Lipstereo is a young, four-piece Australian indie rock band from Melbourne, Australia. Formed in 2019, this collection of music tragics bonded together over a mutual obsession of The Strokes, Weezer and Arctic Monkeys' back catalogues. By channeling too much time spent watching worn out Ramones and Blondie VHS tapes as children, Lipstereo creates performances reminiscent of late nights at CBGB, and spilling drinks just a little too cheap on the floor. Playing all over pre-lockdown Melbourne in 2019 and 2020at their high-energy live gigs, Lipstereo fuses loud guitars with a post punk songwriting sensibility to create music that in a parallel universe, would be on Phil Spector's Spotify playlist.
How did the band form and what does the band name mean?
Sam, Tage and Andrew first got together in 2019 under a different name, and played a bunch of local shows pre lockdown. Jesse joined us in 2020, and was the missing piece of the puzzle, particularly by him coming to the songs we’d been working on with a fresh perspective. The hardest part of starting a band has got to be deciding on the name. The amount of names we came up with is pretty close to embarrassing. Funny how these things go, when a name just pops in front of you, thanks to the Spotify Radio algorithm.
Previous musical projects? How’d you first get into music?
All our paths to music were a little different. Sam (singer) scoured the internet for a left handed Les Paul so he could better emulate Justin Hawkins from The Darkness. Andrew transitioned from listening to playing by falling in love with developing his own sounds on synths and guitar pedals. Tage grew up busking on the south east shopping center circuit with an acoustic guitar in hand, and a heart of disappointment with the take. Jesse’s obsession with loud noise of course led him to the drums, much to the disappointment of the neighbors.
First concert that you ever went to?
For Jesse, his earliest musical memory is walking out of the nosebleeds while his ears bleed after a legendary AC/DC show. Tage kind of had the opposite happen when he first saw Dream Theater at The Palais, thinking the music would be way too loud, but escaped without any major injuries. Sam’s first gig was seeing The Beach Boys on their 50th anniversary tour with Brian Wilson. Andrew’s first gig was seeing Muse and refuses to give any more details to us about it. For local acts, seeing bands play at iconic Melbourne spots like The Workers Club and The Tote definitely gave us FOMO and inspiration to work on our own stuff.
What’s your writing process like?
Sam or Tage normally comes to the band with an idea, some more complete than others, upon which we undertake an intense period of scrutiny and tweaking. We’ve finished songs in less than an hour before, but sometimes we can be going back over the same disagreements a year down the track. Something something about a song never being finished…
What other artists or songs inspire your music?
I think acts in the garage rock, power pop and post punk scenes influence us the most. We love the pop elements of Weezer and Supergrass, and the tasteful performances of Catfish and The Bottlemen. Particularly the Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes early work has a raw energy that we try and emulate in our own way, but for sure you can hear elements of their work all over our stuff. The modern writing styles of Cage The Elephant as well as The Backseat Lovers is awesome, and the whole idea of being unafraid when it comes to structuring your songs influences us too!
What’s the live experience like and your philosophy on playing live? Do you think the music live should be identical to the recorded version or should it be its own thing?
Studio and live performances highlight their own things. The studio version is the most polished version of our act, and we are able to do things that are not feasible live, such as the unusual instrumentation (looking at you - Mellotron) and studio effects (like an impossibly long reverb trail). However, playing live brings this almost undefinable energy where you can connect with the audience via a semi-spiritual experience. The little things, like feeling the bass is giving you heartburn, or connecting with the lyrics in a new way because the singer does it differently live, happens live in a way that you can’t communicate over the medium of a recorded product.
Has the band toured? What has the touring experience been, best shows? worst shows?
We’ve been lucky enough to play with a bunch of acts like Slowly Slowly and The Moving Stills, they’re pushing the bounds of what a live show can be for a rock act. So participating in those shows makes us want to put on better ones ourselves, and kind of shows us how to go about it. The worst show any band ever plays is their first show. A mixture of nerves and restringing a B for the 5th time doesn’t make for a great first presentation of the band, but it's ours. We’re just happy not many people were there to see it!
What’s up next for the band?
The next thing that’s on our mind is getting a second studio EP recorded, much in the vein of the first EP. The songs we have lined up excite us, cause we’ve been testing them out at our shows, and have been getting some good feedback. Once the EP is all said and done, we’re gonna have a half decent catalog length for a local band. Hopefully we will be able to get people to sing along to live!