’s got a fuller sound.”
This Saturday’s show runs from mid-afternoon right up until the wee hours of Sunday morning. The lineup includes recognised names such as Cherrywood, Digger and the Pussycats and Tankerville, plus a bunch of lesser known acts like Shinplasters and Smoke Witch. After this show Spacejunk plan to find a substitute drummer for the next 12 months, then reinstate Price upon his return from Germany. But just in case things don’t work out that way, they wanted to make sure it was a huge night.
“We thought, ‘Let’s just get all our mates bands or bands we’ve played with who have been supporters of us and also bands who we’re fans of.’ Digger and the Pussycats are mates and also one of my favourite bands. Escargo-go’s, they’re mates. We share a rehearsal room with them. Chris [Drane] who plays drums in Escargo-go’s is also in Cherrywood and Tankerville. So we’re seeing if we could torture him via drums. Mod Vigil is a newish band with Tim [Wold] from Kids of Zoo and Andre [Fazio] who was in Baptism of Uzi. Master_Beta, they’re all guys Eugene [Ryan, Spacejunk guitarist] went to high school with.
“There’s a bit of a mixed bag of rock genres in that lineup. We’ve got from 3 o’clock in the afternoon until 3 in the morning to hang out and drink beers with all these blokes from bands who we want to hang out with.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
