Perfect Pussy – Laneway’s Most Offensive Band

St Jerome’s Laneway Festival is right around the corner for Australia, with Sydney’s leg actually selling out! Already shaping up to be one of 2015’s best lineups in Aus, the people behind the bookings have left no stone unturned in setting out to lock down the world’s most promising upcoming acts.

One act in particular that has fans buzzing is Perfect Pussy – an abrasive noise punk band from Syracuse, New York. Known for their visceral and powerful music with some incredibly emotive lyrics, 2014 saw the band skyrocket to fame with their album Say Yes To Love getting serious worldwide attention. Add to this their outspoken nature, and lead singer/lyricist Meredith Graves becoming punk’s new poster girl after a series of essays, thinkpieces, interviews and general conversations she has had about being a woman in the music industry. Out and proud, with her bandmates backing her 100%, this comradery and equality has seen the band garner even more attention – and rightly so.

We were lucky enough to chat to Shaun Sutkus, who is not only the band’s keyboardist, but sound engineer as well. When he’s not touring the globe playing at just about every notable festival around, or remixing other tracks, he is busy trying to make the nastiest, loudest, borderline-offensive noise under his solo moniker, Pretengineer. Although at times, challenging, we got chatting to him about the band’s future plans, what it’s like jumping on the other side of the desk when recording and about how we’re both mostly keen to see Flying Lotus at Laneway.

Hey Shaun, how’s it going?

I’m going great, how are you?

I’m actually a bit sick at the moment but I’ll try to get through it!

Oh that’s a bummer! I hope you feel better soon!

Let’s start off by talking about beginnings – what was your hometown like? Was there a strong punk scene around?

There definitely was, but I was not a part of it. But, there has been a strong punk scene in Syracuse since like the 90’s when hardcore kind of happened. There is a lot of straight edge and punk people there – less than the 90’s but they’re still there! I don’t live there anymore though.

Where did this kind of frenetic music come from?

Well, I was always really into abrasive hardcore or grimecore; anything like that I wanted to be involved with. I always just wanted to make it the nastiest, loudest sounding thing ever. I was just doing that in Syracuse recording bands and stuff, and that’s how I met everyone.

In regards to creating the songs, how does it work? You’re involved with pretty much everything aren’t you?

Well, yeah kind of. It starts off usually with a guitar bit, and then you need rhythm or some sort of, like, drum. I don’t really have much involvement with that stuff. Meredith writes a couple of the songs… Someone comes in with a melody, and we go with the structure of that. Meredith writes the lyrics and everything. Then, when we record we are all in the same room at the same time and it’s just like you hit the red button and you play, then you just stop and that’s it.

Okay then. You’re the band’s sound engineer too, though. Do you look at things a bit differently being on the other side of the desk?

I kind of take one step at a time. I’m always thinking about everything though, so I don’t know. I don’t really separate the two; I don’t see any difference.

I’m really curious and excited to see it all in a live context. I read that you have thought about not even playing on stage and doing all the mixing yourself?

Yeah, I have thought about it. I don’t know. I want to so badly, but there are just certain parts that won’t translate as well. I would like to mix front-of-house. It would sound better. I don’t want to discredit any of the other engineers. Our band has this particular sound that is not really clear; it’s one big force, one big wall of sound.

How do you feel, Shaun, going from recording and having everything in your control to playing live and having it someone else’s control? Is it hard to let go sometimes?

No, I don’t know. It’s really difficult sometimes. There is this stigma, like I can go up to one of them and be like, “Hey dude, I wanted to talk to you about our sound!” There is no way you can steer that conversation without it being taken negatively, so they just say “I’m smarter and better than you, you piece of shit. Why are you talking to me right now?”

Wow, okay then!

That doesn’t happen all the time, but it does happen! So I don’t think I would be able to deal with it and keep my emotions cool.

I wanted to talk to you about the stuff you do on your own, you put on your own noise shows with Pretengineer?

Yeah! Where are you?

I’m in Brisbane…

Oh, Brisbane… I have some shows that I’m doing when we’re there but in Sydney and Melbourne. I don’t know anybody!

What are you going to do for them? 

I play with the same set up I have for Perfect Pussy, but it’s more like trance. Not trance music, but it will put you in a trance. It’s hypnotic. I don’t know, it’s always a little different. The first time I played it was like an improvised show, and I was really nervous! It went really well though. I didn’t want to improvise anymore though, so after that I had more of a structure of how I play. I never really devoted that much time to Pretengineer, but now that I have played so often with Perfect Pussy I’m more comfortable with improvising. So that’s what you’ll see in Australia – improvised, hypnotic trance.

Are you excited about playing Laneway? Kind of a cool way to play in Australia for the first time, playing at a festival!

I’m just excited to go to Australia, but yeah I’m really happy about playing Laneway!

This round has such a diverse lineup, do you ever find it a bit weird playing at festivals alongside like say electronic acts or indie bands? 

No, I don’t think so. Festivals should be curated well, and I think it’s cool that there are so many different genres. And, I get to see Flying Lotus, and I am not complaining about that!

Yeah, how good is he going to be?! What can we expect still to come from Perfect Pussy? Any plans post the Say Yes To Love tour?

Everyone is going to write music, but our own music. That’s cool. We’re all in different places so we will have to actually get together. We’re going on tour again in March, and then we will just take it from there. We don’t really have any plans right now though.