Bench Press — DIY BABES ZINE

From the Personal to the Political

Conversations around mental health are front and center throughout Bench Press’ lyrics. Jack Stavrakis, on lead vocals, has used lyrics as a space to process his mental health journey; now, nine years into the band, he’s jumping into social commentary outside himself and about national politics.

Below is an interview with Jack Stavrakis (vocals) and Lewis Waite (bass and synth) from Bench Press!

By Billie Estrine

Mon. Aug 12 2024

Credit: Peter Jorgensen

Where are you both from?

Jack: I'm from Sydney originally, [but] I moved to Melbourne when I was [a] preteen. So basically, Melbournian through and through, except when it comes to sports, and then I watch Rugby League, not AFL.

Lewis: I'm originally from New Zealand, from a town called Dunedin. I moved to Melbourne in about 2008, so I'm pre-naturalised here as well, but I'm not an Australian.

How did you get into music?

Jack: Listening to music or playing music?

Listening.

Jack: I'm pretty lucky. My dad ran a punk rock record label for half of his life, so I grew up around that when we were in Sydney. Then, when we moved to Melbourne, he did publicity.

My dad had this weird thing where he never wanted us to get into music because he was into music. He didn't play heaps in the house. His idea was that once we got older, if we were interested in music, we could approach him about [it]. Of my three siblings, I'm probably the only one who [did] that. I can't remember what it was; I think a music teacher showed me The Saints, "I'm Stranded." I was listening to music before that, but really it was when I was shown "I'm Stranded," I went home, and I told my dad, "I heard this great song called 'I'm Stranded.'" Then my dad started showing me, "Oh, do you like that?" "Yes, I like that. "He started showing me punk rock, like, the Ramones and all that. Then I found At the Drive-In and Fugazi; it was just a ride down into that. I had to approach him. He's still a bit weird about it.

Was that in high school, with The Saints?

Jack: Yeah. That was in a high school music class. About year 10, so I would have been 16 or so.

What about you?

Lewis: [I come from a] musical family. My dad was a musician, but a folk musician. So I grew up around a lot of traditional Irish music—what here we call bush band music, with barn dances. He played the accordion and the Irish bagpipes.

My brothers and I were definitely encouraged to learn instruments when we were pretty young. I started playing trumpet when I was 10 and was pretty serious about that all through school. But, listening to music would have been, I think, raiding his record collection. He had some cool stuff in there that wasn't traditional Irish music. Key bands I remember picking up [from] this collection were Talking Heads and B-52s, my favorite bands when I was a little kid [and] bands I'm still into.

Jack: That's pretty good. I didn't know the Irish music.

Lewis: Did you not know that?

Jack: No. You probably told me, but we've known each other too long.

When did you start making music?

Lewis: Well, like I said, [I was] encouraged to learn instruments. I picked up [the] trumpet at 10 and played that all through school. I picked up bass in high school to play rock music. So, [I was] pretty young, having played music since around 11 or 12.

Credit:coopdelaloop

Did you get into a band immediately when you picked up the bass?

Lewis: Yeah, pretty much. I had an older brother who was a bass player. Some of the early stuff I was into would have been introduced by him. Age-wise, he falls into Gen X, and I remember him having Firehose and Minutemen tapes. So I was getting a bit of that world from him, and whatever your older brother was listening to, you think, was real cool. When he upgraded his bass when I was about 13, I was like, "I'm gonna have your hand me down." I had a group of friends at school, and it was straight away [to playing in a] garage band.

Jack: I played trombone when I was young. After I was shown "I'm Stranded," my dad showed me the rest of The Saints, and I heard "Know Your Product."

I started playing "Know Your Product" with some friends because it's got that big horn. I don't think it's [a] trombone, but I learned it on trombone and played it with some friends. We started a bad band, but I started singing because I couldn't play anything. I was playing bass, but really badly. I'd break all these strings on the bass all the time because I sucked. We did shows and stuff, but I started singing because I wanted to play music, and I was listening to a lot of punk, and I [knew] you didn't have to sound that good. A Stephen Malkmus quote in an interview that I read because I'm really big into Pavement. He's like, "Anyone can sing, as long as you can make it work with the song." Something along those lines, and I was like, "I guess I can do that." So I started singing badly for a long time until Bench Press started, and I started sounding a little bit better after that.

Lewis: Between Jack playing the trombone and me being a trumpet player, we joke about Bench Press being the greatest ska band [in Melbourne].

