Earlier this year, it was announced that Australia would be graced with the presence of Mclusky*, the present-era iteration of the Welsh band that blew us away early in the ’00s.
Having released their debut album back in 2000, Mclusky were quick to receive critical acclaim for their ferocious yet simple compositions, backing it up with immersive live shows, and gradually turning themselves into icons of the genre.
After two more studio albums, a pair of Aussie tours, and a little bit of internal tension, Mclusky eventually folded in 2005, with bassist John Chapple going on to embark on his own solo career, while guitarist and vocalist Andy “Falco” Falkous would launch Future Of The Left with drummer Jack Egglestone.
Back in 2015 though, Mclusky fans received word that a reunion of sorts was on the card. With Falco teaming up with Egglestone, and partner and Future Of The Left bandmate Julia Ruzicka, to perform a handful of charitable shows.
This new iteration of the band – dubbed Mclusky* to serve as a caveat of sorts to fans – remained largely inactive until this year, when the group found themselves hitting the road again for a number of shows, eventually announcing a return to Australia back in August.
With Mclusky* set to hit up local stages for a highly-anticipated tour next month, we sat down for a chat with Falco to learn more about this new era of the band, and just how popular his music is in Australia.
Check out ‘To Hell With Good Intentions’ by Mclusky:
Tone Deaf: So first up, you’re out playing Mclusky songs again under a slightly modified version of the old band name. It started off enough with a few benefit gigs, but how exactly did it all come to originate and leap from being a one-off affair to a touring show?
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Andy “Falco” Falkous: Well people kept asking for it, for a start. It’s nice to a degree. I don’t want to get all noble with psychology, but it’s nice to be wanted sometimes. Future Of The Left goes well, and it does well in certain parts, but most of the time the band is reminding people that Mclusky exists.
It’s really nice sometimes when nostalgia actually works in your favour rather than, say, bringing in something objectively shit like Brexit, and reminding people of a time in their lives when they maybe wish they had back, or helped to shape a lot of the influences and the things they love now.
But it basically started with someone asking us to do a show for Future Of The left which we couldn’t end up doing, but we’d mucked it around for a week or so, thinking we could do the show. Then, they asked earlier this year if we could do a show – which was at Portals Festival in London – and it kind of just spiralled from there, really.
A couple of people emailed me to ask if we could do more shows, which all ended up being arranged in quite an ad-hoc manner, I suppose. I’m not really an agent, or whatever, but we just arranged everything around weekends, so it’s been a lot of fun.
Like, some of the shows have just been ‘shows’ because some of the crowds are are tired, or the venue isn’t magical, and there isn’t that indefinable thing in the air which sometimes creates a magical show, but some of the shows – I’d say more than half of them so far – have been incredible, and it’s up to you to judge when you see it.
The desire every night is to step on stage and to be the best rock band in the world. Every single night. And that’s what it’s meant to be, and frankly that’s how every rock band in the world should be thinking, or if you’re a performer.
Check out Mclusky’s ‘She Will Only Bring You Happiness’:
Tone Deaf: The reviews of the latest gigs have been claiming that the band are as good, if not better than shows from early last decade. Why do you think that is? Have you guys just aged well, or do you think folks are blinded by a bit of the nostalgia associated with the shows?
Falco: It could be a little bit of both, Or obviously “better”, “worse”, or “the same” could have something to do with where you’re stood in the room, you know? Maybe you’re in one of those venues where it sounds great in the front, but in the back you’re all, “it was too much bass” or whatever, and obviously you’re not going to have this magical night.
But I’m telling you, as somebody who stands on stage, it’s the business of kidding myself, more than anything. I’m not very aware of what I do and what career is, and I don’t want to use boring, or sometimes tediously relied-on words like “integrity”, it’s not to my benefit to not tell the truth about it.
I think I’m a better musician now than I was. I’m a little bit more of a controlled musician. I think that Jack is certainly a better musician than he was, I’d say without any hyperbole that Jack’s the greatest drummer there ever is. I think he’s a fantastic musician, he’s such a tasteful player. It’s not a word you associate with a band like Mclusky or Future Of The Left, but he’s really such a superb drummer.
And Damien [Sayell] who’s playing the bass and singing, and being in the band rather than just doing an impression of somebody who used to be in the band. When those people step on stage at the same time every night, it’s the band against the world. As much as you love the audience, hopefully you’re there to obliterate them, figuratively speaking.
Check out Mclusky’s ‘Fuck This Band’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwP6_qZzK-w
Tone Deaf: You famously said you wouldn’t reunite for anything less than £200,000. Have you moved past that feeling, or is that still the going rate to remove the asterisk from the band name?
Falco: No, that would be my fee for being in a band with John [Chapple] and Matt [Harding]. As far as I’m concerned, we haven’t reunited the band. That’s why it’s Mclusky*. It is, but it isn’t; it gives us a get-out clause.
It means that people can go and see the band, and they can either enjoy it in their head and add it to the pantheon of the shows we did. Or, they could go like, “ah, it wasn’t even the same band.” We’re literally saying that to them.
And, also, let’s face it, there are lots of bands who reform, and they’re ninth-rate version of what they used to be, and so it’s taking the piss out of that as well.
On one level, reforming is actually fucking pathetic, on another level, absolutely one of the motivations for doing it at times is the money. You can’t get away from that, but the main reason for doing it is not money.
The money that’s come from this tour is, relatively speaking, not a lot of money to a lot of bands and people who have jobs, but by the standards of musicians, it’s relatively lucrative. There are people out there who would laugh their tits off if they knew what my definition of lucrative was.
