polaroids of androids

Interview: Batrider

Batrider are a New Zelbourne band (made in New Zealand, hosted in Melbourne) that just completed a mini tour along the East Coast of Australia with German trio Chicks On Speed (they don't play guitars). They also recently released an EP titled Take Me Back which contains 4 songs that will suck your brains out. Toby from the band was kind enough to take time out to answer Polaroids of Androids queries, and spill the beans on bandmates Sarah (vocals/guitar), Julia (guitar) and Tara (drums).

Hi Batrider! Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. The way i see the formation of the band going down involves three girls on a hens night for someone much more sensible, a big burly male stripper with a heart of gold who can play a mean bass guitar, and a whole bunch of alcohol. Am i close?

The girls were three of four quadruplet daughters of an eastern european warlord I killed in battle. They were crying so I thought I'd do the honourable thing and take them home and raise them. I trained each in a musical instrument in the hopes they would one day be able to make some money and get us all away from the mercenary lifestyle. Pauline the bass player died in a fishing accident about four years ago and thats where I stepped in. People have to offer me some pretty serious cash to knock someone off these days.

So in other words you are very close.

Someone once described your music as 'the sound of angels and butterflies and fairies all kissing each other in a meadow', but they had you confused with someone else. If you were stupid enough to pigeonhole yourselves into a particular genre what would it be, and what other stuff would you be stupid enough to do if you were, for arguments sake, that stupid? Not that i think you are.

If I was really stupid I could say we sound like what giant rats footsteps would sound like if they put on some big workboots and somehow managed to stomp around pretending to be a workman just home from work swearing about the state of the traffic and pouring a kettle. The footsteps, not the swearing.

I would say just that after I had just dropped my wallet in a drain and accidently left a dirty phone message on a work colleagues phone, and just before I would would slip over onto a big dog shit.

I wonder if you could help me out with a personal problem. As you guys are so experienced with traveling in automobiles across Australia and New Zealand touring, do you think you could take a look at my car and let me know if you think it will make a big trip to Victoria over New Years? It is a 1987 Ford Meteor station wagon with a lot of large dents and scratches if that helps. If i was to get stuck somewhere, do you have any tips on making a 7 hour wait for road service to show up a fun experience?

Yeah, why not, give it go I say. What's the worst that can happen? We once broke down in the middle of the night in a weird small town and ended up crashing on the floor of this weird bogan mechanic's house that was full of dogs and rusty car parts. That was before we saw Wolf Creek and all said 'Hey, this looks really familiar'.

The Polaroids of Androids crew saw you play at a warehouse in Marrickville, Sydney to an audience that was half drunk, half christian, and sometimes both. Any other interesting gigs that you guys have played or would like to play? Perhaps on the tundra's of the Tunisian desert? You know, where they filmed Star Wars. Actually, can this question be changed to: If you were to be a star wars character, who would it be?

When I was at High School I was president of this really nerdy club that watched and critiqued arty movies. At the end of the year I made up awards for everyone and compared everyone to Star Wars characters (Like The Admiral Ackbar award for the weird guy no one really knows but seems kind of nice). I wanted to give myself the Han Solo award just because he is the coolest but I didn't know how I could justify it, so I made it the Han Solo award for being good looking but a bit arrogant.

Batrider would be one of those awesome tough looking mysterious bounty hunter types at Jabbas palace that the camera just whizzes past and everyone is like 'shit, wait, go back and look at that guy he was awesome', and then nerds will go and make up all kinds of fan fiction about how awesome they are.

In the future when Batrider inevitably move away from playing music and naturally progress into vigilante style crime fighting, what superpowers are the members thinking of developing to help in their crusade against evil and injustice and such?

Julia: 'The Unsmellable Girl'. Like the Invisible Man only instead of no-one being able to see him, no one can smell her. Throws enemies off - they're like 'this is so weird - I can see her and hear her but I can't smell her, I guess she isn't really there'. Also she can fart all she wants, lucky thing.

Tara: 'Illuzion' A glamourous, mysterious and shadowy character whose motivations and allegiances are as murky as her outfit is dazzling. Which is 'very'. She will come in and say something mysterious and strange and everyone will be saying 'what is she talking about?' and then there will be a dazzling flash of lights and she will be gone. Very confusing.

Sarah: 'Grimbaldi' Imagine if the Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist moved to Italy and was still alive, taking on the identity of a small goods distributor. Thats right, Sarah takes on the disguise of Grimbaldi who is really the 175 year old street thief in disguise. Its amazing the things people say to really old Italian guys.

Toby: 'Sparks' I'm the imcompent inventor/mechanic who makes the faulty gadgets the girls need and fixes the mobile when is breaking down which is always. I have a penchant for fruit jubes, thats like my schtick.

What's the release schedule looking like for Batrider? Any chance of an album in the near future? A double CD compilation of b-sides and rarities? A Live DVD from your gig in Tunisia titled 'The Tundra from Down Undra'? I've always thought a four hundred page instruction manual on how anyone can create their very own Batrider album so they don't have to rely on you guys to make one for them would be a big seller.

New album is getting mastered right now, artwork is getting done, all those finishing touches touched and finished. It'll be out early next year - don't have the exact date yet. We are all really excited about it - we've spent a lot of time on it and I feel like we've done something awesome.

And of course on top of that we always have a lot of other schemes on the boil...

You seem seem to be standing out more than most in the competitive Melbourne scene. Are their any other bands from down that way, or from anywhere really, that you think will see their profiles rising in the near future? Alternatively, are there any that you think are completely over-hyped and are about to deservedly meet their unflattering demise into obscurity?

Julia, Tara and Sarah are all in other side project type bands which rule but haven't really been seen that much yet - Julia is in Moonbase and Sarah and Tara are in Horseface - both are great bands in their own rights that I think people will love when they hear. Around Melbourne I also like Rise and Demise, they'll do well in 07 I reckon, Zond are really good, Hand Hell... there are always so many good bands.

You recently finished touring with Chicks On Speed, a band which is comprised of three females, which happens to also comprise 3/4 of your band. Do the comparisons end there? Are you perhaps a German based art collective for example?

The art collective-ness of them was probably the biggest thing we had in common - they do all their own costumes and props and videos and the whole shebang and that was cool because we try to operate like that too. Music wise they were totally different to us but probably not that different in attitude or approach - they were actually really lovely and I think we all got a lot out of playing with them.

Anything else you want to plug? The rules on this one are that it must be in point form.

No I'm feeling OK on the plugging front thanks!

Thanks again for your time, looking forward to future Bat Riding adventures.