LICKLASH — DIY BABES ZINE

Finding Space is the First Step to Finding Community

Kahlia on guitar and vocals and Carsten on bass have been playing a rockin' 'set every Wednesday during their July residency at Shotkickers. Sometimes, I'd get distracted by Power Rangers playing on a vintage TV right in front of them. But LICKLASH's punk energy and performance always drew me back in from watching that damn screen.

Check out my convo with Kahlia Parker and Carsten Bruhn below!

By Billie Estrine

Mon. Jul 29 2024

Where did you both grow up?

Kahlia: I grew up in country New South Wales, in a really small town called Bellingen. I was born on a farm, and then when I was 14, we moved to Byron Bay, which is three hours north. It's where Amy from Amyl and the Sniffers is from, so we know each other from there. It's another strange, small hippie town.

Carsten: I grew up in Lakes Entrance, Victoria, East Gippsland, but I was born in Canberra and moved to Melbourne when I was ten [and] have been here since, so 20 years in Melbourne.

What inspired you to start making music?

Kahlia: I started playing piano when I was eight and then stopped when I was 18, so I can't play piano anymore. But, always did music growing up and my brother plays guitar and was always in bands.

When I was in high school in Byron, there [was] a really big hardcore scene there. It's pretty male-dominated. So I loved the energy of it but didn't really find the space, literally being pushed to the walls. But they were the only free underage shows. So I was like, "How can I feel that? But, the music I'm playing is [a] girl with the guitar."

I stopped playing music for a little while, [and] I lived in London for a bit.

Then moved back to Byron and eventually moved to Melbourne. I was going to so many shows. I was like, "I can't handle not playing music," seeing more women on the stage and making friends with bands. Within six months of moving to Melbourne, I started a band. I felt like I had to.

Carsten: I was about 12 years old, saving up for a really good replica Star Wars lightsaber. My sister was a few years older than me and was really into cool bands at the time—Strokes, Kings of Leon, the whole indie thing. She was like, "That's so lame that you're saving up for a lightsaber; you should buy a guitar instead." And I was like, "Ok." And I did it.

That's it. I bought a guitar and started writing songs, trying to replicate cool people and cool music.

Do you thank your sister?

Carsten: Definitely, yeah. I still want the lightsaber, though. I never got it.

Kahlia: Maybe one day.

Carsten: I never had a really cool lightsaber, so maybe one day.

When did you start playing live music?

Kahlia: Technically, literally being 10 years old and playing piano recitals. Then, at school, I did it for my high school certificate. We did music and had to do performances.

I used to play music with some girls, and there was a festival in Byron called Bluesfest. We would play there sometimes, a midday show. Yeah, that kind of random shit.

Carsten: Mine was through school. I think the first show we played in front of a bunch of grade one students at the primary school across the road from our high school. My only two friends from high school [and I] played "Reptilia" by The Strokes, and the teacher was like "I didn't think today I would hear a song by The Vines." So, he had that wrong.

The only other time, until I was 18, was in high school as well. I went to an all-boys school, and we had a massive event with the other all-girls Catholic school, and there were all performances. We played "Reptilia" again and "Molly's Chambers" by Kings of Leon. We went under the name Warsaw because that was Joy Division's first band name. But then the douchebag jock dudes introduced us as Cactus, which is slang for shit.

Those were my first two performances.

Kahlia, what kind of music did you start playing in Naarm/Melbourne?

Kahlia: Went straight into punk. I was going to heaps of punk shows. I couldn't play guitar. I'd learned a little bit, but it was a different style. More like jamming out to some Bon Iver or some shit like that.

So yeah, I moved to Melbourne, bought a guitar, [and] could barely play it. Started writing songs with two other girls I was in a band with. They'd never played their instruments, drums or bass before. So we were like, "We'll just figure out how to make some songs and have fun." Then we got booked for a show, [and] we had six weeks to come up with a set. So we just figured that out [and] started playing originals because we couldn't play covers; we didn't know how. So yeah, punk stuff.

How did you get booked for that gig?

Kahlia: The girls in my band were living with some guys in a band. So it was really easy for us. They already had everything in the garage: amps, drums, and [a] bass. They wanted to put on a show, and I helped one of the guys book it. He was like, "Psych, you guys are opening. You have to figure it out." I was like, "Okay, cool."

