Duanes World Issue 6: Hanging with Youngy from King Parrot
King Parrot are in America and America is not ready.
I was told very early on that I had to get my arse to a King Parrot show. Well over ten years ago on the back of their 2010 EP The Stench of Hardcore Pub Trash and 2012 debut album Bite Your Head Off, King Parrot quickly became Aussie metal’s must-see live act. Just owning a KP t-shirt gave you bragging rights. So after grabbing their debut album I finally got to see them destroy at Sydney’s Soundwave Festival 2014 (where all their shirts had already sold out in other cities). They were up first and Lemmy help whoever it was that had to follow them. Local legend Michelle Madden (Tourettes, Meldrum) joined them on stage, and then later on that day KP graced the stage once more to join Philip H. Anselmo’s band Down for their closer ‘Bury Me In Smoke’.
Life changing. Every inch of that day will sit with me forever.
Fast forward nearly a decade and King Parrot are one of the underground’s most beloved and respected bands in Australia with a following so staunch it’s hard not to take notice. To top things off, at this very second they’ve just landed in America to embark on their US tour that includes support slots to none other than Pantera, Lamb Of God, and Weedeater. So when the lads put on a free show a few weeks back at The Duke of Enmore in Sydney with Astrodeath, Black Rheno, Choof and Carnal Viscera, I had to reach out for a chat, and legendary frontman Youngy was kind enough to let me upstairs between sets for a quick one on one.
Now I’ve been asked in the past to be weary of my language during interviews and given my excitement to meet Youngy, I may have let slip a few f-bombs while talking to the legend. I wasn’t about to stumble my way through this interview in an awkward display of self-censorship but having read through the transcript of our conversation, I may have let several “ducks” fly. So read this censored version of the interview OR if you want to hear me murder the English language backstage at a King Parrot show, give thre audio interview a spin at the bottom.
NOTE 1: This transcription does not include a transcription of Slatts yelling his various pearls of wisdom in the background at high volume.
NOTE 2: I censored my words only. Not Youngy’s. If you don’t like him swearing then you’re probably at the wrong interview soldier.
G’day, it’s Duane from Wall Of Sound and I’m sitting here with a ducking Legend of Australian heavy metal, Youngy from King Parrot. How are you, man?
I’m good, man. How are you?
DW: I’m absolutely brilliant man. I just I’ve just seen Choof and Carnal Viscera downstairs.
Great.
DW – Sorry if I’m yelling but my hearing is bucked now.
Yours and mine both brother, hahaha.
DW. HA! That was so good man. Listening to these bands tonight. You’ve got those two plus you’ve got Black Rheno and Astrodeath.
That’s right.
DW. Is this a lineup that you’ve curated yourself? Because it’s an insane lineup?
Yeah, man. Yeah, we like to mix it up. They are all bands that I’m friends with or work with and that we love hanging out with and we’ve toured before. We’re heading to the US soon and we wanted to have a party in Sydney. And this is it.
DW: I’ve seen like the reviews of the shows so far, and downstairs you put on a free show at the Duke of Enmore, which is insane. Like, I thought the venue is too small, then you’ve made it free. There’s going to be a million maniacs lined up outside to get in.
Yeah, hopefully. Ha. Yeah man you want it to be fun, right? That’s what always King Parrot has been about. Obviously, we used to love going and doing this sort of thing at Frankie’s. And now that that’s not here, The Duke started doing it. They’re friends of ours. When you’ve fucking worked with people for all that time, it just makes sense. You want to come back and see your friends. This becomes a friend thing that we kind of like to nurture those friendships.
(Cue and inaudible Slatts yelling some high IQ pleasantries in the background)
DW: Speaking about Frankie’s, that was one of my favourite ducking venues to be in ever. I was actually told about it from a roadie overseas, he’d been here on tour with kucking Taylor Swift of all people.
Wow.
DW: Monkey is his name. Legend. But in Frankie’s wake, a lot of these places like the Duke really stepped up. You’ve got places that have opened up, like the Lady Hampshire, and that’s just here in Sydney. I’m seeing this huge swell of talent of bands in Australia’s underground. I can’t remember being so spoilt for choice for live entertainment from heavy metal in the underground. You’re obviously on the inside. How are you seeing it?
I think it’s pretty healthy at the moment, man. I think especially down in Melbourne. There’s lots of bands. There’s lots of shit going on, there’s shows fucking everywhere all the time. It’s not just metal, there’s lots of punk stuff going on. There’s lots of great stuff going on. I just think the more that we can support each other and get each other out there, the better. I guess the metal side of it’s probably a little bit more in the corner but the people that come and support are so passionate and so into it. We’re just incredibly grateful that we get to do what we do and tour around Australia all the time, and now heading back to the US as well in a couple of weeks. So, it’s exciting for us to be able to do these things.
DW: The US Tour. You’ve obviously toured there before, you’ve had some good responses from the States. This time is huge. You’re supporting Weedeater, but you’re also supporting Pantera.
Yes.
DW: I know you’ve had a working relationship of sorts with Phil Anselmo over the years, and his Housecore Records. I remember seeing you guys at Frankie’s in 2019 supporting Phil and The Illegals. You even shared the stage with him for ‘Walk’.
