Since they arrived on stages across Australia back in 2011 as an urn of ashes from other group formations, These New South Whales have well and truly pushed the boundaries of their band. With their black nipple tape and mesh top attire, outrageous live shows, bewilderingly unconventional song content choices (‘Mumma’s Tit’ anyone?) and their satire Spinal Tap-esque comedy series, the boys know no bounds. While they’ve since traded in the bold outfit choice, These New South Whales remain at the top of Australia’s punk-rock food chain and in 2020 they have even more up their sleeves.
During their press run for the November 2019 release of TNSW sophomore album, I Just Do What God Tells Me To Do, frontman Jamie Timony teased to Scenestr that the band had a three-fold focus for the new year; songwriting for their album number three to take place over January, writing and filming for season three of their comedy series and jumping into a brand new film project. We spoke to Timony to check on their progress thus far.
“We haven’t started [songwriting] yet, we’re in the midst of another project but in the next couple of months for sure. The other project is a film project and it’s These New South Whales related and we’ve been working really hard on that this month, basically since the very start and that’s pretty much where our focus and attention has been going at the moment. We’re working on getting it up and putting that out sometime this year,” Timony explains. “We’re really following our noses at the moment. This project that we’re working on at the moment isn’t something we ever had in our vision and the idea came up and we chased it down really hard and it’s become a legitimate thing so we definitely would like to work on season three [of the comedy series] this year but we’re just following our noses.”
That seems to be TNSW style over the years, taking opportunity as it comes. Season two of their comedy series saw an impromptu guest appearance from The Cure’s Roger O’Donnell who is now the show’s executive producer.
“There have been some people like Roger from The Cure who we weren’t planning on having and we got a phone call from a friend in Australia saying ‘hey, I’m with Roger from The Cure and he wants to be in your show’ so we went to his hotel that day, so that wasn’t a planned thing at all. We’re always super grateful for moments like that.
“I’ve been making films and stuff since I was twelve and acting in theatre and film and TV stuff later on and it’s always been something that I really enjoy doing and comes quite naturally to me,” says Timony who was a regular on H20: Just Add Water and has appeared in Blue Water High and Willem Dafoe’s, The Hunter. “I’m definitely very grateful that this band has allowed for an outlet like that. I don’t think that other musical projects would be able to have a comedy show. It works beautifully for us. What I love about These New South Whales is that I kind of get to create my own work in that sphere which is great.”
Along with their busy art-project focused movements for the year, the band plan on touring internationally and will be appearing at music festivals across Australia. They will be joining Julia Jacklin, Ecca Vandal, DRMNGNOW, Maddy Jane, Elizabeth and Clypso at the picturesque Grampians Music Festival 28 – 29 February 2020.
Tickets on sale now at grampiansmusicfestival.com
Written by Tammy Walters
