Three ACL tears on my right Knee keeps me more selective from entering the mosh than I’d like. I groan and curse, what a putridly inefficient design the human Knee is. Doctors, correct my phrasing if I’m wrong when I say the knee should be termed as “a complex joint”.
There is also a sweet-leaf complexity with my favourite three-piece band in Meanjin, the highly efficient Knee. As nothing is wasted in this punk rock trinity. I have openly come to terms with declaring I have a favourite local band, and one that I will make an exception to entering a mosh pit for.
Knee toe the line precariously as my own Knee, teetering right on the brittle brink between hardcore and thrash punk, with three vocalists and plenty of grind, guts, and a united vision of sheer volume. That vision is delivered at three hundred decibels, thundering out of Stonehenge sized Orange amp stacks, pushing fuzz, pace, distortion, and chaos in an omnidirectional sonic boom. Knee has to be heard loud, louder… way, way LOUDER!!!
This interview has been my white whale; I have been hunting it for a while and I finally got it as we sat in the overcrowded Crowbar green room before the Meanjin show of the Easing Out Of Control album tour for DZ Deathrays. Their frontman Riley can be highly elusive with the media, but after seeing them more times than anyone else, including their show at Last Chance Rock N Roll Bar in Melbourne, I have earned their trust. I reflect that, out of the one hundred and sixty-five gigs I saw last year, my number one favourite was at Milton Common for the Hellbound EP release:
Jarrod: Oh Yeah, that was my favourite gig too!
Riley: That was the best!
Aspen: Yeah, that was special!
Riley: It all depends on the crowd, and they went off for that one.
Knee are:
- Riley Burrows: Guitar, vocals
- Aspen Burrows: Bass, vocals
- Jarrod Andrew: Drums, vocals
1. The aforementioned wall of fuzz and riffs are going to send you all on a Hellbound ghost train. Who’s meeting you at the fiery gates of the underworld, and who are you going to a set with there?
Jarrod: Oh, Motorhead for sure.
Riley: Yeah Lemmy! We will rock on with Lemmy.
Aspen: On the Ghost Train!
OB: There was no hesitation in that answer at all.
Aspen: I think that’s a really good choice, and Ozzy too.
Jarrod: Ozzy, yeah yeah!
2. What is the worst thing you’ve ever had to Damage? I bet you’ve done a fair bit of Damage to speaker stacks and PA’s over the years to get that Knee sound.
Riley: Actually not, we are pretty careful with our kit.
Aspen: Super careful, I don’t let anyone touch my amps. Unless they are allowed too. In fact, if I see someone put a drink on my amps, I will go up on stage, I will go up in the middle of their set and take the drink off it… I don’t let anything happen to our gear.
Riley: Yeah, that is our life savings in that gear, we don’t have enough money to be fucking around repairing equipment that gets damaged unnecessarily.
Aspen: But, if I was to be saying something that’s been broken, I’d have to say my body. Like my bones.
Riley: Oh yeah, there have been a few breaks, a bit of Damage over the years. Yeah.
OB: Well, you know how I feel when I see you wheel in that Orange stack, I know it’s going to be a good one, so yeah take care of it!
Aspen: Oh yeah!
Note: Riley is no stranger to going off in the mosh pit either, I believe my friend Cliff may have sustained a cracked rib over it once!
3. What’s one thing you’ve done as a band that was so good you want to Do it Again?
Riley: Play with Osees again.
Jarrod: Yeah!
Aspen: Or even just play the Princess Theatre again. The Princess is so good.
Riley: The Princess Theatre this year again would be… lovely. We never thought we’d get the first one, and then we did and then we got two last year which was fucking crazy (with the Mary Wallopers). Yeah lets… DO IT AGAIN!
OB: Hey, that’s my job! Ha-ha!
Aspen: The best green room in Brisbane too.
OB: So I’ve heard, I haven’t seen it yet.
Riley: It has a pool table, and the opening band gets a separate room, lovely amenities, smells great.
Jarrod: Watch out for the water pressure though, the toilet does poo shoots! Ha-ha!
OB: Is it better than the Beardo green room?
Riley: Maybe not vibe wise, but amenities wise it’s got it ha-ha!
Note: Knee did indeed Do It Again this time with Ty Segall at the Princess Theatre.
4. Because you’re supporting your fellow Bundabergians (DZ Deathrays) on this album tour, when do you feel like you’re Easing Out of Control?
All: Hmmm…. (all musing on this question).
Riley: Well, I try to ease the stage of Easing Out of Control. I will try to prolong that. I try to prolong it to at least well after we have played. I try to keep it easy before we play, although it doesn’t always happen.
Aspen: Hmm, My Mind Is A Temple. You’ll never catch me out of control.
Riley: Yeah that’s just for me, I don’t speak on behalf of these two, ha-ha!
Jarrod: It’s when I have no sleep that I am out of control. I just need good sleep.
OB: Is that out of control in a good way as a drummer, like the sleep deprivation makes you wilder?
Jarrod: Well, the jam yesterday was good, and I didn’t get any sleep the night before.
Riley: Yeah, there was minimal verbal abuse at practice ha-ha!
5. It’s easy to see why Knee is on everyone’s gig bucket list, are you ready for a life of touring? I mean, It’s Gonna Be Your Life as word spreads. I know Spotify is a dirty word but it’s a good indicator of listener metrics, and your numbers are climbing.
Riley: Yeah! I don’t know how that is happening, but it is!
Aspen: It is very consistent too, like even after not releasing anything for a fair while now it’s staying fairly consistent in climbing.
Riley: We had some tapes go out in the US.
Aspen: Actually yeah, the statistics say that the US is most of our listener base, so not sure how.
Jarrod: Yeah, we’ve even had a US venue reach out to us to play there already.
Riley: I guess there are just a lot more people over there that want to hear our stuff.
OB: Maybe after the Trump administration is done, touring there could be a good option for you? I mean current America seems Hellbound under Trump.
Riley: Oh, we will wait, we will wait for sure.
Aspen: I was going to say with my social media history, they would not allow me in the US, as it is anti-Trump for sure and I’m ok with that.
(All of us laugh and agree it’s definitely more than ok).
The thrill I get in seeing the eyes of uninitiated punters as their pupils dilate, their jaws drop, and that little head bobble of approval when they hear Knee play for the first time. I do a smug ‘Uh-uh, I told you so!’. As it is likely I’ve been pestering them endlessly with the same message: ‘You have got to see Knee.’ If it’s accompanied by a towering Orange stack, at the end of the set, they are going to be screaming: ‘DO IT AGAIN!’.
Thanks to Harrison Hay (@hay.stl) for all the photos in this article, make sure to check out more of his work!
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