Jack: Oh, God. My partner, Bianca, still makes fun of me. I'd still pull out the trombone in my early band before Bench Press, even though I hadn't played it for years. I'd pull it out on stage and have all these bits and songs that someone had written for me, on like a keyboard, and I'd play it. I couldn't do it; it always sucked so much. Bianca still brings it up all the time, how terrible it was, and she's like, "Are you going to bring it back?" And I'm like, "No, I can't handle the criticism." It was bad, though; it's all dented, so it couldn't slide very neatly, so you'd oil the shit out of it so it could just slide really well, but it'd taste terrible because the fumes would get in. It's quite a good trombone, though, [and] I still got it. We should start this ska band. I don't listen to ska, but let's do it!

How did Bench Press come together as a band?

Lewis: This one's a good story.

Jack: Yeah, I like this one. Morgan, our guitarist, and Lewis were in, I would say, an okay band, Luna Deville. They would not, they were fine. I was in a terrible band called Vowel Movement. We were both like pop-ish bands. Vowel Movement was like indie pop, messy psychedelic.

Lewis: Alternative, but [I'm not] quite sure what it was.

Jack: It was a bit sad, but we started playing shows together. Vowel Movement broke up first, and [I was] not able to play an instrument. I stress that because I can't just start a band, I need people. At some point, Luna Deville is breaking up, so they asked me, "Can you come and sing Private Idaho, [and] do the male vocals?" The B-52s cover [and] they had a female lead vocalist. I said, "Yes." We did it. It was a good show, actually; it was a sweet bill. After the show, when we were all really drunk, Morgan and Lewis came up to me.

Lewis: No, actually, I'd go home. This conversation happened purely between you and Morgan.

Jack: Did it really? I've always imagined that you were there.

Lewis: Morgan and I were the two from that band who were going to keep going together and do something. We had a short list of people we might ask. Jack was on it.

Jack: Wow.

Lewis: The cover went really well.

Jack: Morgan came up to me really drunk and [was] talking to me about starting a band that sounded like Shellac and The Jesus Lizard—neither of which we've ever sounded like.

Lewis: Our original intentions were quite different from how it sounded.

Jack: I got home, and again I was talking to my partner, and I'm like, "I think he asked me if I wanted to join the band, but I'm not quite sure if that's what he was asking me." She's like, "You should just message him. If they say no, that wasn't their intention, then you'll never see them again." So, I messaged one of you. You, I dare say, because Morgan can't be messaged. I wouldn't have had him on Messenger at the time. So I must have messaged you, and then it started from there.

The sound of Bench Press' first album is a different kind of chaos than the sound it seems Bench Press has evolved into. Can you tell me about those changes and how they've taken shape collectively as a band?

Lewis: Yeah, I think that's really accurate. The first, it's a classic first album, which is where we were kind of figuring out what we were doing. As Jack said, our original reference points for the band were heavier, post-punk, and alternative than what we do now. That's still a bit more of a meaty, masculine album. What we've skewed towards since then, behind all the trimmings and Jack's vocals, is what we consider much more pop-oriented music.

Jack: Still noisy.

Lewis: It's still noisy, but it's got pop structures. If you sit down and analyze the songs, there's a lot of verse-chorus, verse-chorus, and verse-chorus, and the songs are short. Whereas, particularly structure-wise, what Morgan and I had been really into at the time [were] these drawn-out, hypnotic type things from a band like Shellac. We found that we likelistening to that and really appreciate it, but [we] get bored playing it. The fact got trimmed, and the tempos got faster, and that's where we find ourselves.

Jack: Speeding up the tempo was a big thing. We're way faster now than we were then. We all have a real issue with that first album being unbearably slow. I think collectively, or between the three of us still in the band that made it, we find it a bit of a slog to listen to. There's some cool stuff on there, but for me, it's really slow.

My references have stayed the same: Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto, but much more stripped back. We know each other a lot more now, as well. [For] that first album, we had references and ideas of what we wanted to sound like, but it probably wasn't, even at the time, it probably wasn't all of us collectively. Now that it's been almost nine years. We know each other really, really well. It's formed more naturally over that time into something that straddles what we're all into instead of an idealized version of a punk record.

Do you still play songs from the first album?

Lewis: One?

Jack: Yeah, one. I still want to play "Hey Man" and "Powerless," but they don't let me.

They don't let you? I like "Hey Man."

