INTERVIEW: King Parrot's Matt Young
If you’ve ever wondered what an unyielding onslaught of punk-infused grindcore sounds like, look no further than Melbourne's own King Parrot. Not to be confused with the brightly coloured birds, King Parrot is known for their unique take on the grindcore genre, passionate and energetic live performances, and unapologetically Australian attitude. This band has carved out a unique place in the metal scene and have continued to impress and win over audiences from their humble beginnings in 2010 to touring the globe and sharing stages with metal legends.
Despite their underground status, King Parrot has managed to build a dedicated following here in Melbourne and expanding through the rest of the world, thanks in no small part to their electrifying live shows. Whether they're playing to a crowd of hundreds at a festival or a small, sweaty venue, King Parrot gives it their all and it's this commitment to their craft that has and continued to earn them a reputation as one of the best bands around. As King Parrot prepares to release their latest album and embark on more tours, I had the opportunity to talk with their vocalist, Mathew Young, to discuss their music, their journey, and what the future holds for one of Melbourne’s many top-notch bands.
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First and foremost, since you’ve already been in the scene for a while, is there any goals you’re trying to achieve with the new album and with touring, or are you guys just keeping things going?
"Well, I mean, it’s always good to try and build things and grow things, right? Yeah, that’s sorta what we do, I mean, we obviously know that we play a style of music that’s very concentrated on a certain demographic. But what we’ve found over the years of our sound is that, primarily I think we’re like an extreme band. You know we have elements of grindcore and thrash and hardcore, even rock n roll, we kinda fit into more of an extreme mold I guess, or people view us that way anyway. We’ve also drawn from many different influences as I was saying we draw from rock n roll stuff or just hard rock stuff so you know, we’ve been able to sort of create our own sound, but also bring in these other elements to add to the extreme stuff which gives it it’s own, uh, flavour I suppose. That’s something that we’re proud of, I guess. A lot of bands really struggle and it’s really hard to make their own sounds, you know. One thing about King Parrot is I think we sound like us, straight off the bat sort of thing we’ve kinda always had that sound that was us, you know we’re really grateful for that.”
Yeah, there is definitely a very unique sound to king parrot, you hear it and you can tell straight away you’re hearing king parrot
“Yeah, and I guess we sorta try to improve and aim and build on that as we go along. It’s been a little while now since we’ve done a record, we did an EP but that was a covid kind of thing so, now we’re trying to get back to what we love doing, and writing good songs. We feel like we’ve got a really solid collection of songs for this new album so we’re excited. We start recording this weekend, and we’ve been doing tons of pre production sort of working on the songs on our own and at home, jamming, and sending notes back and forth, so we’re really excited to get back into the studio this weekend and start putting drums down and work on the rest over the next month or so. And as soon as it’s done we’ll be working on a plan to get it out there!”When do you think the album'll probably be done and out by?
“Well, once we get going I think, I mean the music itself I don’t think it’s rocket science. We’ve been doing this for a long time so, and we’re pretty well prepared I would say. I think we should be finished with the recording aspect of it within the next month or so, I reckon.”
I’m sure whenever it comes out people will be looking forward to it
“Yeahh, I mean let’s hope so we’ve been sort of pumpin’ it up, we played a few new songs at Knotfest, and they went down really well, that was, you know it was cool to get such a positive response to new songs. So that’s cool, I mean the people were still out there and we’re lucky that we’ve got a really solid fanbase here in Australia, we never take that for granted that’s for sure we’re very grateful for that and you know as soon as it’s done we’ll be back out there, promoting our tour and everything, doing what we always do and working our asses off.”
And the band seemed to of gained a few new fans at knotfest too, since people from outside of Melbourne came down?
“Yeah, I think so, you know it’s always interesting being in a more kinda underground band, I mean, like I said we play a certain type of music, and people who are into extreme music might like that but you know some of the bands that we played with on the Knotfest tour were like, pretty mainstream bands and from my perspective. And I know that might be heavy to some people but from my perspective, what we do is really heavy and what they do sounds like pop music.”
Yeah of course, I'd say King parrot was definitely one of the more sort of heavier bands on the lineup
“Yeah, in terms of the extremity, it was probably us and Thy Art Is Murder, which is more of a deathcore band, and that’s got its own kind of thing going on. And we’re more in the grindcore sort of thing, probably even more obscure again. So I think you get a lot of people coming to those things like Knotfest that haven’t heard of it before or haven’t experienced it before, and you know it’s always great to try to win those people over and we pride ourselves in putting on an entertaining show, the energy and you know, banter back and forth with the crowd, and interaction and all that sort of stuff. So hopefully we’ve got a few new people on board. We can feel the response and lots of people came out early to see us so that was really cool."
And again with the unique sound of king parrot, are their any bands that have influenced that?
