Sydney garage pop-punks Bloods have just released their debut full length LP, titled Work It Out, the album is out now via Tiny Galaxy Records.
Recorded with Straight Arrows front man Owen Penglis, and featuring lead single Want It, Work It Out delivers the raw, loud, live energy and catchy as hell pop hooks that have made Bloods one of the most beloved live acts on the local scene.
We chatted with Blood guitarist/ vocalist MC about the making of this impressive debut. Having just come off a live tour with Brissy legends Velociraptor, the band won’t be sitting still for too long, as they’re set to announce an album launch tour- check out the band’s Facebook for more info.
Break Your Heart
“I wrote the riff for this song one afternoon just fiddling about on the guitar. I really liked how dark it felt, just those two alternating notes, it reminded me of a heavier Beastie Boys track, like Gratitude or Sabotage.
The vocal part took a bit longer to come up with. I wanted it to be bratty like ESG ‘Erase You’ or ‘Nanny Boo Boo’ by Le Tigre, to contrast the darker vibe of the guitar in the verses. I wrote the vocal part with the idea that Sweetie would sing it, which was actually a really fun and allowed me to experiment a bit further with the melody.
The lyrics are quite personal and reflective I guess. They touch on people’s pre-conceptions of a band fronted by two girls. The line ‘You just wanna hear about, never wanted to break your heart’ is a pretty direct reference to music’s penchant for soft and fragile frontwomen.
We actually almost called the album ‘Break Your Heart’ but Sweetie thought it was too wussy.
This was probably the hardest song for us in the studio. We couldn’t seem to get it gelling right and we almost gave up in that session, but Owen was super confident and pushed us to keep going.
During the vocal recording Owen was insulting Sweetie to get her to give as much attitude as possible. He insulted her baking. Things got ugly.”
Thinkin About You
“This one I wrote about a year ago one morning super early. I just kept singing the melody over and over again. The lyrics were lots of fun to put together. I wanted to write about how you can go from being totally smitten with someone, to thinking they’re a total loser in one night. I wanted to tell a story that went from good to bad using almost all the same lyrics for the verses, like ‘Welcome to Paradise’ by Greenday.
We actually almost cut this song off the record, but once we got the mix back, we were like ‘YES!'”
Want It
I really loved the idea of writing a song that was stripped back, given at the time most of our songs were super loud and super fast.
I wrote a rough sketch of it and brought it into rehearsal. After jamming it, the three of us had taken it from a few ideas to the actual song. We put it together in about an hour.
The lyrics are about that one person that everyone falls in love with. The people’s darling.
Penelope
“This one was written over a few weeks, during different rehearsals. Dirk started playing a beat and I just started playing the riff and singing the melody. At first I was only taking the piss, trying to make up a fake Thin Lizzy song. It started to take shape in the first rehearsal, but it took a few weeks to get it together.
I wrote the lyrics during a really strange time in my life, because I’d just found out I was pregnant. I actually told the guys the news during one of the sessions we had working on this song.
The lyrics are essentially about all the anxiety I felt around it [the pregnancy]. The thought of bringing someone into a world that can often be a really scary place freaked me out so much that I would either not sleep or wake up completely freaked out. The song leads to the conclusion I eventually came to, that the world ain’t all bad.”
The Animal
“I wrote this one in my living room one afternoon when I was sick. I started humming that melody and grabbed my guitar and put it down. I wanted it to be really bare bones, because this song is really about the lyrics for me.
The lyrics are essentially about vanity and what’s real vs what you see. It’s like my version of ‘You’re So Vain’ I guess.”
What Do I Care
“This was actually one of the first songs we wrote together, so it’s about three years old. We wrote it at Troy Horse during a rehearsal. Dirk was playing to warm up and I started dicking around, playing and singing the melody, Sweetie came in with the chorus riff and it all evolved in about half an hour. Sweetie and I sat down together that same rehearsal and wrote out all the lyrics. It’s kind of our life anthem, really.”
College
“This is that song that we just couldn’t get right! I wrote this song about three years ago, after I blew all my money on a pair of shoes. I remember I wrote the chorus melody and lyrics while I was walking to get the bus to work. It was during the riots in London and I remember reading the media’s speculation on contributing factors and how ‘consumerist culture’ and ‘poor education’ was partially to blame for all the looting that ensued.
We played it a few times in a more doo-wop styling, but it never felt right, so we just put it aside. I always really loved the song, so I actually completely deconstructed it and started from scratch, only keeping the vocal parts.”
Boys Like You
“This is the most recent song on the album. We had some real setbacks in the process of making this record and it felt a little like the world was against us. I wrote this song after a particularly annoying day. The ‘boy’ I guess is the universe.”
Mi Luchador
“This one is funny. The song is actually about my parents and when I started writing it, I realised that it wouldn’t feel right if it wasn’t in spanish. When we jammed on it, we were trying to come up with a bridge and we got really stuck. Dirk was mucking around during a break and started playing a really fast beat and I was like ‘That’s It!’ and we came up with the outro. It’s one of our favourites live.”
Nothin But Time
“This one is pretty straight forward. Three chords and the lyrics are also very easy to decipher. Haha
I wrote this one morning after playing a show where there were a bunch of really annoying people loitering backstage. They were actually pretty horrible and I guess it triggered some serious anger, because the next day I woke up and thought ‘screw those people! I’m gonna write a song about how crap they were’. Probably a bit negative, but who cares, meanies suck.”
This Country
“This melody was in a dream I had and when I woke up, I couldn’t shake it. It was actually the very last song we put together and recorded. It took a really long time to work out how we wanted to arrange it, because it’s not really the typical Bloods song format.
I wrote the lyrics after the last election, but it’s also about feeling like you just want to get away from your life and forget everything and everyone. I think everyone feels that way at some point.
I really wanted it to be repetitive, because that’s how it was in my dream.”
