CIVIC - INTERVIEW
Interview & foreword by Beau Croxton
CIVIC by Marcus Coblyn
Australia's CIVIC has shown no signs of slowing down since their killer debut record Future Forecast released in 2021 on Flightless Records. CIVIC was already in great company on the label, releasing alongside notable Aussie rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Amyl & The Sniffers. The band’s sound on their debut was muscular and gnarly with high-voltage riffs, recalling Australian punk-greats The Saints and New York’s own punk royalty– The Dead Boys. Their sophomore LP Taken By Force doubled down on their signature sound with even more snarl, landing the band more critical acclaim.
On their new third LP Chrome Dipped (just released on May 30th, via ATO), the band successfully and boldly pushed themselves to widen the scope of their sound, without losing any of their grit and glory. The album leans into vulnerability with the cool-factor of a Johnny Thunders or Stiv Bators solo effort (“Gull’s Way”) and runs wild with creativity, getting darkly poetic and artsy like Nick Cave (“Starting All The Dogs Off”). Although, there is no need to fret for those seeking high energy punk-rock– plenty of tracks like “The Hogg” and "Poison" are pumped full of distortion and adrenaline. CIVIC has already had a wild year opening for Sex Pistols with Frank Carter in Australia, and they are currently on the road supporting their new record.
CIVIC has an upcoming show here in NYC at Brooklyn’s TV EYE this Friday, June 13th– and we couldn't be more excited. Beau Croxton caught up with CIVIC lead singer Jim McCullough ahead of the show to talk about everything from Chrome Dipped, to Australian rock music and even weed-eating goats. Check it out below
JIM: Hey! How are ya man? Having a good day?
BEAU: Hey Jim, Yeah, doing good! So great to chat with you brotha. So, I'd love to start at the beginning… I would love to hear how it all began for CIVIC. What were the early days like and what inspired you to all come together as a group?
JIM: Well, the very early days were like… 2017. Me and my mate (the original guitarist), we were in Japan in this bowling alley. We were talking about bands like The Saints and Birdman and were like, “Oh, why isn't anyone doing a band that sounds like that in Melbourne?” and then we're like, “Fuck it, we should just do it ourselves!” That was the moment where we kind of started the band. I remember we were like, “Oh, who should we get on drums? Who should we get on guitar?” Actually, Louis, the guitarist, was actually the original drummer for like two days– and then we realized that he was the best drummer. (laughs) So he got on guitar. But yeah– It's always a bit fun like that in those early days, you know?
BEAU: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it sounds like you all were dedicated to the cause…any which way that you could figure it out.
JIM: Yeah, for sure, man. Exactly.
BEAU: So once you got going and CIVIC started playing lots of shows to bigger audiences, was there anything specific that served as a pivotal moment where things got to the next level, and inspired you to really keep at it?
JIM: I don't think it was a conscious thing. We had noticed that we were playing shows and they were kind of getting bigger and more people were coming. Then lockdown/COVID happened, and we wrote that record (Future Forecast). When we came out of COVID. We played a really big show to like…a thousand people. After that, we were like “All right, let's try and take this thing even further” you know— instead of just playing little clubs in Melbourne. So then we did more overseas shows and bigger shows in Melbourne and Australia. I think after our first album came out– I feel like that definitely got things a bit bigger for us.
BEAU: Absolutely, It's a great record. So, speaking of which, the Australian music scene has been pretty wild for the past decade. I found out about CIVIC through the whole Flightless Records umbrella of bands– I just saw Amyl and the Sniffers last night in Manhattan. They were absolutely fantastic, they played to a sold-out crowd at a rooftop venue— they are just killing it right now.. There are so many awesome Australian rock-based artists really spreading their wings at the moment.
…So, what do you think it is about the Aussie music scene that's building so many great rock-type bands at the moment?
JIM: I think there's great music all around the world, right? And there's always going to be these cities where some will excel at certain points in time when they need to. Look at Ireland, right at the moment, you've got like Fontaines and Kneecap….. I like that these bands can exist for like 10 years or whatever– and then all of a sudden it's like, “Oh, fuck, there's this sick band in Melbourne!” or wherever. Then it kind of becomes this pinball machine where if there's a scene there, it becomes this kind this crazy mixed bag of “Oh, fuck, there's this band and there's that band”...you know?
I love looking at (for example) the Northern Island punk scene in the 70s, I know there's only, say 30 bands, but I'm always like, “Oh, surely there's one more” you know, “Surely, there's like another deep cut” and then you do find one. And then, it becomes even more exciting. I don't know if that's exactly what's happening with Australian bands at the moment, but I do think that it's hard for us to see it because we're in it. Does that make sense?
BEAU: Gotcha, totally.
JIM: I don't know…I mean, I guess there are people looking at Australian punk at the moment or rock or whatever you want to call it and being like, “Oh yeah! That's cool.” But I don't know how big the bull is because we're situated in it, you know? But I'm down for it!
BEAU: Yeah, from our perspective in the states…We're just like, what the fuck is in the water over there? (Laughs)
JIM: That's funny as well. I mean, the Melbourne scene's crazy. Like it's pumping, you know, it's like, if you wanted to go out every single night and watch like 15 bands, you could!
