After a French tour that took them from Metz to La Rochelle via Paris and Nantes, TROPICAL FUCK STORM takes a look at their great Fairyland codex album, their love of covers and a few other things...
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I N T E R V I E W //// I N T E R V I E W //// I N T E R V I E W
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"We try new things all the time"
Your last album felt quite different than the previous ones, is this something you were looking for ?
Gareth LIDDIARD : It just happened like that.
Erica DUNN : It's just growth baby ! It fell out of the sky. I don't think that we tried to do anything different. We were just trying to do what we do and it came out like that.
There are a few songs that don't really sound like typical TROPICAL FUCK STORM, like Stepping on a rake, which can be seen as your first ever ballad. Other than bringing a nice midtempo feel to your music I really enjoyed the fact that it can either be seen as a very cynical love song or a very heartfelt declaration from Gaz to Fiona…
GL : Yeah, I guess either of those can work. You can just choose the one you like best.
The songwriting feels a bit different in some places. I don't know if it comes from more personal stuff, but it's definitely more personal stories, a bit more withdrawn this time from your usual social commentaries...
GL : Yeah, I mean...
ED : Well they're personal, but not withdrawn...
Lauren HAMMEL : Or is that just how you have perceived it ?
Definitely. But a song like Bye bye snake eyes could have ended up on a PALM SPRINGS album I guess. You may correct me if I'm wrong.
ED : Well, I guess so, I mean it's a song that we've been trying to recycle for a couple of years now and we almost put it in the bin but it's a good song, it's got a good melody. And it almost became a curse trying to work out what it's about or whatever. I feel like the songs are more like puzzles that we have to fix.
GL : And from an outside perspective, everybody thinks you're like an expert and you know what you're doing like “Yeah, let's do this, alright alright !”, but with a band like us we try new things all the time. It's the first time we've done stuff like that, we're just figuring it out and you follow the lead until it works.
"It's not just the new indie music or anything...
It's just vibrating here"
There’s also Joe Meek will inherit the earth that has some very unusual piano parts for example. Did Michael BEACH have any influence on the way the recording turned out ?
Fiona KISTCHIN : He does play the piano on Joe Meek, yeah.
GL : I mean yeah, he was in the room. We don't do production, we don't have producers. He recorded the album and everyone in the room produces. We just try to get it done and we try to do things that amuse us. There's no grand plan, it's just like “Shit, we got to do this !”.
Working with him was the same experience as what you normally do then ?
ED : It was the same as in it's us with someone we invited to engineer because there's so much pressure as in doing so much shit and the person who comes in is like “What the fuck is all this stuff ? Where does this lead go ?”. Where we're recording there is also this beautiful kitchen where we're making diner andwhere sometimes we're accidentally recording at 2 in the morning. That's how it goes, welcome to the party ! And Michael took it very well.
Whether it's on your record or his, it sounds like it's obviously working ! He's definitely adding something to your music and you're bringing some to his...
GL : Yeah, we just let anything happen and if Michael says “This will do” then OK, cool ! Or if the neighbour pops over and says “Yeah, that's alright, but do this instead” we go “OK, cool!”. We're not fussy, we go “Oui, oui oui”.
ED : It's a conversation.
So the various collaborations you're doing are not a way to consider things differently then ?
GL : Well, it is to a degree but I think mainly we're not young, we're really into music and we have this huge knowledge, it's not just the new indie music or anything... It's just vibrating here, that's the way I've been explaining it lately. We just figure it out from there.
"It's always a bad idea to cover Jimi HENDRIX"
Your eclecticism in terms of the music you listen to shows with all the cover songs that you do. But you haven't done any for this new record. Would you consider making a whole cover album ?
ED : We talked about that actually.
LH : Did we ?
Everyone : Yeah !
ED : It's a work in progress.
FK : We were thinking of calling it TROPICAL FUCK STORM’s greatest hits (laughs).
That Jimi HENDRIX cover you did is really insane.
GL : That was during COVID in lock-down and we just sort of thought… You know there are some sort of songs you just shouldn't cover because they're too iconic or hard or whatever, so it's always a bad idea to cover Jimi HENDRIX. So we thought what would be the most ambitious song of his to cover ?
LH : That was the result of Gaz being alone in the bush during COVID. Gaz wanted to have some people over to hang around.
GL : Yeah, we had a friend of ours come around. Dan KELLY, he plays guitar and then we took it from there. It's fun to do ! And if it would have worked out badly, we would have deleted it (laughs).
Is it the same with the NIRVANA cover that is virtually impossible to hear ?
GL : No, that's ready to go, we just haven't found a way to put it out.
FK : We did that ?
ED : Yeah !
GL : Aneurysm.
You had some very unusual beginnings since you went to tour the United States straight away withjust a few songs in your pocket.
