Naarm/Melbourne bands Diploid and Aglo will take the stage at the Black Box Theatre on Sunday 14 July, rolling straight into town from A Cold Day in BNE and joined by Brisbane/Meanjin acts Street Suffer and Verminate.

Shout out to Anti-Vision, No No Records and Gutter Prince Cabal for the help and support for this gig!

We took the chance to quiz Reece from Diploid ahead of the release of their new EP Mantra, which drops 1 July and marks the latest addition to over a decade’s worth of the band’s acclaimed releases.

BAD HABIT: Gday Diploid. We are very excited to be welcoming you back to Namba soon! In saying this, I recall last time you were up here you graciously performed in the tiny shop space we had inside the Village Pickle. This time you’ll have a lot more room and a real stage at the Black Box Theatre. That said, what are your favourite types of gigs/spaces to play?

REECE: That was a really fun show! I ended up buying some records off of you. I got Dystopia – Human = Garbage and two Discharge 7"s. My favourite type of show is either a house show or a warehouse/DIY space. They are just super fun, laid back, and usually not hung-up on making sure we can cover the cost of the venue and what not. It just feels like a party with bands playing

BH: I hear that there are some new faces in the band for this tour, does your sound evolve with lineup changes? Any hazing procedures new members have to undergo?

R: We've had to say goodbye to our drummer Scarlett, for the time being we've got Rohan from Maggot Cave to fill in for a while. He is from Sydney, so the distance is not super great, but he is amazing and has been able to pick the set up very quickly. The sound has changed a bit with each drummer, as they've had their own styles and playing abilities. Rohan has watched a lot of live footage of Scarlett playing, and has basically just copied everything she has done, right down to the fills. He has been able to not really change our sound much, but I imagine the more we play with him, the more his style will come through into our music. Haha, no we don't really have any hazing or anything. We are usually just grateful someone is willing to put their time into the project.

BH: You’ve toured extensively in Asia and more recently Europe and the UK. I’m wondering if you have any funny stories about touring, culture shock or mishaps you can look back on now and laugh?

R: I'm sure there are a few stories I could write. But one that is always funny to talk about was when we arrived in Indonesia during our South East Asia tour back in 2016. We had just played a few shows in Malaysia and one in Singapore, and now it was onto Indonesia. We had a van sorted, and a driver sorted to take us around. We met the guy, he seemed pretty cool, he took us to the first show in Jakarta. At the show, we saw him drinking a bit, smoking a fair bit of weed. It was a little alarming because the plan was to leave after the show and drive through the night to Cipanas. As the night went on and the show wrapped up, we couldn't find the driver. We had already paid him for the few days as well. The van was still at the show though. It turns out, he had gotten too drunk and went home. We basically needed to find someone right then and there to drive us. Luckily a couple of punks offered to drive us last minute, for the rest of the tour. I'm not really sure what happened with the money in the end, so hopefully it got to the right people.

BH: Diploid won an award for Best Heavy Album from Music Victoria in 2020, what was it like to receive that sort of recognition? (I want to ask whether new opportunities opened up from that but I know 2020 wasn’t exactly the best year for opportunities…)

R: It was a bit strange haha but it was nice to be given encouragement for the music we create. We ended up getting an offer from Heavy Machinery Records to put out our last LP shortly after the award, I'm not 100% sure if we got the offer because of the award, but the offer came right afterwards, so I think it was. Other than that, not really haha I do think it helped us get past just the DIY Punk/Grind/Crust scene and made people who are just local music fans of all sorts aware that we exist.

BH: Your new EP Mantra is coming out soon, can you tell us a bit about the new stuff and what the punters can expect from your upcoming shows?

R: The new stuff I think is a bit more frantic. We've incorporated a lot of different sounds and genres into 10 minutes. It's also got a lot of vocals from all three of us, where in our previous release the vocals were pretty evenly split between Mazz and I, with Scarlett doing some lines here and there. The downside though, is live it will just be back to Mazz and I splitting the vocals as we won't have Scarlett there to do hers.

BH: Are there any side quests planned while you’re in Queensland or is it all band business and straight back to Naarm?

R: Unfortunately, my plan is to come up, play Cold Day, play Black Box and then leave early Monday morning, and right back to work. I wish I could've taken more time off, but we have other tour plans for later in the year, and I can't get more time off of work.

BH: Cheers for answering these questions. Any last words? What does the future hold for Diploid? How long before humankind destroys our planet? Does all this silliness with bands and punk rock really matter when the world ends?

R: The future is always up in the air, but the plan at this point is to try and do more international tours, to write another EP and see if we can work as an interstate band, or find a new drummer who is local.

Bad Habit Records, Anti-Vision, No No Records and Gutter Prince Cabal presents:

I think humans will still be around even if the planet gets nuked or hit by a giant asteroid. We are like cockroaches. Some people, somewhere will somehow survive. Even with everything gone, there will still be some people that'll keep the human race going. In the grand scheme of things, bands and punk don't really mean much haha but I love punk and I love playing in bands, it has kept me going. I reckon if I didn't have a creative outlet, I probably would've succumbed to my poor mental health, or developed a much worse addiction. Thanks for asking me some questions, and keen to get up to QLD and make some noise!

Sunday 14 July
Black Box Theatre Namba
DIPLOID (Narrm/Melb)
AGLO (Narrm/Melb)
STREET SUFFER (Meanjin/Bris)
VERMINATE (Meanjin/Bris)
2pm to 8pm - ALL AGES
Tickets $20 or $25 on the door - BOOK HERE

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