Lewis: Oh yeah. Which would have been one of the very first ones...

Jack: That we ever wrote.

Lewis: One of the first three songs, I think.

Jack: "Wanna Go" was the first one that we wrote.

Lewis: Was it?

Jack: I remember you guys playing that in the first rehearsal. We had a drummer who was a friend of mine, but that didn't work out. Yeah, that was one of the first songs. I can't remember the other songs.

I still have this recording of us playing at a warehouse very early on, so I've got all the songs. They're really bad—the ones that didn't make the cut for the album.

Is the warehouse still a practice space?

Jack: Nah.

Lewis: It was a fashion label launch.

Jack: They were just doing kimonos. It was all kind of off.

Lewis: Yeah. There was definitely some stink of cultural appropriation. It was a white person.

Something else, talking about the evolution of the band, that Jack touched on is the changing of lineups, [which] has informed the change. [While] also, [It's] been a reaction [to] where we want to go. We've been through a couple of drummers, is the main thing, Melbourne's spinal tap. We've had different influences coming in, drum-wise, and then also, in the case of Paolo, really hand-picking someone who was the sound that we were heading towards. You don't get to do [that] when you're an early band, and you don't know exactly what the sound [will] be; you're kind of like, "This person we know has got a drum kit in the car, and they can turn up to it. Great." Then we'll figure out what we are gonna sound like. A few years in, you know what you want to sound like and which drummer you want for that.

Jack: Yeah. We got to be really picky with choosing Paolo. We had a choice of two really good drummers, which felt really nice.

Lewis: Yeah, and then likewise, with Anna coming into the band about a year ago, was our reaction to wanting to have a different sound. We wanted to understand the sound color of the guitars and make things bigger. We also wanted to expand what we've been doing [with] backing vocals and more. [We brought] in a female voice for that contrast, so we sort of hand-picked who we know can help us realize the sound we're going for.

Jack: That'd fit our difficult personalities. Ha ha ha.

Lewis: Oh, well, jokes aside, I've always said, "I'd rather be in a band with someone awesome to hang out with rather than someone who's the perfect musician and a pain in the ass."

Jack: Yeah, absolutely.

Credit:coopdelaloop

Do you still work as a venue manager?

Jack: Absolutely not. Nah. I hate that shit. I'm a social worker now, I work in mental health.

Booking venues was really fun when you're in your early 20s, and you can go out, get drunk and see music, and get into the shit for free and hear new bands before they've played. But it's also a really soul-sucking and horrible [thing]. Has a really negative impact on mental health.

I actually did this research project when I was at uni about people who work in the music industry as bookers. Massively high rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, drug use, and alcohol abuse issues. It is way higher than the general population because of its unstable work environment. You can't switch off because if you switch off, you fall behind. If you fall behind, you're finished. It's competitive in every sense of the word.

For an industry, [with] how many people are you going to meet who work in the music industry, who claims to be left-leaning or socialist or whatever, but really it's just a fucking neoliberal machine in the industry side of things, and that's all it is. It eats you up, and it spits you out. I have [a] very low opinion of the music industry. Props to anyone who can actually last. I lasted a fair while, but it took its toll, and I don't have very good things to say about it in general, and I don't really know how you change it. I don't know if it can change. I just think part of what's written into the way that music works and the way that the music industry functions is competition.

Then there are the horrible people as well. There are so many arseholes because people feel really good about themselves and be like, "I'm so fucking cool." It's like, "No. You have no taste. You have no idea what you're doing, and you're just a fucking arsehole." So, strong opinions.

Lewis: [To] leap off of what Jack's saying. One of the reasons that in creative industries, musicians have high rates of mental illness is the high rates of drug and alcohol use. One of the problems with the music industry is that live performance is completely tied to alcohol sales, and that is the model it's built upon. It encourages that. I'm sure you would have seen this in the industry but also music-wise. It's that idea that networking and making those connections is done at two o'clock in the morning with a shot and a baggie, which is super, super problematic.

I think it would be great to see some way that music can move out of being tied to alcohol sales. But that seems to be the only financial model that anyone's come up with. There are people who run DIY vehicles, which is awesome, and that's for the love of it.

Jack: Props to D'shut.

Lewis: Anything like that is going to have a shelf life. They're going to hit 30 and say, "I need some more stability. I can't run a DIY venue off the smell of an oily rag."

Do you play at D'shut a lot because it is a DIY venue, or is it just a coincidence?