BEAU: Yeah, I guess it's just like you said, it's kind of pinballing off of the momentum perhaps.
JIM: It just fucking grows, you know?
BEAU: Exactly. Let's talk about your new record Chrome Dipped . Amazing record, by the way. Despite the sound sort of changing, it manages to stay super badass– even in its lightness, which is really kind of a tough balance to manage. Things were changed up in a very bold but successful way. I was wondering, was there anything in particular that inspired you to change it up for this record or
JIM: Going back to what we were talking about before, starting the band in 2017— we had specific influences. When you do your first demo and you do your first album– obviously it's always going to sound like you, but I think your influences kind of stand out a lot. Well, maybe that's not always true, but for us, I felt like they did.
I felt like it was like “Oh yeah, that sounds like Birdman or Saints” or whatever, right? Going into the third album, it's like, “All right, what are we doing here?” We could probably easily just do another record that sounds like the other ones. Not that they all sound the same, but we were like, it's a risky move to just flip things on their heads sometimes.
I know that it's different, but it's not like we started doing reggae or something,
(Everyone laughs)
JIM: I mean, like it's still like…noisy fucking punk music. Even as you said, the softer songs they've got like, passion and shit, and we all know— just because it's punk, it doesn't mean it has to be loud or abrasive–right? It can be tender as well, you know? “Ain't It Fun” by the Electric Eels is one of my favorite songs and that's punk as fuck, but it's so tragic as well. So basically we were just like,”Let's flip this thing on its head. It's going to be it's risky, but we were open to that change”
BEAU: Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like you just really wanted to go for it.
JIM: We wanted to push ourselves, because you get three albums in and….You were talking about Flightless before and with bands like King Gizzard…they're our mates and like, I always laughed with Ambrose ... like…people give them shit for like, you know– “You're doing a metal record!” or doing this and that… I reckon it's mad that they even have the balls to do that.
I think there's a real beauty in that kind of a stark shift of just like pulling the rug out, you know?
BEAU: Yeah, I mean absolutely, King Gizzard is one of my absolute favorites– so I’m right there with you brotha! And yeah.. with Chrome Dipped, you all did that shift so successfully, it's really exciting. So, when you moved into the newer sounds of the record, were there any references in mind going in? Or did you kind of happen upon stuff?
JIM: I think we were all listening to a bunch of different shit. I honestly don't believe that we were like, “Okay, let's make it sound like this or let's use that.”
This sounds really lame… but I'm going to say it— it honestly felt like it just came from us. It did feel true to us. We demoed it, we demoed the whole album and we were like “Okay, this is as far as we can push it now.” Then we're like “Let's take that into the studio with Kieran” and “Let's see what we can squeeze out of it”. That was the interesting part, typically we would have just gone, “Okay, that's the demo, let's record that and then that's the album.” But it's, it's kind of scary how far you can actually push something, you know?
CIVIC by Marcus Coblyn
BEAU: Absolutely! I'd love to talk about Kieran J. Callinan producing the record. That's a really sick collab. How was his involvement in the process and how did he kind of contribute to the new sounds?
JIM: Well, it's funny because I thought he's pretty “big energy”....a powerful person. We kept talking about wanting to make the sound bigger and make everything bigger, right? But he actually ended up taking a lot of things out, which I thought was really interesting. He fully stripped back the drum kit. The first day, he took all the cymbals off, making everything way more minimalistic. At first I was like, “I don't know if this is going to be good or bad” , but it actually ended up being my favorite part about the record…this kind of weird drum sound on it. Previously, all our other drummers did these crazy fills. Not that the drums are simple on this record, but I think they're way different to the other records. Kieran brought so much. He kept us on our toes, but also kept us on the edge as well, and I think that's what a producer should do.
BEAU: Absolutely man. Well, one of my favorite tracks on Chrome Dipped is “Starting All the Dogs Off”. I'm getting like some….Nick Cave meets Stooges Fun House, like…. Iggy Pop exorcisms. The lyrics are just so vivid. What can you tell me about that track coming together?
JIM: Sonically, we were just jamming. We wanted to have a jam on the album. We wanted it to be just a long song, because normally we have a pretty basic structure of…..verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ bridge/ solo…. fucking, you know, same shit every time– And you just get so bored of it.
We were like, “Let's just have a jam.” It just kind of started ascending, I was kind of just rambling bullshit or whatever, then I went back and wrote this kind of story. I was in the library and I was reading all this like old Aussie poetry and stuff, and it was all about like…Stockmen and shit. I just started bringing up all this imagery. So I just wrote my version of this lone guy out on the road on the motorbike. But then it becomes this story about, you know, challenges… and it gets pretty wild. But that's the thing in the song….It just it builds, you know, and then it kind of releases.
But yeah– that was a really fun one, too. It's funny because it just flowed really easily– I thought it to be hard to write, but it just kind of worked. It was like I was just writing a story. It's one of my favorite songs on the album for sure as well for me, too, to be honest.
