Playlunch. Keith, hornbags and the C word.

A quick look at Bogan funk.

Traditionally , Australia has been represented overseas as “The Outback”, and all things associated with our wildlife , our bushland and our agricultural lifestyle.. Our musical exports consist largely of pub rock and Country crossover. Our ambassadors have been Crocodile Dundee, Steve Irwin, Dame Edna and a multitude of faceless bronzed bodies wearing surf life saver headwear…not that there’s anything wrong with that.

More recently, though , there has been an emergence of the Aussie urban dweller. With bands like Amyl and the sniffers, The Chats, and , to some degree, a resurgence of older punk acts like the Cosmic Psychos.
Playlunch is something different. Although the lyrics centre around the comical but mundane or familiar aspects of life in the great suburban sprawl of Melbourne, the musicality of this act reaches further, aims higher and digs deeper than one would expect from a band that is essentially based in comedy with a style reminiscent of the great Frank Zappa.

Consisting of 7 members, including sax, horn section, keys as well as the obligatory guitar, bass and percussion, their sound is complex, funky and as tight as the proverbial fish’s sphincter.

I recently had a chat with vocalist and founding member, Liam Bell. The urban Australiana aesthetic has been the purview of punk bands up until now. I asked about the musicianship behind the band.

“Im a huge fan of Amyl and the sniffers. I think they will be remembered as one of the iconic bands of our generation. That being said, I think it is an extension of Australia’s ‘Tall Poppy syndrome’ that punk has been the export . Punk is typified by its accessibility to everyone. You can get away with 3 chords, make it loud and aggressive,and people have a tendency to look down on anyone who tries to make things too precise or jazzy. We found this weird loophole to the tall poppy syndrome. We can be as ambitious musically as we like because the lyrics are so silly. It gives us room. It’s a joy to have new fans recognise this. Theres a few guys in the band that are really into Frank Zappa, and we have a love of precision. We love Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind and Fire, ….everyone in the band is pretty much a Jazz school graduate, so we have a very refined palate of music influences that we have turned into our own sound”

“The crowd work is a big part of what we do also. The audience is like the eighth member of the band, so depending on what room we play, what city we are in and what the crowd gives us, that will dictate the outcome. It is like playing with a different band member every night. It’s very organic and fun. I think in an age where the music industry is trying to generate shows where each show is as replicable as possible, and each show is like a Budweiser factory, where every show is the same as the last. I respect that, but I get super bored trying to do the same thing every night. We need spontaneity and fun. It’s a live experience that is tailored to the audience”

There is a huge emphasis on the visual aspects of the show also.

“We always wanted to have matching outfits, and to do as much with the stage as we could. No one would have thought of music as a completely aural experience until the invention of recorded music 120 years ago, so the notion that some performers have, that ‘Its just about the music, Man’ is noble, but people …hear with their eyes as well as their ears, in a way. The more you can elevate what you are doing visually, the better the music is going to feel. Its a principle of marketing , too. We know that food tastes better when the silverware is heavier, …all of that. The music sounds better if the band looks like it’s having a good time”

The song that seems to have really gained national attention for the band is “Keith”.

“Its a strange one. We had a gig back in 2024, where we played a midnight show that ran til early morning, and at a rehearsal for that show, I showed the guys this silly little tune that I had cooked up. We wrote some verses for the song, and some horn parts, and decided we would just play it. We thought it would be a filler song that we would probably play once then forget about, but as soon as we played it in front of an audience, it got such a huge reaction. People flooded our Instagram, the next day We have a lot of songs that people like, but nothing got a reaction like that one did.

“Keith is an archetype of the typical Aussie bloke. Everyone has met someone like that. The ultra -masculine bloke that would just bite your head off if you parked in his spot or cut him off in traffic..”

Although much of their material is very specific to Melbourne , there is a relatable element to the music that seems universally Australian. I asked if that was intentional.

“I think it is clearly a response that people are having to us, that we are relatable and the music is accessible, and the songs speak to the arguably mundane aspects of living in Australia, but that’s not what we set out to do. I think it’s an inverse rule of songwriting and film making that the more niche and personal you make something, the more universal appeal it seems to have, which is certainly the opposite of what you might think, or what the industry might think”

“We aren’t setting out to make the most relatable music in the world, we are just making something that makes us laugh. We are glad that it makes other people laugh too”

“3 out of 4 Australian films are set in the outback, but more than half the population lives in Melbourne or Sydney. The ‘typical’ Aussie experience is very skewed, and this year, we are heading to the U.S., so we are leaning into that whole ‘Crocodile Dundee’ type of image. We are presenting as the self proclaimed ambassadors of Australian culture and use the one dimensional stereotype to get our foot in the door, so we can expose the audience to other, more nuanced aspects; let them glimpse the entire world that lives behind that .”

“We have been as far north as Townsville before , but this will be the first time we have played in Cairns. There’s 7 of us . There’s myself, Dillon, Michael and Austin, who all went to the same highschool together,and Simon, our guitarist, Jerry, our trumpet player andAndre, our Sax player all went through Jazz school together, and we are very lucky for it. Its rare to have seven guys crammed in a tour van together and not have one dickhead amongst them.”

Every now and then, a person such as myself gets the opportunity to ask the hard questions.., to explore the boundaries and to dig a bit deeper. I asked for Liam’s thoughts on the Australian push to destigmatize the word “Cunt.”

“Growing up, for me it was well known that if you used ‘the c word’ in my house, you were out on the street. It was about the worst thing you could utter. When my Mum heard the stuff on the latest album, she nearly had a heart attack”

Everyone who heard ‘Keith’ said “Thats great, but it’ll never get radio play’ but we are getting plenty of plays on Triple J, so, you know…. I think there’s a Duke Ellington quote that says ‘Good art is always dangerous.’ I think the fact that it’s a bit naughty and a bit spicy is what gets people excited about it. If I had a dollar for everyone who is a bit older that has said ‘This is such a naughty song, but that’s why I love it’ we would be home and hosed.”

“The whole thing about Playlunch is, we are kind of leaning into that ‘Boys at the back of the bus’ archetype: being the naughty boys that say the things that people really want to say. It’s one of the most beautiful things we have done as a culture. The appropriation of that word as it is used now is a thing of beauty”.

I could not have said it any better.

Playlunch will be playing at The Tanks art centre on Friday May 22nd.
Show starts at 7.45 pm.

Tickets available through Ticket Link, or at the door if not sold out (And a lot of their shows are sold out already)

Don’t miss these guys. It’s gonna be a hoot.

Noel Keid