I've always said Schkeuditzer Kreuz was the first post covid Australian punk. Ignoring everything that came before and forging a new path, in style and in action. It was exciting watching tours through regional Australia unfold in real time. Shows getting cancelled but new ones getting booked as rolling lockdowns happened.

Fast forward to now, there's madness all over the world, war and destruction are beamed at us via screens, and hardcore is booming. The DIY punk revolution didn't happen, but SK is still rolling on despite it all.

He's about to release his third album Swan Grinder and tour Europe, rounding things out with a visit to Bad Habit on Sunday 23 November (mark your diaries). We thought we'd check in on him to get his take on getting old and that.

BAD HABIT: Hey Kieren, how’s it going? Third LP is about to drop. Let’s talk about it. How’s it different from the others? A third album is a funny spot… Does it feel like another day at the office? What’s been going on with you that’s changed with this album?

Kieren: Yeah, third LP! There is kind of traditionally an issue around this time of defining oneself as a band. Like, first LP – raw and urgent, second – finding your feet and making a more polished version of the first, third – what the fuck are we doing here? It’s that point where you set out what you are as a band. It’s usually a bit of a statement. And I feel I fit that mold, to a point.

I put a lot of time/thought/effort into this record – the writing and recording. The songs have been coming together for the past 12 months or so but anything I started that far back is not recognisable now. During that time, I toured a lot. Across Australia and to different parts of the world and played with an incredible range of other acts, including joining Attrition on stage, playing synth for them around Australia and then later in Thailand and Hong Kong. And I learned a lot from all of that. Found new music and new ways to make it. Saw and heard how other people were expressing themselves and what they had to say. And I guess some of that crept into what I have put together.

Particularly the experience of joining Attrition – when I play in that band, it is pure improvisation, making totally different sounds from what I have done with SK – I create background tension and play something like soundtrack music behind what they’re doing. So I took some of that too, some of the ways I was creating sound on stage with them and used that in what I am doing with SK.

I also spent a lot of time learning new recording techniques and learning how to mix things better. And I think that shows, it does to me anyway. I feel like things are sitting where they should be, like I am getting across what I want to. It’s still noisy as fuck distorted music with horrendous screaming over the top. It’s never going to be anything else. Electronic music lends itself to being very clean, polished and exact. But not the way I do it.

BH: Leading on from that, Bad Habit has entered this era of refining, narrowing focus and trying to get better at the craft etc. I feel like SK has travelled a similar path on the same time line (with a lot of overlapping). I wanted to ask about refining your craft. What aspects have you zeroed in on? What was once seen as very important, but now doesn’t occupy as much bandwidth?

K: I pretty much know what I want to do now. With SK and with the various side projects I have going on. I know what sparks joy and what doesn’t. There are no real rules around the music I make as such – this new album goes from noisy, clanging industrial to straight up punk to acid(ish) techno and back again. But it is all, essentially, the stuff I listen to, which makes me happy. There are no rules to what sounds I make except that it all comes out of my head, so it is going to reflect what goes in there in the first place.

When I started SK, I was very strict on it in a way that made sense to me at the time. It was going to be simple punk style songs with a minimalist approach to writing and tracking. It was going to be an electronic version of how I write guitar music. And that was important to me then. But that has changed somewhat. Now I write and play what makes me happy and although that means it goes off in odd directions sometimes, it always ends up sounding like me, like SK. It sounds kind of coherent because it is just me that makes it. The exception on this record is the Crass cover, because my friend Michaela sang it and that gives it a totally different feel and because of that, I pulled right back on the synth sounds to put her voice as far forward as possible – making it bouncy rather than heavy. But it is still just SK. Warehouse sounds for punks.

BH: I'm turning 50 this year. It’s made me think a lot more about ageing in punk. And legacy, and personal health. I feel like a minor pillar of SK is the vague notion of the cosmic horror of getting old, and the time you have left is finite. How does that spectre feature in this record?

K: Yeah, I hear you on that. I’m in my 50s and I have been doing all this for a very long time. Some of the lyrics and sounds are based around that – the coming void. Like when a car is getting too rundown to bother repairing anymore. The feeling you get when you first start thinking: “Is there really any point in getting this particular medical problem fixed when I’m way out of warranty and on my way out anyway?” That’s definitely reflected in what I’m making.

There’s this fucking weird paradox for someone whose brain has been plagued with suicidal ideation their entire life – being faced with death and being fucking terrified of it. There’s one song on the new album that’s based around feeling both those things at once.

But really, I like life no matter what some bits of my brain might throw at me. And the decline of my body is a driving factor for me too. I know I can’t do this forever. I won’t be screaming Discharge covers when I’m 80. I won’t be doing these fucking ridiculous tours into my 70s. It’s not sustainable. So, I want to enjoy the fuck out of myself doing it while I can.

BH: Carrying on from the last question, there are also these complex emotions around the world getting worse. By any metric, it seems, the world is getting more horrible. Sometimes I get this sense of hopelessness and "failure" from our community that we didn’t make the world better. It’s a broken promise punk made to naive teenagers. How does that sit with you in these times? What are your thoughts on the failures (and triumphs) of punk?

K: When I was young, punk was going to save everything. Solve everything. Growing up listening to Conflict and reading Profane Existence. Fuck, we were nearly there. Just like the generations before us. Nearly there. Listening to older pre-punk stuff like Ton Steine Scherben, singing like they really believed a revolution was just round the corner and their connection to people who were genuinely trying to bring that on. Nearly there. Then onto CRASS and later Aus-Rotten – all the manifesto bands, and Crimethinc and Days of War, Nights of Love, and to the mass worldwide demonstrations in the late 90s/early 00s with thousands of us out on the streets. 10s of thousands. 100s of thousands worldwide. Really worldwide too – not just the global north. We were nearly there... But we weren’t of course. The world is fucked and there is absolutely nothing that punk is going to do about it. Punk won’t stop the rise of fascism in the US or stop the slaughter in Gaza. Punk won’t clean the oceans or clear the air. Punk won’t stop shit. But it can give us community. It can give us belonging. It can give us connection outside the buying and selling of our souls for a chance to live. And that’s probably all it ever was.

BH: Ok. Thanxxxxx for our semi regular interview catch ups. Thanx for all you do.

K: Cheers mate – looking forward to getting back up there after my Euro tour. Playing with Jalang and Śmierć in November, doing another little Brisbane skirting mini tour through Southport, Ippy and Nambour. See ya then!

Order Schkeuditzer Kreuz Swan Grinder LP and catch SK live at Bad Habit Records on Sunday 23 November 2025.

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