The Panics

First published on 24 Oct 2008. Updated on 3 Aug 2009.

Congrats on the ARIAs victory last year. Did you prepare a speech? I did indeed. It had me a little nervous all day prior. Public speaking, man, it's like going back to high school. I don't envy anyone who has to do it all the time. Singing with a bunch of guys behind you is one thing but public speaking is a whole different ballgame.

Here's hoping you never win another award, then. Thanks a lot! Really appreciate that.

Cruel Guards got love from every direction. Are you feeling the pressure to follow up the success? We want to make a bigger, better record. To recreate Cruel Guards would mean to relive the year we just had, which was a lot of fun, but it's exciting to see our audiences double in size and hear our music coming out of places. We just want more of that. I love being part of the scenery.

Has songwriting become more communal or is it still the Jae Laffer show? No one else can be bothered writing songs. I think they're happy standing there and head banging, those hairy boys around me. I like the responsibility. My whole life has been about noise and melody. Words can often be the stress of my existence, just trying to come up with bloody words.

You're preaching to the choir, my friend. Journalism is black and white though. You could be thinking, "This interview is so boring, I can't make Jae sound cool, there's no story here. And he's saying exactly what that guy from Faker was saying about his band last week."

Do your bandmates wax lyrical for the press? No, they're too boring, and not to mention a little backward. They're all from the country so unless you want to learn how to stack hay in five efficient steps I wouldn't bother hunting them down.

Are they your dirty secret? I don't know if you've see them in promo shots but they're very pale and they don't speak much English. There's a lot to be said for keeping them in my basement and encouraging them breed amongst themselves.

Sounds very European. I like to think there's a certain Austrian flavour to my reign.

You have a tour coming up though – so I'm assuming you let them out periodically? Oh look, it's not all me in this group. They can head bang and tap their feet as good as the next man. I have taught them well. They respond well to situations when they realise they won't get fed.

"Jae Laffer and the Panics", perhaps? They're too exhausted from starvation to panic. All they ever say is, "Water...water..." Brooke, where is this going?

Don't fight it. One for the road: sum up the new record for Time Out. Pumping and energetic. We want to move away from the mid pace - we're ready for that kind of feeling. It's exciting to know that songs are still coming. Every time I write a song I'm stoked that my brain hasn't dried up.