KILL CITY CREEPS

With current frenetic single I Got A Letter making the rounds on local radio and a support slot with punk gods The Damned now on their CV, Kill City Creeps are a band of big plans and bigger tunes. Drawing on a well of post-punk fuzz and rock and roll bite, the Sydney foursome are going to hit their hometown this weekend with more bang for their buck than ever before.

Drummer Mon Cherie spoke to us in the lead-up to the showcase, explaining how the band tick, and why rock and roll should just be damn fun.

“I just want people to be entertained, to be able to have a dance and let loose for a while…just have fun!” she states, matter-of-factly. “There’s a lot of bands that are super serious or hard to get into…I just hope people can get into us and we’re entertaining and not boring…I myself have a pretty short attention span! I just want people to get their groove on.”

“You have to not take yourself or the industry too seriously. I can see why people get pissed at the state of things, but you can’t do anything but go out there and be yourself and make your music and have fun with it, it’s always fun for me.”

So just how do the Creeps create their punk rock catalogue?

“Usually Dan will come up with a main riff or melody and then lyrics, and he’ll show up and ask what we think and we put our in our opinion and write our individual part…it’s pretty organic. It’s a good writing situation. We all just sort of jam really well together, really comfortable. Me and Amy [Yoshiko], aka Knives [guitar/vocals], have been playing together since we were thirteen. We have a weird music kinship. It’s like we need each other to play…well, I need her anyway.”

“We were in school, at the kind of age where we just started getting into music” she continues. “We started an all-girl band, Amy had already been playing guitar for a few years, I played drums and we had this band for a few month, busking on King Street [Newtown]. We’re super close, we always wanna play music. Now, to be playing with other close friends…it’s like we’re keeping the spirit alive.”

As she heads out to the door to her ‘day job’, as many artists must, Mon Cherie discusses the difficulty in “making it”.

“I think, deep down, all musicians would love to have that as their job, or a really big part of their life. The more shows you do, the more you wanna do it, and then going back to a job and normal life is frustrating. It would be amazing if you’re lucky enough but it’s hard work and takes a long time…we’d all love to do it. When we recently went on tour, we never wanted it to end.”

“When we first started, we didn’t really know what to expect…after a first jams over a year ago, it was more garage and a couple of covers, but over time we’ve been more comfortable with each other, we’ve made it a bit more rock and roll, a bit sleazier. We’re open to experimenting, drawing on different influences. Amy and I bring the stoner rock influence. We play in another band called Dora Maar, it’s our metal outlet (laughs).”

Kill City Creeps play:

Friday February 17 – Spectrum, Sydney w/ Mother and Son, The Ghosts
Wednesday February 22- O Fest Survive and Thrive Party- Glasshouse Bar, University of Technology, Sydney
Saturday February 25- Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle **FREE**

Words: Lisa Dib

Feature image by Mikey Pozarik. Article image by Aimee Lee Curran.