Racey, Racey, Racey…
So, if the story of the songs started with me, the story of the band starts the day a 20-something, force of nature called Racey Stunts sauntered into our rehearsal space like she ran the place. And before long she pretty much did.
I never asked Race what she first thought of the middle-aged dickhead she found in that room as I tinkered with pedal board configs and tried each song at tempos ranging from 75 to 150 bpm. But when I do, the one thing I’m certain of is that she will tell me in no uncertain terms. And that’s the first thing you need to know about Race, she’s a straight shooter. To Racey, sugar coating is something best left to bakers.
And this unflinching honesty is exactly what I and by extension stunts needed. Like a punk Marie Kondo, songs that didn’t spark ‘vibe’ were tossed aside for Matty’s inevitable death country solo project. We worked through my back catalogue of half-finished songs and then we culled. We chatted about shared influences (Joy Division, Kate Bush, Sonic Youth, Nick Cave and Placebo to name a few) and we culled. We jammed and she’d stop mid song to remonstrate that someone was out of tune or missed their pitch (that someone was almost exclusively me) and we culled some more.
Before too long, those 50+ songs were down to six: Disappointed, Sticky, Late, No Feels, See Me and Probs Not. I continued to write and tried to sneak new songs onto the list and after many, many NMCOTs (Not My Cup of Tea - the phrase used so often we needed to shorten it in the interests of efficiency), Impossible and Housework got the Racey tick of approval and suddenly we had a lean, mean, all killer/no filler eight song album on our hands.
When Gertie and I mused about what our line up should take (at a time the Gert was still helping out on bass) he counselled that we needed a percussionist who could sing…A Sheila E to my Prince if you will (and yes, a very, very poor man’s Prince at that). But as things progressed and Racey came on board and Gertie (who had no interest in being in a band) took on more of a hands-off, musical Maharishi position… it wasn’t a percussionist we needed at all as Pacey had that covered. Racey had a bass and a mutual adoration of Kim Gordon. And it was decided. Race was on Bass.
At this point of the stunts story, I’ll ask you to imagine a movie montage scene where we rehearsed, worked on demos, dreamed big ideas, worked through creative differences, had a few trashy nights and most of all a shit-tonne of fun becoming the unique, Electrogrunge entity that is stunts.
Before we move on with the story of stunts, it’s important to acknowledge that Racey’s role in the band was and is so much more than keeping me on my toes and sledging me about my various shortcomings vis-a-vis tuning, tempo, fashion, and pitch. Her unique talent, style, creativity, ideas and instincts are at the core of what stunts is about. She’s got her own story and doesn’t need me to tell it for her. But as a 20-something single mum who’s had to deal with more crap than most of us do in a lifetime, it’s been bloody hard for her and she’s always fronted up and given it her all. And without her (unless Sheila E started returning my calls) this would be a blog post from an old bloke, singing songs about feelings with his eyes closed introducing his debut single ‘Crabs of despair’. No one needs to see that. So, for that and everything else thank you Racey Stunts. You’re the actual best.
Lots of love,