The Story of Stunts Part 1.

Stunts –The story of Matty, Racey and Pacey and their debut album Housework

Here I sit, some 130 days away from the release of my band stunts’ debut album Housework (out August 11 for those playing along at home).

My task? To pen our first blog post, telling you, our still very conceptual/hypothetical fan the story of our band and how we came to record this eclectic, Electrogrunge album that is Housework (did I mention it’s out August 11?) that we’re all so bloody proud of.

The hardest thing is not thinking about what to write about…but what not to. We’ve been working towards this for a couple of years and have had lightbulb moments, excitement, setbacks, lockdowns, positive rat tests, laughter, joy, tears, tantrums (mostly me) and one pretty nasty old brain tumor (also me). But above all else we had the songs and the stunts vibe…and those were the things that kept us chugging ahead when adversity reared its ugly head.

Last year Racey, Pacey and I bunkered down at Love Hz studio to record our debut album with legendary producer Matt Fell. We were not long out of a lockdown and all signs pointed to another hard lockdown in the not-too-distant future. After much discussion we decided not to postpone and let ‘er rip. And let ‘er rip we did, surprising ourselves with an album’s worth of material in two weeks in the studio. Our most optimistic expectation was a five song EP going in.

So you may ask yourself, how did I get here?

As stunts sensitive singer songwriter in chief, I guess the story starts with me. I can’t remember a time I haven’t written songs. As a youngster back in the 80s, I used to write Weird Al Yankovic parodies songs. And as I moved around from Canberra (where I embraced grunge), Tunbridge Wells (The Doors and dance/rave music), Brisvegas (Angry protest songs about short Prime Ministers with big eyebrows…that showed him), Dublin (Nick Cave and acoustic ballads) and Sydney (hi dBB) I continued to write and play. My last band dBB was where I met a young Pacey Stunts (although he was going under a pseudonym in those days for reasons still unclear to me).

Then I became a dad. Not terribly conducive to the rock and roll lifestyle. Priorities change and I put down the guitar and the song book and wouldn’t pick them up again for nearly a decade and a half. It wasn’t a conscious decision to stop writing and playing, I just had more important stuff to do.

(Just Like) Starting Over

I don’t know what made me pick up the guitar and start writing again. Maybe it was the boys were in double digits and turning into excellent humans. Maybe it was in lieu of a gold chain, comb over and red sports car. Maybe it was none of these things… but when I did, I instantly realised how much I missed it. Having an outlet. Being an ‘artist’. And the songs just poured out of me (“Crabs of despair” was a personal favourite and it’s time will come). I wrote over 50 songs in the next year. Many of them were terrible but a couple felt like they could be really good.

And the thing I missed most of all was collaborating with other musical types. I called up my old dBB drummer and also my musical mentor and self-confessed cyber punk Gertie (his middle period in the 80s was kind of a big deal) and we jammed. We laughed, we played, my earnest musings were sledged. I bought pedals (and lots of them), Pace bought new snares and floor toms (at a rate that may require an intervention) Gertie dusted off the Korg Monotribe and various Roland pocket calculators. And it was so much fucking fun. Under Gert’s careful tutelage, plinky synths and various other contraptions came in and I was playing to ‘the grid’ and loving it. I wanted to do this and really have a proper crack. So, as we sorted the wheat from the chaff, the cream that rose to the top in this tortured metaphor were angsty duets. Songs that were a little bit angsty grunge and a little bit post punk/new wave. They were songs about the ups and downs and how life looked at I was approaching something like the halfway point in mine. Gertie somewhat uncharitably referred to it as the male menopause catalogue (I was at the tender age of 42 at the time).

Every step of the way Gertie was there sledging, challenging, interrogating, advising on purchases and supporting in his own inimitable way. And he still does to this day. While there’s lots of amazing people who helped along the way but there is only one Gertie and none of this happens without The Gert. I can hear him grinding his teeth from afar as after decades spent deleting their digital footprint, the last thing they want is to have some idiot waxing lyrical in a long ponderous blog post (in fairness I’m not expecting anyone to read this far). I’ll leave it there before I get a cease and desist from Gertie’s lawyers. Gert knows how I feel.

Now where was I? Oh yeah that’s right. At this point in our story, much like the Wile E. Coyote not noticing he’s run off a cliff until someone holds up the ‘yikes’ sign… it dawned on us in an instant. We needed another voice and perspective in stunts before we could finish the songs. The search for a co-lead vocalist  began in earnest.

Lots of love,