Fresh from rubbing shoulders with the icons of American metal, King Parrot are back on home soil and ready to begin their Dead Set Regional Rampage tour of the East Coast and Tassie. “We can’t wait to play our new songs for the people in Ballarat and Geelong,” front man Matt ‘Youngy’ Young says with a smile.
“We’ve had so much support from people in those areas over the last few years and it’s important for us to get back out there and put on a good show. Sure, it’s always great playing bigger shows but it’s really cool playing the smaller ones as well – we would never say ‘Oh, we’re always touring overseas now, we aren’t going to go out there’ – no, of course we are, we love that stuff – it means a lot to us.”
Melbourne’s King Parrot have long held the title of ‘Australia’s Hardest Working Band in Metal’, and now it seems their hard work is paying off. “We just got back from our fifth tour of the US in the last 12 to 18 months, and we’re still playing places that we hadn’t even heard of before. This time we were lucky enough to go out on tour with Superjoint Ritual – they’re incredible! Their line up is amazing – Phil Anselmo from Pantera and Jimmy Bower from Eyehategod. They hadn’t played together in 10 years so it was a phenomenal tour.
“The whole tour was put together by our label in the States, Housecore Records, (which is Anselmo’s own label), so it was an amazing opportunity,” Youngy continues. “We were the main support and we had our friends from Michigan, CHILD BITE, who were the opening act.”
The last time Forte caught up with King Parrot, Youngy joked about making sure he remembered to take the bins out on his way in from his day job. Nowadays, although he’s packed in the day job, his attitude remains refreshingly down to earth. “I’ve been lucky enough to be able to just focus on the band for the last year, which has been great. I still do a lot of the managerial stuff but we also have a manager in the States,” he explains.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done back here. It’s a job in itself getting any band to the stage where you can have a manager overseas – there’s lot of fingers in the pie, so to speak. There are a lot of people working with King Parrot now and as we grow, days are becoming busier and busier. But we‘ve never taken anything for granted – we know we’re really lucky and we’re grateful that we get the opportunity to go on tour all the time, at home and overseas.”
You’d think that after King Parrot wraps up their rampage of the East Coast and across the ditch, they would be in need of R & R – but you’d be wrong: “The next tour we’re doing is the West Coast of the US and all through Canada. Then later in the year we’re going over to Europe and the UK as well,” Youngy says proudly. “We’re going from strength to strength but it’s been a slow gradual build. We’re still a new band to a lot of people overseas. Here in Australia people know us, we tour quite a lot, but over in the US, Canada and Europe people are still hearing about us and finding out about us for the first time.”
Recently Youngy, Mr White (guitar), Slatts (bass), Toddy (drums) and Squiz (guitar) received the ultimate exposure for the band and fulfilled a lifelong dream at the same time; they appeared on Rage as guest programmers. “It was amazing! A few weeks before we went in to film they sent us ‘The Book’, or ‘The Big Red Book’, I think they call it. There’s something like 20 thousand videos you can choose from. We got to pick 60 or 70 videos, and it was incredibly tough, you know? I think we could pick another 70 and still be putting on favourites,” he grins. “It was a great experience for us, and just being one of the bands that gets to do it, we’re in good company.”
King Parrot know success in the Australian metal scene is garnered through the support of friends, fans and a willingness to help out another band. “We’re really excited to have a cool young Melbourne band called Harlott on board as our main support for the Victorian shows. They’re a thrash band that have been coming up through the ranks and they’re doing really good stuff. They’re about to head over to Europe to do their first tour, and they recently signed with Metal Blade Records too, so we’re stoked they’ll be heading out with us. We also tried to get the best local bands around as our opening act and I think we’re going to have some killer shows.”
Things just seem to be getting better and better for the affable metal-head, so what advice would he give to the younger bands King Parrot have taken under their wing: “Well, I’ve been clean and sober for nearly four years and off the cigarettes for almost as long – best thing I ever did, I hate those fucking things!”
When & Where: The Barwon Club, Geelong – August 13, Pelly Bar, Frankston – August 14, Karova Lounge, Ballarat – August 15 & The Tote, Collingwood – August 16
Written by Natalie Rogers, Photo by Kane Hibberd