From that, we got booked for our second show during soundcheck, and it spiraled out of control for a little while.

When was your introduction to the Naarm/Melbourne Underground punk scene?

Carsten: Me and a couple of friends were in an all-dude band and not really a part of the scene. I, from the outside, always looked at it and wanted to be a part of it.

It wasn't until I met a couple of people, [including] Jordan Oakley, who hosts Underground Love on PBS FM. At the time, [he was] helping to run a DIY music festival called Bush Music Festival. [The] record label I started did a collaboration cassette tape with a compilation of all the artists that played that festival. So that was my introduction to [the] underground punk scene.

[I] pretty soon realized that's where things like community were at the top of the priority list and fell in love with it in about 2018.

Can you tell me about Roolette Records?

Carsten: Yes, I started Roolette Records in 2017 to release my old band's music because no other record labels would release us, which is a common story for a lot of labels.

It wasn't until the band Private Function hit us up and were like, "Can you release our thing?" I was like, fuck, I should probably do this record label.

So, from 2018 to 2021, we had a super busy period, released some incredible artists, and grew from strength to strength. We even worked with international artists like Surfbort; they were amazing. To platform so many cool local underground bands and to get people to pay attention to them was super rewarding. Seeing bands like The Vovos and PINCH POINTS, more people should know about them, and [to] be a part of that was super awesome.

Then, in 2021, during COVID-19, it got a bit too much. I got a bit burnt out, so I'm taking a break from it, but it'll come back later this year.

Do you think there's something political about creating a community?

Kahlia: Yeah, definitely. It's about forming your own support structures. Finding people who share similar values gives you the confidence to continue [with] them and expand on them.

Coming from a small town, I felt I had ideas and expression. But not finding support and community made me feel like, "Oh, but other people aren't really thinking that."

When you foster a community of people who are doing the shit that you're doing, it makes you want to do it ten times over.

Carsten: It's super political because it's your safe place away from society that everyone can exist in and feel safe and inclusive. [It] doesn't go [with] whatever is happening in normal society.

Kahlia: When we started getting more into the space that we're in now, being able to go to a show and seeing someone who's on the outer and being like, "Hey," connecting and seeing you want to be a part of this, let's do it together.

We've done so many shows that are fundraisers. Even being a non-male person on stage is a political statement. That's something that I feel so passionately about [and] for me, was political because I didn't see that too much growing up. Creating the visibility from having the support in the community and continuing that makes other people feel like, "Fuck, I can do that."

When was LICKLASH formed?

Kahlia: LICKLASH was formed in 2022. That was when we first started playing [and] got the name. We already had the songs from 2020 ish. My old band broke up and had some leftover songs. We were just getting into COVID, so we didn't really have anything else to do.

Carsten: Took us a couple of years to formulate the sound.

Kahlia: Yeah, we've gone through a bit of a process. Starting from one place and then landing and continuing to land in a different place.

When the band first got together, can you tell me about the process LICKLASH went through to get booked for gigs?

Kahlia: Yeah, 2022 was still a semi-random time. We'd been totally out of everything for two years through COVID. So, we just tried to book a string of shows ourselves.

Carsten: We probably were late to return to live music. COVID for us made us go into our shells quite a bit.

Kahlia: We were just living the two of us in an apartment; it was a pretty insular time.

Carsten: It was a bit of a hard time. We took a little longer to get involved.

Kahlia: To warm up a bit.

Carsten: To put on shows with all the same people, it took a while to get back to that. So, when we did, we figured the best way, instead of waiting for people to ask us to play, [was to] make sure we control our own stuff. We booked a bunch of shows [and] asked a bunch of bands to play with us. Organized it all ourselves.

How does that work? Do you ask venues?

Kahlia: Yeah. We go, "Let's do a show on the 17th of October. Where, ideally, would we want it to go? [It] would be sick to do The Tote upstairs. You ask The Tote. They might be like, 'Oh, we don't have that date, we could do this date.' Depending on if it's a super busy time, you could be like, alright, Tote said 'no,' we could do Old Bar, we could do this place, we could do that place."

