Q+A/ IRUKANDJI

"We generally like being assholes and just want to have fun as a band."

Introducing Post 88's first heavier blog post, an interview with Electric guitar player, Patrick Moroney, from Brisbane's metal band Irukandji.

88: How did you guys form?

Pat Moroney: Around June 2009, lead guitarist Matt ran into an old friend, Jake, who had since become a drummer. They decided to have a jam together and they felt they could work together fairly easy, so Matt gave me a call and invited me to join up. We previously worked together in a thrash metal band called Emperium where our current bass player Jamie was lead screamer and bass, so i guess the position was given straight up to Jamie. How Ed came along is based entirely on luck.

I decided to go out on a Tuesday night to Gertie's and I by chance ran into Ed Reinhart, who I went to school with and was also rhythm guitar in my first band Audacious, so I knew he was keen to be working in a group again. I was only too happy to tell him I had a band lined up, with only lead vocals to fill, and when he rocked up to practice I didn't know what to expect, but we played a Lamb of God cover and he fucking killed it, so from that moment on Ed would become the face of Irukandji.

Sadly though, after a good 4-5 months of being the first band, Jake moved to Western Australia, so we had no practice for well over a month, which almost ripped us apart. This only made matters worse when out of the blue, we were invited to play our first ever gig at the Globe theatre on their "Perdition" metal night. We had 1 month to find a new drummer. However our manager Bella, being the lovely person she is, met Max, the amazing drummer we now have the honour of playing with. When i told him about our predicament he lept at the opportunity and nailed the set list. So basically, to actually answer the question you asked me, Irukandji formed entirely out of luck haha.

88: With a quick type into Google, I discovered Irukandji is the name of a jellyfish (seems like a long way from metal!). Who came up with this as your band name and why?

PM: Well, for the first few months we had everything a band needs except a name. We tried out different things but ultimately none of them had enough zazz. Ed was partaking in a first aid course and during that course they dedicated about 2 hours talking about the "Irukandji Jellyfish", and more importantly the "Irukandji Symptom", which is the way in which most people die after being stung by an Irukandji Jellyfish. It's not the poison of the jellyfish sting, but the complications in your body after being stung. Your blood basically rushes through your body as such a rate that it feels like concrete rather than blood, and "a feeling of impending doom",Ed thought that was pretty badass. We were worried that if we had a name like Irukandji people would write us off on the basis they couldn't spell/pronounce it, we decided fuck 'em, if we were making music to be liked by people we wouldn't be making music!

88: What is it about metal? Why not say, pop?

PM: Well to me, metal is the reason I bought my first guitar. I loved the energy. The feeling you get from cutting through all the bullshit and hearing the raw power of each instrument and especially the brutality of the vocalist. It's definitely something you wouldn't understand unless you were into it.

88 How do you see yourselves as standing out from other metal bands?

PM: In Brisbane fortunately enough there are a lot of bands that are all striving to be a bit different, so it keeps everyone on the cutting edge, trying to do things bigger and better than the last band. I see Irukandji standing out by having a range of different musicians, all influenced by different bands adding their own artistic flare to each song. When playing shows, Matt and myself have the added bonus of having the most ridiculous guitars of pretty much any other band that plays alongside us on the night. After shows I usually get multiple people asking me if i could give them my guitar, which is never going to happen, as I love that guitar more than I could ever love any human child that does or does not belong to me.

88: Who would you say are Irukandji’s biggest influences and why?

PM: Every single member of Irukandji listens to a decent amount of Pantera, so they would have to be our biggest influence, but to be honest we all have so many different influences that we just accept we have different viewpoints on our music and that helps us be diverse and create something we can all be happy with.

88: How do you guys go about creating your songs? Is it a group effort, or does one or two of you in particular have more input?

PM: It's usually down to Matt writing a whole lot of riffs and ideas, when he's all done i'll sit down and try and arrange them all and see what people like and don't like. By the time it gets to Max he just listens, checks all the timing and plays whatever the hell he wants. 99% of the time it's better than what i had in mind. At the end of the day, its a team effort and it's gotta have everyone's approval.

88: Where do you mainly find inspiration for your music?

PM: Well when I write a song I'm usually writing a song to suit a mood. We try to steer clear of political, moral and religious topics as we try and keep our songs honest to what we believe in, rather than jump on the bandwagon along with all the other bands doing it. Call us petty, but we have a few songs written about the small things in life, such as one time we went to Red Rooster to get lunch and we ordered a fair amount of food, but when we got our large chips, they were half empty. We asked if we could just have full ones, and it took her a good 20 minutes to get them. That annoyed us as we were missing out on practice time, so we ended up making a tower out of the empty boxes on the table and didn't eat any of the chips, just decorated the table with them haha. We left and in the car decided to dedicate a song to that lady at Red Rooster who just didn't understand. I can remember saying "It's not like its hard! just use your fucking brain whore". Our final song of every set list in the past, and into the foreseeable future is our song "Brainwhore". We generally like being assholes and just want to have fun as a band.

88: There are only three songs on your MySpace at the moment, can we look forward to hearing more?

PM: Hell yes. I almost didn't want to show you that because we haven't had the chance to get any decent recordings done. Since our first gig we have been pretty focused on getting Max up to speed and getting new songs done, but it's definitely time we put more effort into getting what we already have recorded properly. We have plans to record an EP in the near future but money is tight at the moment, so we will try our best or alternatively turn tricks or sell drugs for spare cash. Hopefully we won't have to sell any drugs though...

88: Where do you see Irukandji in five years time?

PM: In 5 years time I would love to see Irukandji going as strong as ever, having at least one full length album out and playing regular shows. Only one way to find out I suppose.

88: Favourite gig so far, and why?

PM: Favourite gig so far would have to be the one I played earlier tonight, after a really crap week for everyone we got our shit together and put on one hell of a show! Matt jumped off stage and played his solo in the middle of the Stepp Inn! He looked a bit lonely so i joined him and we were trying to play our parts in pitch black with a couple of drunk guys moshing around us, we both ended up forgetting our solos and just started shredding, pretending like there was nothing wrong. It was most likely our worst sounding gig but it was definitely the most fun!

88: Anything else you guys want to add?

PM: Anyone interested in male prostitutes message me on the Myspace!

Check out Irukandji on their Myspace profile, even if you're not interested in male prostitutes.