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Lubricated Goat bring new meaning to rock and roll while remaining gutter level grime, Lubricated Goat creep and crawl through dirge webbed howels. Through the dark only one thing can be certain and that is the fact that these 4 Australian imports bear an ear to ear grin. There is a sinister uncertainly to their presence and musical mayhem. Their records have the unnatural ability to mood swing from low-key howl to rock 'n roll afflicted scuzz. Always containing a double shot of fuzz 'n distortion, Lubricated Goat is one of the freshest bands to seemingly come out of nowhere in a long time. Their LP's are available in the United States and they will be touring in March.
Interview by Tramp, Johnny Anus and Mavrik

Mavrik: We caught all of your shows, but one of them got cancelled.

Nic: Were you at Rhino Records?

Mavrik: Yeah, and Helter Sketer - the Shamrock got cancelled?

Stu: It didn't get cancelled, when we got there it was too late to play. The person that was driving got lost on the road. We drove right past it. Where does Flipside come from?

Mavrik: Los Angeles, don't you get any Flipsides in Australia?

Nic: I've got some Flipside videos...

Mavrik: I've heard that you guys are stuck here in L.A. financially or...

Nic: We've been stranded in a few places, we've been stranded in Minneapolis where we had trouble with our van. We tried to get self sufficient, we bought a van... and it broke down! That was the worst one really because we had to get a bus from Montana to Seattle.

Stu: We're not really stuck in L.A. at the moment. Our flights leave from LA. It's just that we hired all of our equpiment. We have to give it back, give our van back.

Mavrik: Where are you going from L.A?

Stu: Sydney.

Nic: This is our last show.

Mavrik: How long was this tour?

Nic: Two months.

Stu: It was 5 weeks, it got extended, we got a few shows while we were over here. It's easier to get more shows here than it is to save up and come back again. It's better to do it with a couple of months notice, but we thought - we were here, might as well play. That was the object of coming here, to get exposure. It went well, except for the last couple of shows, where we had to borrow equipment from other bands. Next time we're going to buy equipment.

Mavrik: Then there is going to be another tour?

Nic: Yeah, we're coming back in March, spring.

Mavrik: How did you hook up with Amphetamine Reptile records?

Stu: They wrote to us, we were looking for someone to put out our records anyway. There's really not much scope for what we're doing in Australia. We've been doing it there for a fair while. The only thing that happens to bands that do anything there is they either get sick of being in the underground, having relatively small audiences and they go commercial. Or they just keep on doing it over and over...

Mavrik: Never get anywhere.

Stu: It was a real necessity to come over here.

Mavrik: Would you ever think of moving over here permanently?

Nic: It's very difficult to become an American citizen.

Nic: We just want to be jet setters!

Mavrik: Is there a big scene for you guys in Sydney?

Nic: I think you'd be surprised what a lot of people there are into.

Stu: It's all split up like it is over here. There's a very big hardcore scene... We hear that there's no point in trying to get a gig in L.A. because it's all glam metal but you know that where ever there's something as overblown as that - there's going to be a reaction to it and a whole other scene that you just don't hear about. So that's the same as it is everywhere really. Sydney's quite a large city. About 4 million people. Quite a drversity of things going on... on our record label there's only two bands. Us and a band called Thug that have already broken up.

Mavrik: You only have two albums out ("Plays The Devil's Music", and "Paddock Of Love")?

Stu: We just put one out in Australia. It came out the week we left the country. You can get it on import here. Tom H. at Amphetamine Reptile is going to put it out. See, it's only two months ago that he got the first two albums, so we're holding on a bit.

Mavrik: Tell us about your sound, it's diverse and...

Stu: We wouldn't like to be in the position of repeating ourselves. We don't go out of our way to make... weird songs, it's just that different things seem to deserve different treatments.

Nic: We don't like to stick to one style of playing.

Mavrik: Do the lyrics have anything to do with that?

Stu: Sometimes if we're jamming and we come up with... say you might have some lyrics and you come up with the atmosphere to go with them or you might have music that has a certain atmosphere about it then you come up with some lyrics that sort of accentuate that.

Mavrik: There seems to be an interesting image to the band...

Nic: We like to feel that we're kind of unnerving in a way. We're not Satanic. We're not into really voicing anger or anything like that. The humor's a little black byt it's the same as any rock music these days... There's such a proper image that goes with everything. Like all those bands are quite humorous, most of them aren't serious. They just manage to rope in all the people into believing that they are the high priests of the underworld and shit like that.

Mavrik: How long has this band been together?

Nic: Bands been going on for like three years but it's had a lot of different people through it.

Mavrik: Who are the original members?

Stu: It would be like on the first album, "Plays The Devil's Music".

Mavrik: When was that released?

Stu: '86. It was recorded in '86 but not released until '87. Our label takes a long time to get things out. Which is unfortunate.

Nic: He (singer) and I have been in the band quite a fair while and Brett and Martin have been in it for a short while. Yet Martin played on one side of the first album.

Stu: From the time the first album was recorded and came out we weren't a real live band. I recorded the first album in Perth, Australia - that's where I actually met Guy (bass) and the two guys that played on that. I continued to live in Perth until I finally managed to lure them to Sydney and that's when we started to be a proper band.

Mavrik: How would you compare your first album to your most recent?

Stu: It had a different drummer and a different guitarist...

Mavrik: Did it have a big effect on the music?

Stu: Yeah, cuz the drummer we had we shared with another band that was more thrash. So he played a lot faster. He just had a different style. We try to make every record different. We like to think that the first one is different from the second and the third is different from both of those. We made a single while we were here and we don't like to think it sounds like anything else we've done before.

Mavrik: But it's still Lubricated Goat?

Nic: Yes.

Stu: It's very hard to get people with the attitude that we have. That could actually get it together to come over here. If we had let's say anarchist punk type guys in the band then they probably wouldn't have been able to save up the money to come over here.

Mavrik: Will you guys be going home or did this tour break you?

Nic: We didn't really come to make money. It all depends on how you look at it. We came over here and bought a van. We'd still have the van if the bloody thing didn't break down! We've kept alive. Eating... for two months... I wouldn't consider that a financial loss but that isn't the point of it. The point was to come over here and promote our albums. Play as much as possible. If anything it was better in the Northern part of the country because there was advanced publicity. When we came here we didn't think we'd be playing L.A. at all. The guy that booked our shows just didn't book us over here. All the shows we've done this last week were organized a week before that.

Mavrik: The single you recorded, what is that going to come out on?

Nic: Sub Pop, single of the month. I think for March, which will work out well.

Stu: We will be back and things will be booked well in advance.

Mavrik: I was under the impression that you guys were stuck in San Fransisco or here in L.A.?

Nic: We were stuck here for a couple of days. When our van broke down we were stuck. A lot of people helped us out. The band "Babes In Toyland" they drove us around to a few shows. Another band from Virginia, the Alternatives, they drove us around too.

Mavrik: So what do you think of the music scene here so far?

Stu: We've seen lots of bands that we like. Weird to see lots of rap bands.

Nic: Sort of a lot of stuff I wouldn't think is going on. We played with a band in Seattle that did Peter And The Test Tube Babies covers. We didn't get to see a lot of what we wanted. Maybe next time.

Mavrik: So music is a big influence - or movies or alcohol?

Nic: I guess we do have a leaning towards the seedy side of life...