“Oh yeah, heaps of bands, lots of bands, I mean we’re influenced by so much. We were all kind of, I mean I was about thirty-ish when we started King Parrot, and all the guys in our band played in other bands before, so I guess all that work that we’d done prior to King Parrot set us up for being in King Parrot and we bring those influences. We always sort of point back to the Australian underground scene that we like to draw a lot of our inspiration and influence from, stuff we grew up on and that some of us played in and played with. We always say the same sort of bands you know Damaged, Blood Duster, Beanflipper, Sadistik Exekution. Squiz used to play in a band (Squiz, our guitarist) used to play in a band called Dreadnaught who I used to love when I was a teenager, you know we always tip our hat to those bands because they were the ones that came before us and they were the ones flying the flag of the underground Melbourne, the Australian metal scene, and there’s so many more great ones as well, Alchemist, Pod People from Canberra are a great band. So many bands but we’re into everything, we’re into all the stuff. Squiz is into old school thrash stuff like Dark Angel and bands like that. I’m more into stuff like Obituary and Cannibal Corpse, death metal stuff. So we’ve all got lots of influences and we just bring it all in, you know?” “Lot’s of punk rock influences I wanna say too, old school punk rock stuff; Discharge, Subhumans, bands like that I love”
A lot of that defintiely comes through in the music too
“I’d like to think so, yeah."
Then again with how you played some of the new songs at Knotfest, are you gonna play any more of the new songs at any shows before the album comes out?
“Yeah, we’re doing Tasmania real soon, and we’re just about to announce some shows, a show in Mildura and a show up in Broken Hill. We’ve never played in Broken Hill before so that’s gonna be cool and Mildura we’ve played in a bunch of times but it’s been a year or two since we’ve been up there so I’ll be looking forward to going up there. We’re gonna start showcasing the new stuff and just getting it ready to put out there and giving our fans a bit of a taste of what’s to come. When you’ve been playing in a band for this long, it’s been nearly 15 years for us, when you’re playing the same songs over and over, I’m not complaining don’t get me wrong but you could only imagine how bands like the Rolling Stones feel when they’ve been playing for 60 years or something playing the same songs. It must get like, a bit tedious I’d imagine when you’re 60 or 70 years old playing songs that you wrote when you were 20. But yeah it’s great to play a new song, it’s really fun to get new ones out there especially when the audience is responding, which is what we definitely got when we started playing new ones at Knotfest and when we played with Pantera. So it’s cool we definitely know a couple of them work that’s for sure.”
I’m sure you guys will definitely get a positive response with any more new songs you play
“Let’s hope so. I mean if they boo us we don’t give a fuck either way.”
Yeah of course, and you’ve been working with Phil Anselmo [Pantera], how has it been working with him?
"Yeah, good, we’ve had a good working relationship with Phillip for about 10 years now being signed on Housecore records and we recorded our second album Dead Set at his studio in Luisiana, and we recorded that EP that he appeared on at his studio as well. That was just a thing you know, when we’ve been at his studio writing and working on new music, I always sort of sit with him and go over the ideas I’ve had and lyrics I’ve had and he’ll give me some feedback, and we might change a few words here and there or he’ll give me some pointers on things he’s learnt over the years. When you get the opportunity to work with someone as prolific as him, you know, you listen I guess, and I sort of consider it a privilege to be able to work with someone like that. It’s pretty incredible, and we always feel grateful that we have the opportunity to do that sort of stuff. That song in particular we set a goal, we had 5 or 6 days off and we set a goal for ourselves to write and record as many songs as we could in the 4 or 5 days that we had. Like we had nothing to start with, so we wrote the song, we had the studio set up with all the recording gear, and we just went for it. That was the whole idea, in the way that we write the vocals always come at the end. We had those songs, and I was writing the first three and this last one, the one that Phillip sang on he actually wrote the vocals, the. It just had a bit of a different vibe to it than the other ones and the other ones were taking up my time and all of that and I just said to Phillip ‘hey, if you’ve got any ideas for this, go for it.’ You know, and he sort of just showed me what he was doing, and I recorded it and then he put some vocals down as well and that’s the story behind that one.”
And then again with live shows sort of a typical question, but before you go onstage do you and the band have any sort of like ‘rituals’ or something that you do before you go onstage to sort of ensure the show goes well, or do you just get out there?
“Yeah, we just go out there really, we just do our thing. Cause we’re getting a little older now we just give each other a little shoulder massage and stuff like that, that’s something we all do. Because we like to headbang and get into it, so if you were like backstage before we were playing a show you might see a bunch of middle-aged men giving each other massages. That’s something we do. But last year we lost someone close to the band, our friend Boyd Synnott. he was like the 6th member of our band he helped us with a lot of our artwork and concepts, merchandising, tour posters, video ideas, he was the parking inspector in the Shit on The Liver video. He was my best friend and he tragically passed last year, I always like to try to keep him in my thoughts before we go onstage and whisper a few words to him and keep him very close to our hearts because he was such a big part of everything we do as a band. Since he passed that’s been something that I’ve done before each show, just keep him with us. A little superstitious or something I don’t know I just feel his energy around, and I like to think he’s sort of guiding us along as we go into this next phase of the band wihtout him.”
I'm sorry that's happened to you, I'm sure he's definitely watching and proud of you guys for continuing with what you do
“Yeah it was a really tricky and heartbreaking thing to have to deal with, but we just gotta keep pushing on and keep doing it. The artwork for the new album, it’s gonna be something that he inspired, and at Knotfest the backdrop that we had up at Knotfest that was his artwork, and we had his artwork on the drum skins and everything like that, we just wanna keep his memory alive. There are thousands of King Parrot t shirts out in the world that have his artwork on them so that makes me happy.”
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“Check our website, and our social media, we’re always updating that stuff. And we’ve got these shows coming up in Tasmania. We’re doing Devonport, Launceston, Hobart, and then Mildura and Broken Hill, and we’re looking at potentially going back to the states later this year as well. And hopefully later this year we see the new record, new videos, and another tour of course cause that’s just what we do!”
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