FK : Yeah it was good, it was lots of fun. We were opening for BAND OF HORSES who are good friends of ours.
LH : It's a bit of a blur (laughs).
ED : It's very funny thinking about it now.
FK : And I think we actually did a lot of covers on that first tour.
ED : We did FUGAZI...
FK : We even did some DRONES songs.
GL : We did LOST ANIMAL, NATION BLUE...
ED : The DIVINYLS....
FK : I think we only had two or three of our own songs on that tour.
LH : Yeah but our sets were only six songs long.
FK : I think we only had two or three of our own songs on that tour.
LH : Yeah but our sets were only six songs long.
It must have worked very well with the urgency of your music I suppose.
ED : We were learning how to play together and one thing that is great about touring is that you get the opportunity to play all the time !
GL : And it's not a new thing, I mean lots of bands did that in the 60s or 70s.
Would you say that being from Australia helps bringing weird elements to your music? It seems likeso many bands from Down Under just can't sound like traditional rock and roll bands.
ED : I don't know if it's because of that. I just think we're really weird people.
FK : Yeah, we could be from anywhere.
ED : It's lucky we found each other !
I remember Gaz saying at the time of The DRONES that the isolation part plays a lot.
ED : You could write a PHD about the weirdness of Australian culture.
GL : There was a change. The DRONES happened before Courtney BARNETT and KING GIZZARD. They kind of made it OK to be Australian. Before that it was kind of...
ED : Disgusting !
GL : Yeah, it was itchy. It wasn't as cool, or even it wasn't cool at all.
LH : It's still not cool in Australia.
"We make a lot of songs that are impossible to play live
without bringing heaps and heaps of shit"
Coming back on Fairyland codex, there's this new element to your music with acoustic guitars. I felt like the two unplugged songs you did for the Gummy gummy gumdrops kind of paved the way for that.
GL : Yes, exactly ! In my mind it was “Let's try more of that” because that sounded good.
The song Fairyland codex is another one that feels quite different from what you usually do while still going to some very weird places. It is yet to appear on your set lists : is it too difficult to play live ?
ED : Between finishing the album and starting our American tour we just allowed ourselves three days of rehearsing.
LH : And I was a day late (laughs).
ED : And it took us a day to figure out how to play Goon show. And then we had one day left to try and tackle anything else so... We'll get there eventually.
GL : And if we wanted to add acoustic guitars, we'd have to bring extra equipment and the airlines would make it difficult. Then we would need more time to soundcheck so it's because of the logistics mostly.
LH : We'd have to buy new acoustic guitars after each flight because they'd probably end up crushed.
I heard there was some blank page syndrome for the previous album for Gaz...
LH : Who told you that?
Well that's what Gareth said in interviews...
(Everyone laughs)
GL : Well, I didn't enjoy lockdown.
LH : Oh, I loved it, bring it back !
At least you were living in an open space, you were not crammed in some building.
GL : Yeah but we weren't allowed to get together. That's why we made that Goody goody gumdrops film because in Australia you weren't allowed to get together if you were going to make music, or work or build a house, but if you were going to make a film… AMYL & THE SNIFFERS did a movie and told us that they got a permit to do it.
FK : Yeah, they let us have a permit too.
LH : You can't stop the advertising industry (laughs). The army needs to recruit more people so they had to make an ad !
You seem very drawn to your first album in terms of set lists when you're playing live.
ED : We're pretty even stevens now. As in how it stands today.
FK : Yeah we're doing a shorter set tonight because it's a festival so we're only doing... How many ?
GL : Two, Rubber bullies and Tyres. But it's still good, we don't make bad music or rational music...
ED : You don't know Gaz !
FK : One might say that.
LH : We make a lot of songs that are impossible to play live without bringing heaps and heaps of shit. We need to bring songs that we can just play.
GL : Yeah, as a guitar band.
ED : I don't know about you but I really like bands that do records and then fuck it up when they play live. It's just so fun to have that chance to retranslate your music.
GL : It's like covering your own music.
OK, it seems like we’re running out of time. Thank you very much for doing this !
Interview by Éric F.
(July 5, 2026)XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
TROPICAL FUCK STORM. Fairyland codex (Fire Records, 2025)
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Go further
TROPICAL FUCK STORM : Bandcamp
TROPICAL FIRE RECORDS STORM
Fuck it dude, let's go bowling !
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In our written archives :
Fairy bad trip, by Éric F. (08/10/2025)
Bruits de fusées // TPS [Live], par Éric F. (18/11/2022)
Dystopie or no to be ?, par Éric F. (01/10/2021)
Chronique de l'album Braindrops, par Éric F. (18/10/2019)
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Soon… this interview in French version !
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Photography : Éric F.
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