A Quick Chat with Rudely Interrupted

Australia’s globally renowned, effervescent perfect pop rock outfit Rudely Interrupted have overcome some well-documented challenges in their 16-year existence. However, the gestation of their prophetically titled 3rd album Emergency, which is due out in September, delivered a challenge they hadn’t seen coming. 

 In 2018, Rudely’s founding member and co-writer Rohan Brooks was struck down with a serious brain aneurysm that left him in hospital for a year and with severe memory loss as a result.  Add to that the apart time and its fallout we all endured, and the continuing climate catastrophe we are all currently facing, that finds Brooks understating on the album’s title, “yeah we’re all in a little trouble I guess!”

 Today the band release the second single from the album called “Christine”, an exercise in dreamy, sweet-toothed pop rock jangle, soundtracking the flush of a first-time love.  Rohan Brooks considers “Christine”, “a song about your first love when all the hormones are firing, you feel giddy and your head just can't keep up with the emotions, they say you never forget your first love, hey...” 

Congratulations on your forthcoming album Emergency. It's your 3rd full-length album, so what do you think has changed in your writing since your early releases?

There’s been some big changes with the band since conception, we write together, Rohan and Rory, we had a challenge, as the band grew, we could make the songs more complex, we had a lot of artistic boundaries early in the bands career due to the makeup of the group. Over the years we have taken time to make the songs rhythmically interesting. We’ve had a long time to nurture our craft together and as a result we feel pretty happy with these new songs. As Rory is blind and, on the spectrum, and myself, Rohan lives with a brain injury it’s not as easy as it may seem, but I think after you write a records worth of songs, it always seems easier than it is at the time when writing the record.

How does the muse appear for you and Rory, is it a blinding flash of inspiration, or is more of a process of gradual reveal?

Ha, yeah more of a process of a gradual reveal, after the initial idea that can spark up from a thought, we really try n craft the songs to sound more complex than they are. Although we play over the timeline a lot, so we tend to have bars of six and groups of three as we let the melody dictate the song form. We’ve played around with the song forms to make the songs work, from starting with chorus to verse intros and half choruses. Whatever we feel works best for the song and melody to shine is what we aim for, sometimes the rhythms are complex, but the musical structure can be pretty simple. After suffering from a brain aneurysm, it’s been a little challenge to be back on the drums and relearn the rhythms but singing along with the melody seems to help me get there, and it gets easier, but don’t always stick for like they used to.

Rudely Interrupted have in some ways become flag bearers in the differently abled arts scene, do you guys feel it’s important to set an example of what can be done with determination and persistence?

Yeah, it’s been an eventful career with the Rudes, we’re in it to have a musical life and that has opened doors for us to tour internationally and around Australia. We feel lucky in some respects and although it’s been a challenge as we’re often not afforded the same opportunities as our peers to build our audience, we’ve had to work harder to make our music connect and to play in front of people. If we don’t put on a show, we don’t get to play. In 2010 I think, we played a support spot for a band called Number Station who don’t play anymore, but they’re the only act that has ever asked us to play with them, so it’s not been easy for us in that respect. Although we’ve loved every minute of our time, it’s not been the easiest thing to do, and we feel we’re one of the more determined bands around as we’ve had to do it all ourselves without the support of our peers. We’ve performed at a lot of schools around the country and internationally and I hope we’ve influenced a few lives along the way. We can’t hide our disability, so we’ve always had to lead loud and proud and have no doubt we’ve added to the rich culture of disability arts and the music culture of Australia around the world.

If you were to create a perfect listening scenario for an end user to aurally (orally?) consume this new album, where and what would that be? i.e. time, place, mood…

I often get a demo going and pop it on the car stereo and go for a long drive so if the songs sound good to us going up the Hume Highway at 110kms p/h with the cruise control on and the stereo blasting we kinda think it’s got vibe and we run with it.

What does the future hold for Rudely Interrupted, you have all achieved so much, what are the future goals?

We’re looking forward to getting this record out and to fresh ears and see what comes. Hopefully some tour opportunities will arise, and radio digs the singles, that’ll help us connect to a larger audience and keep us all rocking along. We’ve never really set goals because in many ways we’re at the whims of people’s own perception of disability, some can hear the music, and some seem to focus on the disability and can’t hear the music. So, we chase opportunities and try our best to make the most of everything that comes our way. An invite to perform at a school can turn into a string of shows depending on where the school is. We’ve played schools all over Australia, from Goroke to Albury and Port Hedland to Marble Bar in Western Australia so we’ll just keep on keeping on and chasing our tales to showcase our music wherever we can. It’s been an incredible ride for us, we still really love it and get a kick from playing so here’s hoping folks will dig the new record and some exciting opportunities come our way so we can jump on them and see how far we can go.