While they were relaxing at home in Melbourne, I jumped on the phone to chat with Femme Metale (Candice) and Digital Primate (Chris Coe) of the up and coming band Metals. We chat about box wars, Stormtroopers, touring with children, Doctor Who and plenty more...

D: I love this conference call scenario!

You really could be doing anything right now, couldn’t you?

D: Let me put this image into your head: I’m actually dancing on the table, half naked, while Candice is cooking up some lentils.

Whatever gets you in the mood for an interview is fine with me!

D: Oh sorry, I better put my jumper on...

F: Yeah, and your pants, too.

Speaking of celebration, you’re celebrating the official launch of your new single Drop Your Guard.

F: Yes that’s right!

And plenty of people have been talking about the Box Wars film clip – so let’s go there first. How did that idea come about?

F: Well Chris actually got us onto the Box Wars guys. Apparently they rocked up to Sensation last year (the NYE party in Melbourne) dressed in Stormtrooper outfits, made out of cardboard.

D: Yeah, these cats are hilarious. I’ve worked with them before. They were discovered (at least for me) by a guy named Heavy G, who runs the Lilypad Stage (at Big Day Out) with Richard Thomas. And they invited them to come and do a performance there, where I first saw them. Then I invited them to come and do some work for a company I run, which is a carbon offset business, and then they came along to an event we were offsetting, dressed up as Stormtroopers in cardboard. They’re hilarious, because they came up with the idea of building cardboard outfits initially because they just wanted to get into parties for free, and hide really cleverly their booze. So they built these warrior outfits with big guns and stuff, and hid the cans of beers in the guns.

F: But I think their main passion is to beat each other up in the outfits. Completely destroy the outfits. They have these epic battles, with maybe 30 or 40 of them in these amazing cardboard outfits. And if they’re not ripped to shreds by the end of the battle, they’re not happy.

Well you looked like you had a bit of fun in the music video destroying the boxes yourself!

F: Yeah that was great. There was so much footage that didn’t make it in of me body slamming the Dalek, and doing the splits into the Dalek while it was ripping apart. It was a lot of fun. The guys from box wars were behind the camera egging me on. They were very excited to see it get completely destroyed.

So who’s the big Doctor Who fan between the two of you? How did the sample come into play?

D: That would be me. I’m a nerd! *laughs* Actually, I have to credit that to a good friend of mine, David Field, over in the UK. He’s the guy who originally heard the song and loved it, quite a while ago, and suggested that in that drop down section, that I play in the Doctor Who bit. So I got a friend of ours to come in and play it – it’s not sampled – into the song. It’s a genius suggestion; it almost feels like it was written for it!

You’d never know it was never there to begin with.

D: So I have to give credit to David for that – I wish I had thought of it! But I executed it *laughs*

F: And we had Ollie McGill from the Cat Empire come in and play it on the keyboards.

D: I bought him dinner for that.

So you’ve got the single out now, and the EP is due out in October. What can we expect from the EP – will it be a similar feel to what we’ve experienced so far?

D: I think it’s going to be even more hard hitting. At this point, we’re still deciding on the final selection of songs. We’ve recorded and mixed a whole bunch of stuff, we’ve got an album worth of stuff already. So we’re still deciding on the final selection. But definitely the lead track is going to be, we know what it is, but I don’t know if we can say that yet!

F: Yeah Drop Your Guard is where it’s at right now, and when the EP comes out, trust me, it will hit you in the face. Be ready!

I’ll get my box ready!

D: Yes, get your armour ready! Very appropriate Larry.

From conception, how long have you guys been working on the single and the EP now?

F: Well we put the initial stages of that song down 4 years ago. I mean we’ve been working together for years on various projects, and we’ve probably known each other for more than 6 years, and we kind of only really realised this was properly a band about 6 months ago. But this song was something we started 4 years ago, and we’ve been adding to it, chopping and changing it, moulding ever since. It’s been a long time in the making.

D: Candice worked with me on my other project Digital Primate, and this song came out of that body of work.