Yeah.
DW: Which I was so jealous of you man. But to be there supporting Pantera, what were you like when you got that news?
Well it was one of those things that probably even two years ago, you would have thought that’s not even possible. It’s never gonna happen. Now it’s fucking happening. I’m one of those people, it’s nice to get the news and it’s great to fucking hear it and all that sort of stuff but I don’t believe it until it’s fucking happened. It’s okay to sit there and say hey, we’re gonna do this or whatever but until it’s actually fucking happened I don’t believe it. So I’m just keeping a lid on it and once that happens and we’ve done the gig, I’ll be able to fucking go yes, we did it.
There’s a bunch of other Housecore bands that are opening up the shows and stuff as well. They’re friends of ours. Child Bite, Snafu, Spirit In The Room, Flesh Order from Texas. They’re doing a few shows as well. They’re all friends of ours that we’ve known over the years and everyone’s getting a bit of a chance to do it. We’re lucky enough to get to do five so that’s fucking cool.
DW: That’s incredible man. Talking about Phil Anselmo, he was a hero of mine growing up. I believe he was a hero of yours. I’ve seen some kid photos of you meeting Dimebag. How was it you actually met Phil Anselmo. When did that all start?
He sent us an email, must have been about 2012 or 13. It was over 10 years ago and then we met him at Soundwave (2014). Like we got up and had a jam with Down and stuff at Soundwave and hung out all day. Then a month later, we were in Louisiana doing our first US tour and Phil came out to one of our shows in Baton Rouge. It was just a tiny little show, a venue like this.
Phil came to that with his wife Kate. They come and partied and hung out and said “come stay at our place”. So we went back to their place and hung out and we’ve been friends since then. Later that year, we were touring with Down, and we’d signed on with Housecore Records, and we did a two week tour with Down later that year.
So it was kind of surreal, going from playing small club shows at the start of the year over there, then at the end of the year, we’re playing like the fucking Wilton in LA and the Fillmore in San Francisco, in these fucking nice venues, you know?
DW: Yeah.
And we’re just like what the fuck? So yeah, it was really cool, man. It was great. After we did that Down tour we went and recorded our album Dead Set at Phil’s studio. We spent a good couple of months together that year. Over the years, we’ve been back, we toured with Superjoint, we’ve toured with the Illegals, we’ve been back to their place a lot. We’ve recorded at their studio, we did our Holed Up in the Lair EP there, and all that stuff. So we’ve done a lot of stuff there. And it’s nice to be able to have somewhere over there where you can kind of you know, feels like’s home
DW: It’s a solid launching point and Phil Anselmo is no slouch
No, he’s very busy and very motivated.
DW: I imagine after 10 years of screaming like you have, I imagine your voice would be gone. But having a guy like that in your corner. He’d be drilling you. He’d almost be a coach of sorts.
Ha ha. Well in a way. He’s extremely appreciative of the underground scene, the music and a big supporter of it.
DW: So in addition to being a King Parrot frontman, you’re doing the management side of stuff as well. Is that going to be strictly with Dead Set Records or was that gonna push on maybe to Housecore as well?
Who knows, man? At the moment it’s sort of local. It’s an Australian thing. That’s sort of what I just kind of focus on. There’s other labels in those territories that do that. There’s plenty to do right now. We’ve got our hands full with a lot of stuff coming up, and we’ve got a new record to do.
DW: Well that’s my next question. Your last full album was 2017 with Ugly Produce. You did the Holed Up In The Air EP in 2020. When’s the next album coming out?
Ha ha. Last week, hopefully. Ha.
We don’t live in close proximity to one another. So that’s been a bit of a hurdle for us. A bit of an obstacle for us. And during COVID Todd was up there, and we’re not one of those bands that sort of does shit on the computer. We like to jam and get in the room and all of that sort of stuff. We’ve been focusing on playing live. That’s what we love doing. We love playing live. We love writing music and stuff as well but we love playing live, and that’s what we’ve been doing. We just haven’t had that opportunity to sort of get there and, look, we’ve written shit. There’s a whole bunch of shit there. We actually played one of them to soundcheck earlier. We just need to get together and do it. After we’ve done this US tour we’re going to spend some time over the summer we’re going to try and get shit done.
DW: Are you going to be doing it here or the States?
No, no, we’ll do it here probably. We might get someone else to mix it or something like that, but we’ll record it here.
DW: I understand right Ryan out of Black Rheno’s got some producing…um (forgetting a word here)
He’s got a great STUDIO man. (Thank you Youngy, that’s the word…)
DW: I’ve seen some live videos from there, but look, I know you got a show ahead of you.
I do
DW: and I’ll trucking let you go and get ready, mate. Thanks for spending any time with us.
Na I appreciate the support man.
DW: It’s great to get your two bob on the local scene and the future of King Parrot, man. I’m fucking excited. I’m just a fan. So thanks heaps Youngy.
Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Thanks, man. We love it and thank you so much. Cheers, man.
Interview by Duane James @duanejames666
