With the Straight Arrows in their 11th year having just released third studio album, ON TOP!, one could infer that Penglis is familiar with the vicissitudes inherent of a rock’n’roll life. However, when the band was last in Melbourne they got a shock no up-and-coming band could have anticipated.
“On our single tour at the start of the year at our show in Collingwood Henry Rollins showed up.” Penglis’ voice shudders into laughter of joyful disbelief, as he grapples with the reality that one of the most important figures in alternative music just ‘showed up’ at his show.
“I went over to say ‘hi’ to him and he was kind of strange so I just left him alone, he was probably getting punished by everyone at the show when he just wanted to check out some rock’n’roll,” says Penglis.
Penglis now reveals that while the former singer of Black Flag wasn’t up for chit chat, he most certainly had Penglis’ back when shit went down: “Just as we were starting a kid threw a beer can at me and it hit me in the head. Apparently, just after it happened Henry turned to the kid and said ‘that’s not cool man’ and the kid went and hid for the rest of the night.”
To add further intrigue to the story and possibly a bit of fuel to the Sydney/Melbourne rivalry, the ‘kid’ was Jake Doyle, guitarist and co-vocalist of local garage rock band Drunk Mums. Doyle said the can was empty and Penglis saw the funny side.
Throughout the retelling of this tale, Penglis’ do-it-yourself ethos, one which proved the cornerstone to the Washington D.C. punk scene during the 1980s and continues to personify the garage genre to this day, was easily apparent.
“I’m just ironing some prints onto merch ahead of the album tour.” The album that Penglis speaks of is a tight 11-track, 28-minute-long document of contemporary garage rock.
ON TOP! is the followup up to their sophomore release, 2014’s Rising, and comes eight years on from their stellar debut, It’s Happening.
It’s Happening was also the first release to be put out on the then recently-established Rice Is Nice record label. Penglis explains that the twin emergence was no coincidence.
“I’d known Jules [Wilson] for a little while through mutual friend Patrick Matthews and I had a bunch of songs I’d recorded in the spare room at my house with Al and we had decided to put out a 45,” Penglis explains.
The ‘Al’ Penglis refers to is Straight Arrows guitarist and backing vocalist Al Grigg.
“So me and Al had these songs that we were going to release and when I told Jules, she told me that she was planning on starting a label. Everyone had said it would be too hard but I was like ‘fuck it, let’s do it’.”
Rice Is Nice, established in 2008 by Julia Wilson and Ben Shackleton, is now in it’s tenth year. The label identified, then released, the music of a multitude of highly-regarded Australian artists including the likes of Seekae, The Frowning Clouds, The Laurels, Summer Flake and more.
That’s why there’s added sentiment to Straight Arrows’ headline slot at The Hub for Melbourne Music Week.
“We love Melbourne and have so many friends down there that we always feel at home. To be headlining a night Melbourne Music Week is great but to combine that with celebrating ten years of Rice Is Nice with Jules and Ben is what makes it really special.”
