Challenging Mortality With JAKE LADERMAN & STEVIE WILLIAMS From CLOWNS

Interview by Kris Peters
Melbourne punk upstarts Clowns have epitomised the fun and
frivolous side of Australian music since their inception in
2009.
Their attitude towards music, coupled with almost legendary live
performances, has seen Clowns rise quickly to prominence and
notoriety, with their honest and raw appraisal of life through
music connecting on a global scale.
After receiving an ARIA nomination for their previous album
Nature/Nurture in 2019, Clowns have just unleashed their latest
slab of goodness in the form of Endless, a middle finger salute to
the pandemic during which it was conceived and a snub to the face
of those who thought that period of time would spell the death
knell for a plethora of bands and musicians.
HEAVY sat down with vocalist Stevie Williams and drummer Jake
Laderman to talk through what to expect.
"It feels like I'm about to…," Williams measured, "… I don't have
any kids, but this is what I imagine preparing for a child would
feel like (laughs). Years and years of creative energy and the
world going upside down from when we started writing it to when we
finished recording and releasing it, but now it's here. It's
satisfying and maybe a little bit emotional. I can't wait for it to
be out in the world and not be our record anymore. It's gonna be
whoever listens to its record."
Endless is the fifth album release from Clowns, so we ask the
question of whether the process gets any easier the more albums you
put out.
"It definitely gets harder," Williams answered without thought. "I
feel like when we started the band we were so inspired to get our
music career off the ground and there was so much… I guess you
would call it creative, low-hanging fruit when we were starting a
punk band. We wanted to write a song that had screaming in it, we
wanted a song that sounded like The Ramones, we wanted a song that
sounded like the Offspring and then once we did an EP and four
seven inches and now five albums, now we're reaching super high up
to the top of the tree to get that sweet fruit, and we're doing
Spaghetti Western eight-minute jams at the end of our record. We're
fucking around with thrash metal and dual guitar solos, all in an
effort to keep it interesting for ourselves and the people who
listen as well. In that essence, it gets harder. It gets way harder
(laughs)."
In the full interview, the boys talk more about what to expect from
Endless, how the singles released represent the album as a whole,
the opening piano intro and why it was used, the central theme of
immortality, the closing track A Widow's Song and the inspiration
behind it, how Endless differs musically to Nature/Nature, upcoming
shows and more.