A QUICK DOZEN OR SO with REBECCA CALLENDAR – RACKETT

Shane | 11 July 2018 | Reply

A QUICK DOZEN OR SO with REBECCA CALLANDER – RACKETT

By Shane Pinnegar

Sydney ‘riot pop’ quartet and currently feted buzz band RACKETT make their debut Western Australian visit this weekend supporting Amyl & The Sniffers at Mojos in Fremantle on Friday, 13 July, and again at The Rosemount on Saturday, 14 July as part of the Revelation Film Festival’s music program. Singer and rhythm guitarist Rebecca Callander threw down a quick dozen or so for us ahead of their flight out West.

1. You’ve popped out six excellent singles so far – when will your debut album be coming?

We hope to have a debut album out mid next year. We have a huge collection of music which we are trying to assemble for our fans in the most sonically sensical way. We have a bunch of disco tracks, heavy psych tracks, standard blues rock and pop tracks in the catalogue, we’d love to put them all out in a mega album but it needs to make sense to our listeners so we are currently deliberating whether do another EP before the album as mid next is too far away for our fans.

2. This will be your first trip to WA, have you had any feedback from fans over here yet?

We’ve made great connections with Perth bands like Pow Negro!, The Southern River Band and Psychedelic Porn Crumpets but we’re yet to establish a fan base there, unless we already have one and we don’t know it – that would be cool.

3. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realised you wanted to be a musician?

The band have been performing since a very young age – as dancers in national and international competitions and singers in musical theatre productions, as classical pianists in recitals and alongside mothers and fathers in bands themselves. We have all been on stage for a very long time. We’ve learnt a range of instruments at different times in our lives: I started playing drums in primary school, left the spotlight to become a makeup artist in Europe at 21, and then returned to the stage at 25 to play drums and then finally rhythm guitar in RACKETT.

4. Who would be your main five musical influences?

Jack White, Peter Garrett, Stevie Nicks, Paul Simon, St.Vincent.

5. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be?

Jack White.

6. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before?

Loud and proud.

7. What’s the best thing about being a musician?

Aside from writing music which is a form of therapy and a tool for wellbeing, it is becoming an idol to someone for a moment. Even without great success, the stage can give you a sparkle, the illusion of superiority, a fleeting moment of importance.

8. When the band are all hanging out together, who cooks; who gets the drinks in; and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?

When we’re hanging we’re usually doing yoga poses, visiting music stores for new pedals or discussing animal welfare and listening to historical podcasts. We drink very modestly – far too modestly for most bands, we’re usually the first ones to the venue for soundcheck and the first to bed. It makes us the odd ones out at most shows and sometimes unpopular but we never have hangovers and we never fight and that’s important when you’re in each other’s faces all the time.

9. If you weren’t a musician, what would be your dream job?

Lawyer.

10. Looking back over your career so far, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep, or you would like to be able to “do over”?

Yeah – [there’s been] so many moments I wish I could have handled better. Keeping ‘the business’ separate to friendships is hard but necessary. I have lost friends along the way for putting the business first, but I believe my band will serve a greater good to humanity. Also, having the confidence to back yourself – I must force myself to embrace my own values over ‘being liked’ and I constantly fail.

11. If you were made ruler of the world, what would your first orders be?

Wealth distribution. I see extreme poverty and it breaks my fucking heart. There is no reason why children should starve to death whilst dumb privileged people perpetuate waste in the first world for their own entertainment by having hotdog eating contests. I would raise tax on meat by 50% making animal products more accurately reflect the true suffering and cost of these animals being slaughtered and make plant based products more accessible and sustainable than animal products. I would ban plastic and invest this tax into creating biodegradable materials to replace plastic. I would ban all zoos and the exploitation of animals [would] be heavily penalised. I would redesign the private and public education curriculum to include sustainable private agriculture, diet (the real human diet, not the current food pyramid taught to children, which is toxic), personal awareness, business development and holistic medicines.

12. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?

I don’t know, I can’t go back in time so this question is torture.

13. What, for you, is the meaning of life??

Creating light to see through my darkness.

14. Where did the name RACKETT come from?

The name for the band was first suggested by my very good friend Patricia Parkinson. She is a designer and nomad entrepreneur, she has helped me with many other projects and is my right hand woman. Initially we thought ‘RACKETT – a loud unpleasant noise,’ which seemed right at the time as I was just starting to learn guitar and some of the original members had just learned guitar, but the name has taken on new meanings as the sound has developed. Currently we refer to RACKETT as ‘the noise and liveliness of fashionable society.’

https://www.rackett.tv/
https://youtu.be/rognoG-YHZo
https://open.spotify.com/artist/7zbBp5XNtGXBIC7hM4jrx9