BEAU: Oh, yeah. It's really cool. I mean, everybody's kind of playing off of each other really well. And the character development and story just really peaks really well.
JIM: Well, it gets a bit creepy. Like I remember when Kieran was recording it and in that last verse where it just kind of feels a bit like, yeah an “exorcism”, like chaotic…. It was like “what the fuck's going on?” And he was putting in those big war drums and shit. I remember the first time hearing it back and my hair on the back of my neck stood up because I was like, well, this like what this what have we made here? This is like some fucked up ritual or something. You know what I mean?
BEAU: Absolutely man, it's such a cool song. What are some of your favorite songs from Future Forecast or Taken By Force like to play live? Is there anything from Chrome Dipped that you're particularly looking forward to playing live on your new tour?
JIM: “End of the Line” is always fun to play, which we still play. “Fly Song” is always fun from Taken By Force. That always gets the crowd going. I do like playing slower songs, which we only play a few now…or sometimes we don't even play them – if we're doing a smaller club or something, we just want to be real chaotic. We do our hardcore set where we just play like all the fast songs. But this time around, we're going to actually try and make more of a diverse show– because most sets are going to be like an hour– you want to show a bit of diversity.
I always actually wanted to play that “Neighborhood Sadist” song off Taken By Force. We never played that live. But our old guitarist wrote that song. And I always loved that song. But I'm really looking forward to playing “Swing Of The Noose”— the last song on the record. I feel like once people hear it, I think people will kind of go off to that song. I reckon its got this “not give a fuck about anything” energy about it and just like you can just mosh to it, you know?
BEAU: Oh yeah, I can see it now!
CIVIC by Marcus Coblyn
BEAU: So CIVIC opened for Sex Pistols with Frank Carter in Australia in April…So.. I imagine that was pretty surreal?
JIM: Yeah, we got the call up to do it. And we were like, “Fuck, we're not NOT going to do this,” you know. And people were like…“It’s not even the real Sex Pistols” and blah, blah, blah…And I was like, “Man……Glenn Matlock wrote all those fucking songs anyway and he's there….” you know what I mean? And like, John Lydon's gone all fucking spicy….right wing shit…
And I was just like, who gives a fuck anyway? Like, I'm sure you've been in bands too, where, you know….. just because the members change, it doesn't mean that the spirit is not there. The voice of that band was still there in my opinion. Like… it was fucking SICK, man. My mates were like, “Oh, this is going to be interesting.” And the first night we were like “Holy shit, this is really fucking good”. Yeah it was just cool, we didn't really get to hang out with them much or anything. But Frank was really nice– it was just a cool experience.
BEAU: Sounds incredible. Besides that show, are there any other specific CIVIC shows that kind of stand out as your favorites ?
JIM: In terms of America, when we played in Chicago last time– The Chats played the same night as us. And we were hanging out with them beforehand having beers. And they were playing this fucking massive stadium– and we were playing this little bar.
And Eamon was like, oh, “I'll tell everyone on the mic to come to your show after.” Because their show finished and ours was after theirs. And so he did- He was like, “Our mates are playing down the road… go down there!” So we held our show back for like half an hour. And it was fucking PACKED in there like everyone came down. That was my favorite show of the last America tour. And that was our very first tour— I was like, “This is fucking mad!!!” you know?
BEAU: Yeah okay…this is just a great story in general. That's that web of awesome Australian bands I was talking about! You know, you got each other's backs overseas, too! It's great.
(Everyone laughs)
BEAU: I have one more question. How excited are we for the tour and the New York City show at TV EYE? Any other shows that you're looking forward to coming up?
JIM: We're just pumped as, man. Like, it's funny, like we all finished work yesterday. Like for the we're like “All right, that's fucking it!”. New York will be sick. It was actually mad last time, too. TV EYE is a sick venue. I'm just keen to wherever we are. I mean, it's good that we don't have to go through the center this time because that was pretty brutal driving through the center.
We ended up in this random ass fucking town. We stayed in this guy's house and he had all these goats that he would feed. He had all these weed plants that he didn't want. And he had these goats and he fed them all of his weed…He was feeding the goats weed plants! Like that's what they ….leafed on? It was fucking crazy– anyway. That's a story for another time. But yeah, it was a crazy fucking crazy trip. Looking forward to coming back and playing everywhere to be honest– nowhere specific. I mean, New York's going to be mad!
BEAU: Sick, brotha! Well, thanks so much. It's been great talking, Jim. Love the record and we will be catching CIVIC at TV EYE- I'll be sure to say Hi! And yeah….maybe you can tell me more about that story about those goats eating weed when I see you next.
JIM: I will, I will! It's a good story. I'Il tell you.
BEAU: Haha. Thank you so much, man. See you then!
JIM: Seeya brotha!
Chrome Dipped is out NOW.
CIVICs NYC Show is this Friday, June 13th at TV EYE-
..and you can get your tickets here.
You can watch the music video for “ The Fool” here.
You watch the music video for “Chrome Dipped ” here.
You can watch the music video for “The Hogg” here.
You can purchase Chrome Dipped on bandcamp here
You can also catch CIVIC on tour in a city near you here.
