I'll get straight to the point. The Antenna shows this weekend will probably be your best chance to see them in smaller rooms before they become a much bigger band. You can feel the hype building around them, people who can influence tastes are on to them. And the songs are the best sort of melodic yet raw, soulful punk. In fact before you read any further go and listen to the demo here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1ntebT79kU&list=RDh1ntebT79kU&start_radio=1 Read the comments of people fawning over it. Let the songs drill into your brain and resonate. Ok now you're ready to read the interview.----

BAD HABIT: Hello Shogun. How are you? Right off the bat I want to talk about growing older in punk/underground music. I feel like there was an unspoken promise for the late 90's generation of underground punk, that punk was going to save the world. That things would get better. There was an optimism, like the kids had taken over and we're gonna do a better job. Here we are now and the world is horrible. That promise wasn't kept. It was some youthful delusion to even believe. And we are older but still tethered to this thing called punk. I wanted to ask...what relevance does punk have as you get older? What do you still get from it? What have you discarded from it? What do you want to discard, but can't because it's part of your fabric?

Shogun: I feel like there were two poles to punk in the 90s, the idealistic and the nihilistic and I would say I was falling towards the latter. I didn't believe in a better world because there was such a prevailing cruelty in the area I grew up in, a real disdain for difference, and I was different. Humanity was indeed the devil and in early 90s suburban Sydney, cruelty was our native tongue. So I thought punk was a beautiful voice of collective despair but not necessarily hope. Punk to me is just abrasive sounds that resonate with abrasive people.

Punk still means something to me because in some ways, possibly too many, I'm the same person I was since I got into it. I wasn't going to age out of the agitation, the quickness to anger and the need for speed because I'm a hyperactive and volatile person by nature. So my connection with this music is DNA encoded. At this point, we can all agree that it's not a phase, man. I still need that release because my life is so routined these days and I'm over it. I still want to thrash, go fast, get possessed and hopefully maybe accidentally reveal something truthful in that chaotic trajectory. It's not enough to just 'rock out'.  Someone else can have that boring job. 

The World has definitely gone to shit. It's sad. I've lost hope. That's why I'm performing such shameless serenades. I don't care about being cool because no one is cool anymore.  We - humanity - have lost our rep, our dignity and our coolness with our constantly uncool behaviour. That's how I feel at the moment anyway. Hopefully it will change.

BH: Antenna seems like some sort of like the squaring away of past follies and become more at ease with yourself. It's vulnerable, maybe slightly uncomfortable, even awkward. And not settled. But still sits in a good mental space. Is Antenna part of a process to being a better person? Is it the start of the process? The middle? The end? What's the next step?

S: Yeah, when we started jamming I loved it so much I thought it was going to be this transformative elixir that would help me get my life together. For some reason I envisioned it as a weird sci-fi straight edge band where the kids would draw crude antennas instead of Xs in their hands. The symbol is like a badly drawn Christmas tree. But yeah I was like I’m going to clean up my act and Antenna is going to be the worlds weirdest straightedge band. I was straightedge as a teenager so there’s always this sense of returning to the garden.

That didn’t happen though. We’re all total drunks. We got really excited about the band at the start and would churn through innumerable beers and songs at every practice. We were writing in an orgiastic frenzy. It was nice. I was so depressed at the time I had become animalistic so it was therapy, just exploding all over Ama's beautiful riffs. I couldn’t take my ears off them. They really glowed. Antenna is pretty collaborative and Ama writes pretty much all the music so the songs kinda have his personality. By the sound of his riffs I think he must have a big heart.

So the answer to your rather probative question is, yes it's made things better and I'm a lot less depressed than when it started. It's almost like I purged those feelings on the ep and left them behind. The EP is being pressed to vinyl next year by Last Ride, which I'm thrilled about. I'm also surprised because I actually had no ambition at all with this band. I just missed shouting over loud fast music. I had pretty much decided we were just going to play with old-man punk bands in dive bars to 6 people. You know those old man punk bands that sound a bit like The Exploited and you can always see the singer's bum crack for some reason? I just wanted to tap into that scene tbh.

BH: There's a vibe that's uniquely Sydney. Lowlife and Negative Gears, for me, capture this specific modern Sydney, Newtown being a shadow of its past. It has an undercurrent of longing for a Sydney of the past, but being a grown up trapped in the rat race and suffocated by a metropolis that doesn't allow much space for nostalgia or reflection. What part does Sydney, the environment, play in Antenna and in your own mindset. Can you even assess its influence when you're in the shadow of the monolith?

S: Honestly, I’m not that interested in ‘Sydney as an aesthetic’ anymore. It’s the opposite of what it used to be, so I’m facing the opposite way. The figures of the derro or the lad have been pushed out of the city by wealthier people who dress like them. The first real lads probably had mutton chops like Tom Jones.

BH: I'm gonna wrap this up now. Cheers for answering these. What's in the future for Antenna? What can the citizens of Nambour expect at the show here? Do you want to climb onto the roof and drink beers with the loosest of cannons and watch the sunrise?

S: No worries man, it’s been nice to reflect a little on the last year. The gig book for 2025 is filling up with some interstate jaunts and the EP is getting pressed to vinyl soon. We’ve been playing quite a bit and most people say they like it ? Though this may all be an elaborate conspiracy with crisis actors posted across several states, all aiming to gas me up only to put me in a situation like Carrie at the end of the movie, Carrie. How good is that movie btw ?

Re : bendering in Nambour - no, I will behave and go to bed at a reasonable hour because I have a show the next day in Brisbane. I don’t believe in being hungover and shambolic and disappointing the punters anymore. I try to give 100 percent every time. If the two gigs were booked the other way around though, I would 100 percent be rooftoppin' and punishin' many sukkas til the break of dawn.

I'm so looking forward to this weekend though. Nambour - let's fucking have it !

Photo by Shotweiler Photography

Team Glasses Records & Bad Habit Records Presents

FRI 13 DECEMBER
ANTENNA (Syd)
with BLACK DEITY, CEREBRAL EROSION and KINGS CURRENCY
Black Box at Old Ambulance Station
80 Howard St, Nambour
7pm til late
ALL AGES WELCOME
Tickets: $20 pre / $25 door - BOOK HERE

SAT 14 DECEMBER
ANTENNA (NSW)
with BLACK DEITY, SICK PEOPLE and WORK?
The Bearded Lady
Boundary Street, West End
8pm til late 18+
Tickets: $20 pre / $25 door - BOOK HERE