But, it’s just loads of fun as well. I love being in Future Of The Left; it’s the band I’ve always dreamed of being in. But some of that stuff is hard to play and concentrate on. It’s really quite hard. It’s not fucking tech-metal, advanced, but it’s pretty hard to perform with that intensity and keep it going.
Mclusky is hard on the throat, and everything, but in terms of the thought process that has to be given to the songs, it’s minimal. It’s just loads of fun. It’s just showing off for an hour and five minutes. To be on the other side of it, I feel very humble that people would pay just to see you showing up and talk shit for an hour and five minutes.
Check out ‘Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues’ by Mclusky:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb6B9zofpXo
Tone Deaf: Was there ever a fear of living up the expectations of folks? Obviously Mclusky were well-regarded, and even if the name is slightly modified to subvert expectations, were you worried fans would’ve still been expecting something similar to a continuation of the group?
Falco: In effect, that’s what we’ll be getting. Let’s face it, one of the defining aspects of a band is the voice of the person singing, and my voice hasn’t changed a lot. I’m sure it will in years to come. I’m sure that one day that it’ll turn around to me like, “no, absolutely fucking not… Stop this, stop doing this to yourself.”
People will have expectations, and again, maybe those expectations won’t be met, but frankly my expectations are met so I don’t care, [laughs]. Because I wouldn’t be taking it on stage if it wasn’t as good.
Obviously that are other factors that come into it, like you might have a shitty day, or you might be standing in that place in the venue where you don’t like it, but I think other than that, I think people will be quite satisfied. That sounds like I’m talking it up, and I wish it didn’t, but the proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes.
Tone Deaf: Obviously a bit of time had passed between the end of the band and now, so how has it been revisiting a lot of the material for these shows?
Falco: For the most part, it’s been fun to go through them. When we started doing these shows for charity, Julia [Ruzicka] was playing the bass guitar, and it was Future Of The Left playing Mclusky songs. Damien just singing John’s part, so it wasn’t really a three-piece in tradition with the band, as it is now.
When we started doing it, it was a bit of showing Julia the bass lines and showing Damien the bass lines. What is astonishing to musicians is how simple those songs are. They are simple to the point of satire, almost.
It doesn’t sound quite that basic, because of how things fit together, but I can show somebody the whole song of ‘The World Loves Us And Is Our Bitch’ on the bass guitar in the time it takes to play the riff once.
The whole song is just one riff, and this is, not that we ever talked about it on those terms, but kind of one of the reasons why being in the band wasn’t as interesting to John after a while, because he wanted to do other things, and that makes total sense.
I think any band with any self-respect, with any musicians just doing music like that has a little bit of a shelf life.
Check out Mclusky’s ‘The World Loves Us And Is Our Bitch’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucbufnI2l8w
Tone Deaf: Mclusky managed to visit Australia a couple of times during their life, and Future of The Left are frequent guests as well. How do crowds down here compare to hometown audiences?
Falco: Really really well, to say the least, and they were all good. There’s an anomalous thing with us that for some reason, Mclusky and Future Of The Left were much more popular in Melbourne than anywhere else on Earth. I don’t know why it is, though. There’s no logic to it.
When we play in London, and we just did two shows to a combed of over 1,000 people… You can’t look at everything in numbers, but if we were as big in London as we are in Melbourne, we’d be playing to 5,000 people, because of the relative population.
I don’t know why it is exactly, but there are particular cities where we are always popular for some reason. We played Zagreb, and suddenly everyone was there. We played Seattle, Chicago was incredible.
In Bristol, we do great for rock music at the minute. We didn’t used to, and when Mclusky were coming out we played two shows to a combined audience of 50 people, and the two shows we’ve done now in Bristol, both of them sold out in an afternoon. It’s crazy, but wonderful.
I don’t want to sound like I’m giving an Oscar acceptance speech, but it’s a really lovely experience. Actually selling out shows? In Future Of The Left we sell out shows, but it doesn’t happen all the time. But with the Mclusky shows, over half have been sold out.
It’s just nice being able to call your existing parent and tell them that you’re not wasting your life, and tell them you’ve sold out a show rather than saying you’re just playing to seven people in a tunnel in Aberdeen.
Tone Deaf: Apart from the shows that you’ve got planned right now, what have you got on the boil for the future?
Falco: We’re very much hoping for a new Future Of The Left record. In a lot of ways, that’s the passion, you know? The fact that Jack’s got two young daughters, me and Julia have got Ella now, and she’s obviously the centre of our lives… That has limited us even more than we thought it would – and we live in a different city.
Julia has a job that onerous to say the least, and it’s tough to make the time to rehearse because we have to make it to a different city with a toddler. It’s a Danny DeVito comedy which is begging to be made.
It’s not a way to seriously create art, but we’re really hoping to be able to crack on with that maybe next year after we get back from Australia. Then, we need to really start cracking on with it because we want to have an album out next year, and it’s just about fucking time.
There’s so much shit that people think is good, and I think it’s time to put out something that I like, and I hope that doesn’t sound too horribly arrogant.
Check out ‘Collagen Rock’ by Mclusky:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA-0gktaBJU
mclusky* Australian Tour 2020
Wednesday, January 8th, 2020
Badlands, Perth, WA
Friday, January 10th, 2020
Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide, SA
Saturday, January 11th, 2020 (Sold Out)Corner Hotel, Melbourne, VIC
Sunday, January 12th, 2020
Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, NSW
Tuesday, January 14th, 2020
The Zoo, Brisbane, QLD
Wednesday, January 15th, 2020
Corner Hotel, Melbourne, VIC
Tickets on sale now through Handsome Tours