Jack: It's a coincidence. We know the people who are running it; they play in Propaine. We love Propaine.

Lewis: We played there recently. I think it's a draw card. We just say, "Yeah, let's play this venue."

Jack: The issue with it, though, is because it doesn't have those alcohol sales, [the] venue hire is expensive. It needs to be because that's what they need to do to make ends meet. I think that's going to be a turn-off for a lot of other bands. No regrets; that's what they need to do to survive, and it's going to be an important space.

I also know you have industry people on my news feed who complain about spaces that are unregulated because they're running these regulated spaces that are paying all these fees and making all these things happen because that's what it takes for them to run their space. They get unhappy when people take "shortcuts" and run these cool events because they're doing it illegally. They're like, "Well, I'm trying to do things properly and grow music in this city. The only way to do that legally is this way, and I got to pay all these fees. But here you are, running this illegal thing off the grid." What's that really doing to push music would be the debate. I'm fully on the DIY, more warehouse spaces please, side of things.But I have seen that complaint.

That debate sounds like the neoliberalism side of the music industry. It's like, "They're taking my profits." it's valid, and it's also not. You're fighting the wrong people.

Jack: Yeah, I agree. People are doing this because they want to break away from the current model, and the only way to break away from the current model is to reject it fully and do your own thing. Make it DIY and make it loose, which D'shut is definitely a loose time.

Lewis: Yeah, and looping back again a little bit. It's not like playing at D'shut, which is removed from the financial model of alcohol sales. It's not like this is a straight-edge venue. It's nice and clean, [but] I'm sure there are some future mental health issues coming out of the people who spend all of their time there.

Credit:coopdelaloop

I was going to ask about the commodification of art in relation to being a venue booker so that can be in the background. How does the relationship of commodification differ when you're on the other side of the industry as a musician?

Jack: Oh, so much. There's a reason I'm still playing music, and I'm not booking venues. When I was booking venues. I worked at one place that I now hate. Because of what happened there, in regards to me and what it did to me. One place that was really lovely, where I worked with really good people who really respected me and treated me well. Even the place that treated me well was not a cool venue. If I'm not Jack, I'm looking to get Bench Press to play at the venue I booked. There's no way Bench Press plays there. My approach to booking was bums on seats, and that's what it had to be because that's what the venue needed to stay afloat. It is depressing, and that wore me down. Sure, there are times when I could go out, and I could put something cool together, but I make no illusions about the fact that my time working in the industry was, [except] when I first got into it, I think I started when I was 21. When I was fucking going to shows all the time and really loose and really gung ho about things. The older I got, the more I couldn't do that, and the more it became [about] supporting myself financially.

With Bench Press, I organize most of the shows at this point [and] most of the supports, with input. I get to book whatever the hell I like. So, if you see something on a Bench Press lineup, I dig it. I get to have fun with that. We're at a point now where the rest of the band really trusts me, and I can have fun with that, within reason, of course.

I don't think anyone would mind whatever I booked at this point. The best thing about playing in Bench Press is getting to play with bands that I love and respect and to do really fun and silly things. The show at D'shut was a karaoke party, which was really dumb, and that's because I like karaoke, and I wanted to give a reason for the show to kick on afterward and for people to remember the show for something other than another Bench Press set. [It's] cool when you get to do stuff like that. I recently tried convincing them to have a Warcraft III tournament while we played the set. No one was for that. I get to have fun with it, and that's really cool and encourages me.

We're organizing a tour at the moment and, on top of finding support bands really frustrating, it's so satisfying because I've found so much cool music from other states of bands, Bench Press size and smaller or bigger. Bands that probably haven't been out of Sydney or haven't been to Melbourne, or if they have, I haven't seen them or listened to them. So digging through that and finding really fucking cool shit has been really satisfying and frustrating because I've gotten a lot of noes. I want bands I like, so not everyone's going to want to play with you all the time. That's cool. But [I] got to hear lots of really cool shit, and that's fun. Playing in bands is much better than working in the industry.

Yeah, that sounds like so much fun. It's purely a passion.

Jack: Yeah, and I had that when I first started booking venues, but it goes away very quickly when someone's like, "There's been no one coming to shows this week, and if you don't get anyone, you're out." That was day-to-day, with constant pressure all the time. When that's constantly at you, you wither and get on with it. You book what needs to be booked to get people in there. I booked some bad music at the pubs that I booked. They're lovely people, and they're friends like it, but It's not what I dig. It's not me. No offense to those bands.

