Taping over
VHS Or Beta aren't letting the vagaries of fashion slow 'em down.
By Andrew P Street
In 2004 VHS Or Beta were one of the coolest bands on the planet. They stood out among the their dance-punk contemporaries like The Rapture, Radio 4 and !!! thanks to snappy singles like Night On Fire (which, conveniently, was also the title of their breakthrough album). It set a high standard to follow, as the band discovered when they released last year's Bring On The Comets to middling reviews and disappointing sales.
"It's frustrating for bands because as soon as the press attaches a name to a movement, they're attaching an expiration date as well," sighs frontman Craig Pfunder. "And I feel like ‘dance punk' was a phrase the press coined and now they're are going ‘well, we're sick of that.'"
Pfunder hasn't let it get to him, though: he's clearly massively proud of the album and sees it as a clearer portrait of the band than their previous efforts. "We just didn't care what anyone was gonna say: we said to ourselves early on ‘let's just go in and make a record that we're proud of and we enjoy, hopefully our fans will enjoy it and if they don't they don't, hopefully they will.' And we've been playing a bunch of shows, things are going well and I like to think of it as something of a success, personally. We're just excited to just keep making music, really."
Pfunder doesn't make excuses for the band's diminished commercial returns. "Well, it is a different record. It's also a record that was written a couple of years after the fact. I mean, we've been around a long time and we wanted a change - we welcomed a change and we were excited about it. And we've never been interested in making the same record twice. But I do enjoy the differences in the records. We caught some criticisms for it, but overall I enjoy exploring different sides of our musicality. I think a lot of the criticism came from people who didn't give the record much of a listen. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm really proud of the record."
He pauses, thinking. "You know, maybe right now is not the right time for Bring On the Comets with a mass appeal, but I do feel confident that as a musician and an artist all you can really do is believe in something and push it out there, and whether people like it or not is really not up to us. That's something that happens or it doesn't. We're just having a great time travelling the world playing it."
Among that worldwide touring is the band's imminent visit to Australia, taking in the Come Together festival. "It looks pretty diverse," he approvingly says of the bill. "We're good friends with The Thrills - we enjoy their music very, very much so it'll be good to see them - but the other bands I haven't really heard of them, so I'll be excited to see some new music. That's what festivals are really great for; you get to go out and see some new bands."
He's relieved to hear that Come Together is a relatively indoor festival - for my part, I've always imagined VHS Or Beta as being more of a late-night sweaty club band than a middle-of-the-day festival act. "We are!" Pfunder declares. "We totally are. We enjoy all the different type of settings, but my favourites are in clubs where it's a bit more intimate, where everyone's close together and having fun. We always enjoy those kind of moments."
VHS Or Beta play The Factory Theatre on Fri 6 and the Come Together festival at Luna Park on Sat 7 June.