Carsten: We had the connections from our work with Kahlia in Girl Germs and my record label.

Kahlia: Yeah, we knew a bunch of people.

Carsten: We knew the bookers. Relatively easy and accessible for us to message them.

Kahlia: It's the same setup as when I started booking with Girl Germs. We throw it out there and be like, "Hey, here's what we're thinking. Do you have any dates? Here's the lineup we're thinking of." You get the date, and then the task is to ask 10 bands, "You want to play." 'Cause everyone's super busy.

Carsten: The other thing is, in Melbourne there's live music seven days of the week. It's kind of easy and normal to be honest. Everyone can message a venue and say, "Hey, do you have a date available for my band to put on a show?" They'll be like, "Yep."

Kahlia: It's gotten back to normal. In the 2022 of it all, it was still a lot of bands, [but] everyone was still a bit random. I feel like this year it's definitely returned with more people going out on a Wednesday. It was always Wednesday maybe, definitely Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and probably Sunday.

Carsten: Booking shows in Melbourne, bands are almost the bookers and promoters. Whereas the venues don't really act as the tastemakers, they're there basically to employ the bands [and] to be like, "You can hire this space, put on your own show, do all the work, book the lineup, organize all the gear, the drumkits, and all that stuff."

That's why it's easy. Venues open their doors to basically any band, [which] is really awesome. Anyone can put on a show.

Kahlia: Sometimes, you can be like, "Hey, we want to do this. Let's do a guarantee, and then all the bands get paid, and we can do either tickets or free entry." There's a billion ways that the venue wants to workshop money.

Has the process for booking gigs changed, as you guys have been together for longer? Or is it still the same?

Kahlia: I think the tough thing about when we started playing again was that a lot of the bands that we were playing with, either in old bands or [that we were] friends with, either weren't around anymore after COVID or were in phases of "We'd love to, but we're touring Europe." So yeah, they got bigger. Time passed and they're a sick band.

It was about finding that community again and finding that space. We're a newer band doing this thing, and we need to start again and find bands that we really connect with.

Carsten: Yeah, we had to reset and go back to what we did in the beginning. The process from then didn't really change.

Kahlia: Now it's easier because we booked for our residency, and that was a pretty smooth process for us. We've played fuckin almost 30 shows already this year. We played with a lot of bands [and] we were able to be like, "DOLLS were sick, we played at Nighthawks, they were super nice, we should ask them." We Love Scud. We [have] a list of bands now that are super relevant and that we can ask.

In beat magazine, I found that back in 2022, there were community jam sessions at Mamma Chen's on the last Saturday afternoon of every second month. LICKLASH was on the bill for one of these Saturday gigs. Can you tell me about community jam sessions?

Carsten: With that one, we weren't involved in the community jam session. I do know the booker, Chloe, is awesome. They put on super-inclusive events and are raising money to make the stage accessible. They're saving up thousands of dollars.

Not too many of the more punk venues do community jam sessions. It's something that used to happen in pubs.

Kahlia: Chloe Morgan is an amazing person. They're really sick and do a lot for disabled artists and differently abled artists in the punk scene and community in Melbourne.

What's your favorite part or feeling you get from playing a gig?

Kahlia: It's the personal feeling of, I don't know, it's multifaceted. I love playing a gig, and the energy and the electricity, and being that was so much fun. Sometimes you wanna be like, "I wish we could do that again," straight away.

I've gone through so many different phases with it. Being able to finish a show and have girls and non-male people come up to me, and they're like, "Oh my god, like, that was so much fun, or, that was so sick, or I loved what you do." That's really important to me and is always so nice, because I remember being them [and] watching other women on stage.

Carsten: Mine is probably being so far removed from anything in my life. Day-to-day shit, work, money, forget the troubles of the world.

Kahlia: You have to be so in the moment.

Carsten: I get to rock the fuck out and hang out with my girlfriend.

Do you have any recordings of your music works?

Carsten: We've recorded an EP that'll be coming out later [this] year. The first single will come out soon. We recorded the whole thing at home, and it's gonna be really awesome.

Kahlia: Yeah, it's gonna be cool.

Check out LICKLASH on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/licklash_/#

Billie Estrine

Naarm/Melbourne, Australia

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