What a year 2024 was for C.O.F.F.I.N! They are becoming the favourite adopted sons of Queensland, with at least six shows in south-east Queensland last year alone, leaving crowds stammering in disbelief each time and many punters willing to crawl Through the Sewer to see them again. If I write about the raw intensity of the 4ZZZ carpark show again, my ruthless editor will remind me this has become the overworn yardstick that I unjustly measure every act I’ve seen since against!
In November last year, I reviewed Viagra Boys at The Tivoli on another platform, all because I wanted to write about four of the hardest rocking fellas in Aus supporting them. The Viagra Boys fans moshed to C.O.F.F.I.N from the first line of Fast Love, and there were plenty of them there ready for a second round on the 20th of December at Crowbar Brisbane.
Before my interview with C.O.F.F.I.N began, Trad (co-owner and operator of Crowbar Brisbane alongside his partner Tyla) ensured that there were no power tools, unlocked vehicles, fragile objects, or shit that could get broken in vicinity of the four lads. If you watch their hilarious tour diaries, you’d agree it’s wise advice. The other sentiment that I agree with Trad on, is how hard C.O.F.F.I.N fucking rock, hence why they were there on the newly lit venue gig board!
C.O.F.F.I.N are:
- Ben Portnoy: Lead vox, drums, and percussion
- Abijah Rado: Lead guitars, slide, backing vox
- Aaron Moss (Mossy): Rhythm guitar, backing vox
- Kosty: Bass, backing vox
1. The ARIA nominated album Australia Stops takes pride of place in many a record collection in 2024 (Dakota and I included), I like to put it on repeated shuffle for hours at a time, it’s a cracking Night Breaker. If you were to put the album in a Christmas hamper, what specific items should it be accompanied with to give a loved one at Christmas?
Mossy: Ah… a little toy boat.
Benny: A little toy boat, a good reliable knife, some rope… Good marine grade rope.
Mossy: A good lawyer. A great lawyer.
Abijah: Some soggy jeans. And maybe some fresh socks.
Kosty: Sydney rock oysters.
Mossy: A little I Love Manly Beach t-shirt or something.
Benny: And some back up petrol.
OB: And a Tech Deck.
Kosty: Yeah! And a finger board yeah!
OB: Awesome, I love that!
2. Fellas, I’m going to have to Cut You Off. Because shocking news is just in, you’ve been double booked! You each have to choose a replacement to perform in your position tonight. Who will you choose to replace each of you?
Benny: Um, I am trying to think of someone that drums and sings, so I would think of like… “Philthy” Phil Taylor from Motorhead would be pretty cool, but… Levon Helm, the dude from The Band, he’s pretty good and one of the better ones.
Mossy: It would have to be like fucking Malcolm Young or something.
Kosty: Surely you would have chosen one of the Gallagher brothers…
Mossy: Oh yeah, old Bonehead from Oasis! Yeah that.
Abijah: Oh shit! I’d go Ian Moss. (The group has a laugh)
Kosty: I’d go Eddie Murphy. On the bass, yeah. (The fellas have a laugh about Randy Watson and the Sexual Chocolate) Oh wait, change it to Dave Chappelle as Rick James.
OB: Ha! Love that, it’s fantastic.
3. Benny, when we met in Melbourne earlier this year, you shared admiration for Shane and Leanne from Last Chance, and their monumental efforts to save The Tote. With that in mind have you got a shortlist of Beasts in the Brisbane music community with equal snarl ferocity and intensity and razor-sharp claws and teeth that might Give Me A Bite? Someone making positive change perhaps?
Benny: I guess you mentioned it before with Trad and Tyla. Getting this joint, Crowbar, going again after The Zoo shut down. That’s pretty major and awesome really, to not have to see a venue disappear. And mad props and respect to them for putting in that huge effort, really to everyone involved in doing this. I imagine it would have been pretty hard to see the old Crowbar sort of put to rest, so that is so awesome of them to persevere and get this new joint going. So, I would definitely say the crew involved in doing that.
I also think shoutouts to 4ZZZ too. As you said it was a pretty special show we did in the car park, and we got to do the full tour of the studio, and meeting all the crew who were involved. We also got to learn about the history of the station. I’d say that’s a pretty monumental cornerstone of the music scene and culture up here, so I’d like to shout out those two teams. From memory I think it’s (4ZZZ) the longest standing community radio or independent community radio station in Australia, right?
Rest of the band: Yeah, I think it is.
Benny: So, I mean, far out. You can’t do better than that right?
OB: That is awesome, thank you for that.
4. I hate to be the Factory Man, but my new record label I’ve named, Lover’s Leash, said I’ve got to put a Christmas album out. With your connections in the industry, can you give me a playlist of Christmas songs and some Australian acts to perform these songs?
Benny: Fuck!
Mossy: Dick the Halls! Haha Yeah that will be by Stiff Richards.
Mossy: Dick Lord. Our mate, Jade, her band. Yeah, what have we got?
Kosty: Jade could do Santa Clause is Cumming. Jade, yeah. She’d smash that one out.
Kosty: How to Make Gravy, who would do that?
Mossy: Ziggy?
Kosty: Nah…
Abijah: Amyl?