Why did you go into social work?

Jack: Well, my mental health is, which admittedly, I'm not sitting here saying I've got terrible mental health issues or anything, 'cause I don't. But, my mental health definitely took a dip when I was burnt out, booking my first venue, and it never fully recovered to what it was.

I took a really active interest in mental health. I've always had an interest in social justice. I never intended to stay in the music industry. I was stuck for a long time and couldn't get out of it. Then COVID hit, and it gave me space and breathing room. I wasn't booking a venue; I was sitting at home, smoking too much weed and playing too many video games. It was like, "Oh, you've got to find something else to do." I thought about it, and I thought [about] mental health.

Bench Press really was a catalyst for me to start thinking about my own mental health and finding words to articulate [it]. If you listen to the albums, the first and second and now the third one, it shows a growth in [how] I speak about my emotions, other people's emotions, feelings, and mental health more broadly. Bench Press [is] like an unfiltered journal [and] it allowed me to explore how I felt about a lot of things. I was doing that; I was struggling with my own shit and the burnout. Then, I was like, mental health, youth mental health, because I like working with young people. I looked into different things and was like, "Oh, psychology. Oh, therapist." A friend was like, "Oh, what about social work?" I looked into it and social work's hyper-political. I remember reading something after my friend [suggested it]; I looked it up online. I read it. I was like, "That's me. That's who I am; [those are] my values." I moved into it, studied it, and now I'm working in it.

Can you tell me about the fundraiser, Bench Presstivus? The band hosted it in 2018ish for the women's support group Wire.

Jack: Yeah, that was ages ago. Fundraisers are important. I don't think we do them enough.

Lewis: Beach Presstivus and Jack, again, books pretty much all that himself. I think that was kind of your project, with us assisting. It's so much work to pull together a lineup of 10 bands.

Jack: It was stressful.

Lewis: Yeah, it went from being like, "Let's do this every year," to, unfortunately, you run out of time, and the amount of time it took to organize got away.

Jack: I think the fact that we're raising money for, whether you want to call it, family violence, domestic violence, or violence against women is important as well. Bench Press has always had an identity issue, I suppose. In the sense of, especially with the early shows after the first album [and] who came to our shows. You got people who really connected with the music and got what I was saying. But you also got a lot of angry young men who just wanted to mosh and be fuckheads. That's not what it's about, I said before, At the Drive-In [and] Fugazi, and they're both anti-mosh because moshing was this gross masculine thing where men barge their way to the front, [which] we were combating. I think [we] still do, [and] over the years, [we have] people that can come to our show; it's great you like our music; that's really cool. But you're not connecting with the message. That was a really intentional [event to show]; this is actually what we're about.

In our early shows, the two moments that stand out for me [are] Morgan, the guitarist's mum, she's this tiny Welsh woman, and she burst through the crowd because there was some fuckhead in the front row, and I swear they always wear Dune Rats t-shirts, but I might just be imposing my own bias upon them. This fuckhead was just being reckless, and she told them to get the fuck out essentially. Not in those words because she didn't really speak like that.

Lewis: It wasn't even a huge crowd as well. Sometimes, two or three guys are like, "It's not a huge crowd, but we're still going to take up the entire front of the [dive bar] and make everyone else feel uncomfortable." Throwing elbows and stuff.

Jack: It happened at our last album launch. I could see all my friends around this guy, and they were all so uncomfortable, and we stopped after the song, and I was like, "Hey, you gotta stop doing that; that's not what we're about." Gave a little spiel, [the] song started, and the guy kept doing it again, and I was like, "Fuck." We didn't stop. [Instead] I saw my dad making a beeline from the back of the room because my sister was in the front row. She was one of the people being bothered. He taps the guy on the shoulder, and I just see my dad; my dad's a funny guy, and he's just like in the guy's face, and the guy just walked out of the show. It was great. I don't know if he left or moved to the back. As soon as I saw my dad coming down, I [was] like, "No problem." My dad gets it. He knows what it's all about.

We get a lot less of that now, but Bench Presstivus was a real intentional branding. It's an absolutely essential issue. I work with it every day, so [I am] taking nothing away from the issue itself. Also, when all you're seeing at your shows are these angry young men doing that, and women or femme presenting people standing at the back. It's really fucking shit, and I hate it.

