Celibate Rifles On Ellis, Beau & Creed McTaggart's New Song

Another song, another critic, another blood sacrifice to the lords of the riff. This time we scrubbed the ears of Celibate Rifles guitarist Kent Steedman. For those unaware, The Rifles are more seasoned than pepper steak in a Parramatta Rd Bistro, because they pretty much wrote the book on Aussie garage rock! They’ve lived fast, recorded live albums at CBGB’s, they’ve toured with Nirvana, headlined Australia’s biggest venues and their song ‘Wonderful Life’ is the opening tune on the Occ-Cast, how filthy good is that! We gave Kent the track titled “Wrong to Be Right,” by Wash – Ellis Ericson, Beau Foster and Creed McTaggart’s gritty punk outfit – then we backed away slowly like we’d just stepped on a very pissed off mongoose. Here’s what Kent Steedman had to say about track one from the Scary Good album…

“My first impression was these fellows need to drink more tea, calm down and relax a bit. Not the most happy go lucky tune for dry land but it seems to work for the surfy mob. The song has a good simple riff that doesn’t try and do too much more than that, which I like. The song motors along nicely, snappier drums may have moved it along a bit more but in regard to what is done, tight and frantic which suits the mood and style of singing. The song is about the right length, has a good breakdown and doesn’t try and do too much more. Enthusiastic and lively, it says what it wants concisely and then finishes. The sign of a good bit of punk rock. Be dumb, have fun and get the job done. I listened a few times and this tune filled 15 minutes of my life quite happily. Top job.”

– Kent Steedman, Celibate Rifles

“No way! Are you joking?” Was Creed McTaggart’s reaction to learn that his underground music heroes had listened to Scary Good. “The funny thing is, we’re not very good!” Creed insisted, about the band he, Beau Foster and Ellis Ericson formed two years ago. But it’s by their own self-effacing nature that the trio becomes all the more intriguing. People are listening, thrashing out, getting wasted and going home sweaty, to their music. Clearly, they are doing something right. Says Creed, “I mean it’s weird. We got out first gig before we even had any songs! And I think we found out pretty quick how scary it is to play in front of people. I guess the bands that I admire manage to switch off that noise in their heads, and those are the ones who really grab your attention because they don’t give a fuck. They are playing for no one,” he says. “I love to see people get fully into it, and if you know them as a person, it’s like, ‘Woah! I’ve never even seen that side of you before!’ It’s almost carelessness. It’s the opposite of stage bravado, posing around or whatever. End of the day, it doesn’t matter what people think of ya, what you’re surfing like, or what you listen to, because it’s so easy to get caught up in that bullshit. I love to see people get up on stage and put on a show, but not trying to look pretty… I’d rather see them scare people,” says Creed.

He continues, “Playing gigs are that good too. You can drink free beer and scream your lungs out. I never thought I’d be in a band, ever. I still trip out that it’s a thing we do. The first show we played was with Dumb Punts. They came up to stay with us in Byron, where they were playing a show the next day. We’d only just started jamming together and didn’t know anything. Beauy had only been playing drums for two weeks but the Punts kept saying, “You guys should come play a show with us tomorrow,” and we were all loose going, “Aww yeah we’ll come,” but really thinking, “No way!” So they kept heckling us, and before we knew it we’d agreed to something we were fully unprepared for. The Punts left the next morning for the show, and that day we just sorta jammed and got two and a half songs together. When we got to the venue we were so nervous to play. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done, but at the same time it was pretty funny. We were running into the bathroom before the show trying to relearn the songs. None of us could remember how to play them, but I recorded it on my phone, and so we’d be in the cubicle, three of us, with a phone pressed to our ears trying to remember how these shitty songs go… When to start and stop (Laughs). Beau’s brother filmed it and it’s so bad. We were so out of time but the Punt dudes were up the front dancing anyway. There were probably only 12 people there. Finishing up the set was real funny too, because Beau got straight up and bailed out the back door. I didn’t even know there was a door there. I was saying, “Where’s Beauy?” It was the best smoke bomb. So after all that we thought, “Fuck this is actually heaps fun!” We’re still learning, but dead set, doing ten days of recording with all our mates was the sickest thing ever! It’s pretty wild to think now our group has an album out there we can all listen back to and remember the madness from that trip. We had such a hell time! Can’t wait to rip into some shows!”

– Creed McTaggart, Wash

SCARY GOOD the album, out now on Spotify & iTunes.