Benny: Yeah, I feel that Amyl would do a good version of that. I feel like Toy should be on this list. Seeing as there’s Christmas and toys, what would they do?
Abijah: Little Drummer Boy.
OB: Toy?
Benny: Yeah, hardcore band. Originally from here, but I think half of them have moved to Melbourne now.
(Dakota nods approvingly).
Abijah: I think Cutters would do Six White Boomers pretty good.
OB: Six White Boomers and Their Fucking Caravans (chuckles).
Benny: Twelve Days of Pissmas has got to be Piss Shivers yeah
Mossy: What else? Jingle Bells is by AC/DC but it’s Jingle Hells Bells.
(The group loved that ha-ha-ha!)
Benny: Ok! Quick one, a side anecdote from years ago. So, we come from the Northern Beaches, right? And they are notorious for, or have a history of, not being able to have places for us to play shows. So, to combat that, we would find places that didn’t really know who we were. You know, like local bowls clubs and that? We’d make a deal and say look, you are going to make a tonne of cash over the bar, and we don’t dip into that, but you don’t sort of discuss or ask questions about what we are doing right? We will bring our own P.A, you just run the bar takings, we’ll set up the music and run the door and all that. And one of those shows which was pretty iconic, when the roof caved in! We put together this band called the Chrisfits, which was a Misfits cover band, but all the songs were changed to Christmas theme songs! So, Moss was playing guitar….
Mossy: It was me on guitar, Ziggy McNeil on drums, our original bass player, and Clinton Vicelli (who was also a bass player in C.O.F.F.I.N) playing bass, and our mate Mischa.
Benny: And we had friends come up and do guest vocals. I did Die, Die My Darling, but instead of singing “Die, die, die, my darling” I sung “Ride, ride, ride, my reindeers!”.
Mossy: And I’m sure there were other good ones too, oh yeah Last Caress was Last Christmas.
Benny: And instead of “We are 138”, we did “I’ve already ate!”.
Mossy: Because, you were too full after eating Christmas lunch…
Benny: Ha-ha-ha! Yeah, what was that screwed up one Misch did?
Mossy: Oh yeah we were doing Nike-A-Go-Go and we gave it to him to change it to Like-A-Ho-Ho. Which goes (humming it) “Da da da da da da, go go go go go”, and all he had to change it to was “Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho”. Instead, he changed it to “And if you’re not a good boy you won’t get any Christmas presents!” which, well, didn’t really work at all!
(All laughing)
Benny: Yeah, it was a great combo. And one day I very much hope the Chrisfits come back.
Mossy: (clarified with Abijah) Yeah, that was about ten years ago now.
OB: Man, what a story. How do we get back on track with the interview ha-ha-ha. The Chrisfits!
5. The adrenaline surge of a C.O.F.F.I.N gig, is the absolute Night Breaker that makes you want to stay up to see the City Sun. Where are some favourite haunts or things to do post-gig for you and what do you recommend for fans tonight?
Benny: The stuff we like to do after the show?
Mossy: Well, if the pool where we are staying at is open, I’m definitely going for a swim.
Benny: I don’t know who sorted this accommodation out, because last time we were here for the Viagra Boys show, we stayed in this… sweltering, synthetic-sheeted hostel, backpackers joint. This time, we are in some kind of schmick, apartment and it’s got a pool, so….
OB: I think the bar stays open here until about 3:30 am.
Kosty: Oh, beauty. Well, we probably won’t leave then!
Abijah: Looks like we are hunkering down for the long haul.
Benny: I feel like water activities in the middle of the night are always good. If you can get submerged somehow, any dangerous open water situation is good.
OB: Or jumping off ferries?
Benny: Yeah!
Abijah: oh, funny story actually. There was a time we played, with Amyl and the Sniffers and we went back to Calum’s house for kick-ons. And Ben and I had booked in a swim with whales on the Goldy in the morning, to be there like at 5am. So, we left the party to go swim with whales.
Benny: Yeah, so if you can combine marine life activities with huge mammals in the water. Love that. Whale watching after a gig, is pretty good!
Mossy: Watching them as close as you could possibly watch.
OB: Oh, fellas that’s it! And to quote, “Well, that was no Peter, Paula and Mary here, that was rock music” You know… (IYKYK)
All: Hey!
Benny: Hell yeah, shout out to Ray Ahn from Hard Ons for that quote. And a big shoutout to 4ZZZ, that all ages show in the car park also stands out to us as a major highlight of a great time, and we met so many awesome people through doing music. But shows like that you get to connect with people in a stronger way. Especially for us. And thank you very much to 4ZZZ for that experience.
Needless to say, the show that night was a night of hard rock mayhem, that crept on way past 3:30am. Hard rockers and punks are excited to see the lads supporting Amyl and the Sniffers at the Fortitude Music Hall at the end of the month, where they will no doubt garner even more new followers and hopefully a midnight encounter with aquatic mammals.
Big thanks to Dakota (@strictly.sentimental) for all the amazing shots in this article, she manages to out do herself every time! Also if you haven’t visited it yet, make sure to pop down to the new Crowbar Brisbane if you’re a local, the beers are cold, the food is good, and the shows are wild, everything you need in a great venue.