Lewis: Yeah, it's being conscious of where we wanted to align ourselves in the scene and what was going on. Now we have a female member, but especially when we were an all-dude band, we were hyper-conscious of making sure we didn't end up on lineups that were all dudes. Because it's like, "Oh, then you're just part of the problem." So, you can search back through Bench Press lineups, and you'll be very hard-pressed to find one that Jack hasn't done a good job of making sure it's a diverse lineup.

Around then, as well, was a fairly watershed time in the Melbourne scene when that was being spoken about a lot.Notably, Camp Cope were the prominent band at the time, really highlighting issues for women in the music industry.

Could you tell me more about that time?

Lewis: [Camp Cope] was another important Poison City Records band on the same label as us. They got huge and were playing at the Sydney Opera House.

Jack: For their final show, yeah, it was at the Sydney Opera House.

Lewis: [They] did a lot of international tours and were really, really outspoken about what it was like to be a woman in the industry, in a band. Their most iconic song, "The Opener," was about being, well, it's ironic because of what I was just saying, but being the girl band on a lineup, that's always stuck first.

Jack: I was going to touch upon that because you said, "I put in the work." I actually don't feel like I put in any work to that. That's just what my music taste gravitates towards. I was talking to Andy from Poison City, who runs the record label, about going out and booking our tour support. I could go out and book a bunch of dude hardcore bands, and they'd play with us, absolutely no doubt, but I got no interest in that. I wouldn't enjoy myself, and it comes back to booking the bands you like. The music I like is not ultra masc fucking bro down shit.

I was saying at the start that music is political, and punk rock is inherently political. If it's not political, then it's probably not punk rock. I don't think there's anything all that political about a bunch of dudes drinking, sinking tinnie, singing about sinking tinnie, and doing bongs. There's nothing political about that.

Lewis: Which is a big wave of Australian punk.

Jack: Yeah. Booking diverse lineups is the easiest thing in the world because that's what each one of us already listens to individually. It's not hard. It's diverse because good music is generally diverse.

Credit:coopdelaloop

How did the community of the Naarm/Melbourne underground music scene impact Bench Press in the band's early years?

Lewis: Old Bar in Fitzroy got us off the ground at a grassroots level. Great venue and that was where we started. It's a small, 150-cap dive bar. We played our first show there, and the owners, Joel and Liam, and who happened to be on the sound that night, Matt, were all like, "Oh, this band's great; we're really into this." On that grassroots level, they opened the doors and were like, "We're gonna tell everyone how much we think this band is great." That happened quite organically. Now Matt is our go-to sound guy, and he recorded the first and the most recent album."

I think it was even on Liam's recommendation 'cause we were a brand new band, and we got the deal with Poison City to release the record. He actually spoke to Andy and was like, "This band is brand new, and they haven't even got a demo yet, but you should get on this one."

Like anywhere, there are tight-knit bands that play together. However, where we're at as a band now, which has been going for nine years, most of those bands that were there when we started have sort of drifted away. There's a great new batch of bands, and it's really, really cool stuff happening. I feel that we're not outside of that, but maybe a little bit outside of that.

Sound wise or?

Lewis: It's not only sound-wise [but also] scene-wise. It's because we're sort of an old band now. No one in Melbourne is being surprised by Bench Press.

Jack: No. "Oh, Jack's pacing. Look at him go."

Lewis: The new bands coming up are great, and they've got a really cool sound. Which is a peripheral to what we sound like. I don't feel as much as part, personally, as an individual, but also the band, a part of that scene. It [could] be down to the fact that we're all in our late 30s or 40s now, and we're not the ones.

Jack: Early 30s. Thank you very much.

Lewis: [We used] to network after a gig and build tight relationships with bands, like we used to with Shepparton Airplane and Moody Beaches.

Jack: We've still got that crew, and we're still around it. But the fact that we get to less shows probably doesn't help things.

Lewis: Morgan, our guitar is the classic. I've played the set. See you guys. I got to work at six in the morning.

Jack: I'm the stayer.

Lewis: Jack does the networking for us, I'm not much of a networker now.

Jack: It is really hard, though, and sometimes I wonder, are we that heritage act now.

Lewis: We're not quite there.

Jack: I always think about Luna Deville or Vowel Movement, or Secret of George was one [of] my earlier bands, or Mumbletown, my crappiest first band. I remember playing in those bands when I was younger, and it never felt like I had a music community around me. I could never break into the communities I wanted to be a part of. One thing I always think so fondly about Bench Press is [that] I wouldn't say we created a scene around us, but we were part of a burgeoning little group of bands who burst in our small ways around each other.