F: It just didn’t fit with the rest of the Digital Primate stuff. It wasn’t in the same vain. And then there were two other things we created around the same time that didn’t fit either. So that’s what birthed Metals.

D: But that song was originally a really techno, dance track. But then I put a swing on it, Gary Glitter styled swing, and then we added guitars to it, and it became this whole other track. That’s what turned it around. That’s when we realised that this has to be a band! This is no longer some dance production... this is band! And it’s funny, because I’d been wanting to start a band for years – and now I’m getting to play bass in a band!

You’re living the dream!

D: I am!

F: And I had a baby in the middle of all that too, so we were all like – let’s start a band! After I’ve had the baby! And she’s here now and comes on tour with us. She was 6 months the first time she came on tour with us, and she’s 4 now.

D: She’s our manager now, too.

F: And backing vocalist. She runs the merch stand.

And I imagine no one’s better at destroying the boxes.

D: Yeah plays in the boxes, definitely. It’s not child exploitation – it’s fine, I swear!

So what encompasses the Metals stage show?

F: Well we incorporate a full live drum kit, and we’re starting to throw some electronic drums into that as well. Chris plays Bass, and he also has a SH-101 (synth keyboard) on stage, and various pieces of electronic equipment he twiddles and fiddles with.

D: I like twiddling!

F: And then the guitarist isn’t only playing the hard rock guitar, but he’s playing keyboard parts as well, and other electronic devices. And then there’s vocals in there too of course. So it’s a full on thing, everyone who’s on stage is doing a few different things.

D: It’s pretty high energy, and Candice doesn’t stop moving. Sometimes I’ll turn around and suddenly she’s in my face, and then the next thing she’s on the other side of the stage. It’s pretty full on, but it’s great! So exciting.

Yeah I heard such great things about the Illusive showcase down there in Melbourne a while back. I understand you brought the Box Wars out for that show.

F: Yeah they were at the front of the stage, doing their thing.

D: They’re going to join us for these coming shows.

F: Yeah for the single launches in Sydney and Melbourne. I won’t go into the exact detail of how they’ll be involved in the performance, so there’s some element of surprise when they rock up on the night... but they’ll be there in force.

And not only do you have the launches, but we’ll be seeing you at Fat as Butter as well.  

F: Yeah I’m looking forward to that one. I’ve been talking to some of the other bands playing on Facebook and Twitter, but we haven’t actually met yet. So I’m looking forward to heading along and soaking up the atmosphere.

And this’ll be your first festival as Metals?

F: Yeah! I mean we’ve played heaps before in other projects....

D: Yeah Candice came with me when Digital Primate toured with the Big Day Out. We’ve done that twice. But this is the first festival as the finalised Metals lineup. It really is the start of Metals.

I’m sure we’ll see you plenty over the Summer too.

D: I hope so man! Playing live is so satisfying.

Looking back to where all this started 4 years ago, do you almost have to pinch yourself that all these years later this is finally happening? You’re actually a band now!

F: In some sense yes, but in another, because it’s all happened over such a long time, it’s not someone has come up and gone “Guess what, you’ve won a million dollars!” – it’s like someone’s come up and said... “oh in 6 months time you’ll have a million dollars...” So you get a fair bit of warning. Some things happen fairly quickly, and take off fairly quickly. But it’s a process, and you just move with it. Yes it’s exciting, but not the sort of exciting where you’re going to jump up and down and scream.

D: But sometimes I do find myself walking along the street saying to myself “I’m in a band... I’m in a band... I’m in a band!!”

F: It’s actually quite surreal, that you’re at this point, and all this stuff that you imagined is happening, but you’re still doing your everyday shit at the same time.

D: Do you do it every day? I only do it once every two days.

F: As much as it’s fanciful to think that all of that won’t continue when you get to this point, it almost shocks you that everything is completely normal while all this other stuff is going on.

D: I really should mop the floors more...

Well you can do it while you’re half naked dancing on the tables...