That was my first time being part of what I consider a music community, where I truly felt a part of something like that. I don't think I'd ever had that before; I definitely hadn't, and I always wanted that. One of my things about Bench Press was that I remember having that feeling and [it] feeling quite special and nice. Knowing that you're playing with all these other bands you love and with people you respect.

Lewis: You know that thing where it gets to the point where you can go to a show, and you haven't organized with your friends, but you're like, "I'm gonna go to this show, and I know I'm gonna see a bunch of friends here. I'm gonna be able to have a nice time." That's a really good feeling.

I would say I had that sense of community in a music scene before. But that's back in Dunedin, which is a much smaller place. Obviously, a smaller place has a tighter community where everyone knows each other. Melbourne is not as big asNew York, but it's a big city. The difference between those two communities is the community we became a part of, which was centered around Old Bar. We're musically still within the same Venn diagram of punky alternative.

Previously, [in Dunedin], we never had a music community. It was a town of 100, 000 people. There's only one or two bands of any given genre there. So you become part of this community of bands where a typical lineup is going to be like, "Oh yeah, we've got someone doing a weird electronic beat thing, and then there's going to be a funk band, and then an indie rock band, and then a metal band. They're all friends, and they're all going to play on the same lineup." I love that, and it creates a nice flow of a night because I don't want to go see four metal bands in one night. I probably don't evenwant to go see four punk bands. You get [a] nice variation around that.

Do you try to book with that sense of variation, or is it very similar?

Lewis: I think we book within that Venn diagram.

Jack: Yeah, I think you're right. I book what I'm listening to. It's a by-product of my [current] music taste. I'd love to book heavier, but I don't think anyone else would love it too much.

While writing Not the Past, Can't Be the Future, did you think writing about your mental health journey was political?

Jack: Yes.

Going into the third album, how has the personal politics of writing about mental health transferred to other politics, within your community and the world, and made you want to start writing more political music?

Jack: I think I'm pretty good at writing about personal politics, [but] I don't think I'm very good at writing about global politics or things more broadly. It really irks me that I can't do it. I've tried quite a lot to write about issues more broadly, and I do sometimes.

Lewis: The big example is probably...

Jack: "More than that."

Lewis: Well, I was going to say "Leather Jacket Effect."

Jack: Oh yeah, that's right. Leather Jacket Effect [is] on the new album.

Lewis: There's a very clear: this is the political idea this is about, outside of yourself.

Jack: Yeah, I guess "More Than That" was probably my first attempt at writing that, and to be honest, that's probably less about global politics or national politics and more about punk rock politics. That song was about a real heritage [band, and to call them] that would be doing them a disservice. [They're] a punk rock band, an absolute classic of the genre absolute icons, offered us 50 bucks to play with them for their Melbourne show and said, "Supply your own sound engineer, and you gotta bring the back line." We kicked up a stink, and we ended up saying no to it, and I stand by that decision, even though I was probably more; I think at the time, Morgan and Lewis were much stronger in being like, "This is an absolute rort."

Lewis: I think it was a band that meant more to you.

Jack: Yeah, I can't listen to them. If a single comes on, I'll listen to it. It really sucked. So I can't go back and listen to that. Probably my first foray into doing that [is] on the new album. Two songs are overtly political. One is about Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister's views on Palestine, changing from being pro-Palestine to being an absolute piece of shit. The other one, "Push", is about my views on the referendum to acknowledge the voice to parliament and my belief that it's all about self-determination, and yet, here we are, people with no skin in the game making a decision about people with everything and their whole lives being impacted by people who aren't impacted by it. People like me, not an Indigenous person making a decision for Indigenous people sucked.

That was my first attempt; Bench Press has been a learning experience. How I approach lyrics and the things that I sing about and learning about myself. I'm very blunt. I think Morgan is always disappointed by my black and whiteness. He always likes the idea of me being more obtuse and poetic with my language when I'm singing, but I'm just not capable of it. That's why I struggle with writing political songs; it's so black and white. It just sounds too cliché or too preachy or sloganistic.

I find it really hard, but I'm learning. The more I write, the more comfortable [I'll get with it] because that's where I want to go. I've explored where I want to explore for myself. There are probably more songs on this album that have less to do with my own personal mental health or the mental health of people around me and more to do with how society impacts views on mental health and things that are okay, not okay to talk about.

It's been a really long learning curve, and Not the Past, Can't Be the Future was a much better attempt at that than the first album, which was very, doing my best, getting there. Some lines are good, and some lines are not so good. Not the Past, Can't Be the Future is a bit better. This one's better. I think it's the best representation of my general topics [compared to] previous ones.

Credit:coopdelaloop

Lewis: Jack's lyrics are the part of the band that is handed over to one person. Otherwise, musically, the band is very democratic, and everything goes to committee. The lyrics are really over to Jack, so I can't comment on how you feel about them.

Jack: Yeah, good, mostly.

Lewis: I like that it's going in a more overtly political, outside-of-your-self direction.

Jack: That needed to happen as well, though. I remember writing the last few songs for Not the Past, Can't Be the Future and feeling a bit stuck, pigeonholed, and like I'd run out of things to say.

Lewis: I think you'd say what there was to be said about that.

Jack: [It was also] really incredible when we got back because Lewis went overseas during COVID-19; he went back to New Zealand. Then he came back, and we weren't sure if the band would continue. Lewis was probably more convinced than Morgan and I were.

But when he got back, and we got back into it, and we started playing the songs, I [felt] and still feel it. It's not just the clunky phrasing that makes me feel awkward, perhaps, or uncomfortable, but those songs [don't reflect] who I am in this moment, the way they were when they were written. That's a really hard thing about writing things that are so diary-esque. It's a real reflection of where you're at at that point. And I'm not at that point in my life anymore. I'm very different.

Then you have to perform them. That's a weird feeling.

Jack: Yeah. It felt really uncomfortable. Actually, I feel very uncomfortable singing a couple of songs.

Stagnation is a thread the band has weaved between "Curdled" on Bench Press' 7" with Dr. Sure's Unusual Practice and the band's new single, "Personal Best." What about being an artist has made you continue returning to the concept of being stagnant?

Jack: I didn't think about that in terms of "Personal Best," but that's true. It boils down to me and how I am. I felt stuck for a really long time doing what I was doing and probably living in a way that I wasn't entirely happy with. I felt really stuck in doing that for a really, really long time, which is where "Curdled" comes in.

I think "Personal Best" is about stagnation, but more so, it's about growth and being realistic about growth. Part of why I like being a social worker is in the Australian Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics. Part of it is a continual dedication to lifelong learning; we're saying that if you're not political, it's not punk rock. If it's not political, you're not a social worker.

I can get very stuck on certain ideas sometimes. Last year was my first year of being a social worker. It was like a really monumental year for me where I ticked off a lot of things, and then I was drawing to the end and starting to feel I'd plateaued. I think "Personal Best" was, in some ways, a, "Oh shit, I gotta keep on getting better." I've said it heaps of times in this interview, things aren't just linear like that. So, it's coming to grips with the fact that things aren't linear, and stagnation isn't necessarily a negative thing as long as you're still looking to try and get better, improve, and learn. Trying to hit your personal best doesn't stop you from trying to be the best you can be at something. You won't always get there, and that's fine. Sometimes, you'll take a step backward, and sometimes, the step backward [is needed] to take two steps forward.

Maybe it's born out of a fear of stagnation, but at the same time, it's trying to accept the fact that that's a necessary part of improvement. Sometimes, plateaus are good because [they] mean you're settled for a hot minute before you deep-dive into something else that's going to take you to that next level. If you're constantly doing that, you will burn out and feel really tired, which I think "Personal Best" talks about that idea.

I was so focused last year on pushing myself and pushing myself and pushing myself. Rocking up to work, everyone at work knows me, it's recurring thing me at work, "Jack's just fucking keen. Jack wants to go, and he's up for anything."Sometimes that takes its toll where you feel really wrecked and really tired and let yourself stagnate or be bored; that shit's good. That shit's necessary as a comparison to getting better. Happy is only happy [and] having fun is only fun if you can be bored. If you're always having fun, it's not fun. You gotta have the comparison.

That's very anti-capitalist of you.

Jack: Yeah, that's very true. That, "I gotta be contributing and getting better."

Lewis: What's your side hustle?

Jack: Bench Press!

Find Bench Press on Bandcamp: https://benchpressmelb.bandcamp.com/music
Check out Bench Press’ Instragram: https://www.instagram.com/benchpressband/#

Billie Estrine

Naarm/Melbourne, Australia

Home Next →