Chonked through The Waltoniser: A Q&A with The False Waltons

​Many of us who witnessed the reassembled Watershed in Hamilton recently, fronted by Marcus MacRury, saw them as a highlight performance at the Contact 50th birthday party. In recent years, however, Marcus has been living in Tauranga, performing with (amongst others) The False Waltons, who on the 30th of August will be making the trip across the Kaimai Ranges to play Last Place with Bitter Defeat and Cowboy Dan. Little can be found about the enigmatic False Waltons online, so we attempted to mend the breach by questioning them about their relationship with the 1970s American TV drama ‘The Waltons’, the roles of the respective members, their forthcoming album, and more!

HUP: Many of my generation and older will remember ‘The Waltons’ as a wholesome 1970s American TV drama, which focussed on a large rural family navigating the Great Depression and World War II. In what ways do you consider yourselves to be False Waltons?
 
Marcus:  We’ve been advised not to comment on this matter.
 
Ben:  We’ve been advised not to comment on this matter.
 
Pete:  We’ve been advised not to comment on this matter.
 
HUP: ...okay... who’s in the band, how and when did you all get together, and what are your respective roles?
 
Marcus:  Pete and Ben continue to play in a covers band called Splinta.  I had an ad running on Jam Space for two years - before Pete sent me a message telling me he liked the songs. He said the lyrics were cool, but weird and that he wanted to meet me in person to make sure I wasn’t a nut-job. His exact words. At that point, I was literally on the verge of giving up - thinking my songs were obviously garbage, or that I had somehow wronged some kind of powerful, omnipotent, spiteful entity that refused to let me be in a band. But they showed up ready to play.  And then they continued to show up ready to play - which, as you know, is the difficult part.  Personally I want to be in a band with other people contributing. Pete might choose some harmonic content that I would never come up with.  And that’s where it’s at for me. I like being musically caught off-guard, or surprised. Calling the shots is a drag and I’m just not good at it regardless. Peter [bass] is very strong with his composition/arrangement skills, which is a huge benefit for the band in general. Ben [drums] is also very good and comes up with broader ideas. So, if we are composing, they’ll both take the reins and tell me what to play. This gives us room for no-one in particular to be responsible for the outcome/results. Pete is a big melody man - while Ben is more at the grunt-end - favouring the harder songs as opposed to the softer songs - which he calls our 'nana-songs’. Which is nice.
 
Pete: We were all born in the '60s. Falsely speaking, when sex, drugs and rock ’n roll were born. When I saw the ad on Jam Space, Marcus had a song on there called Yamaduta and I thought ‘fuck this is cool'. It was so not standard shit that I thought 'that's a bit of me'. The rest is all too painful to talk about because we have to put up with Marcus. Don’t listen to Marcus. It’s all lies. He’s a dick.
 
Ben: I’m the drummer in this band.  I’m also the creative genius in The False Waltons.  Question.  Do we get any free beer at The Last Place?  Marcus thinks he’s cool.  He isn’t.  I like his Gibson SG guitar, tho.  He also has a Jazzmaster - which is just pretentious.  He keeps wanking on about bands I’ve never heard of.  Frybrain?  Scooter?  Bitter Defeat?  Hand of Glory?  Mud People?  Give me AC/DC and a box of beer any day.  I use 5a drum-sticks.  Chicks like drummers.  I like chicks and beer ’n stuff.  It’s the only reason I’m in The False Waltons.

False Waltons · Carry Fire

HUP: Many of us who have been stuck in the swamplands for an extended period remember Marcus from his time in Watershed. Are there similarities in the sounds and songs of that band and what you do in False Waltons?
 
Marcus: That’s odd territory to broach, or even consider - so apologies if the answer is long-winded, or slightly off.  Back in Watershed days, I could’ve been [and was] charged with being ignorant of many things and so I think musicians I played with had to deal with my personal volume being cranked a bit higher than most - in later years someone told me I was like a blank compact disc cranked up to ten - which was a big chunk to choke on at the time.  But, with Watershed, being perceived as the primary song-writer theoretically afforded me much more headroom.  It wasn’t like that, though. Most of our songs were jammed out in the rehearsal room - so that concept is not entirely apt. I was just the main singer/frontman.  Watershed achieved quite a lot - given the fact we were 20 year olds either on the dole, or ostensibly at university. But none of that could’ve been achieved without the influences of everyone involved - be it other musicians, Contact FM, the scene in general, the drama scene, the McGillicuddy’s, etc. With The False Waltons, no song makes it out alive without being put through The Waltoniser - basically jamming it live, seeing what we can do with any idea/riff, etc. It’s still a learning curve. But what is apparent is that any band that’s out there - as you would know from being in Bitter Defeat - is that what you get is a melting pot of everyone involved. Band members have to negotiate the psychology of everyone involved - and that goes all ways. At times it becomes much more than simply being in a band. So The False Waltons are way less directionally focused. Anything could pop out. Take Carry Fire for example.  No-one is going to sit there by themselves and be able to write that.  Ben recently asked ‘how did we write that’?  And the answer is that we jammed it and it chonked through The Waltoniser very quickly. We are not fans of any song sounding like any other song in our set - which has its own issues.  So, I like to change up the vocal approach as much as possible. I can still belt but I also like frailty and ‘getting into character’ for any particular song we are writing at the time. The songs we have are a good indication of a band enjoying the process. But we really look forward to the next phase and seeing what we can come up with. We’re looking forward to ‘ditching our rudder’ as it were.
 
Pete: I served my time in the '80s in a band called Blue Network with Mark Peterson who took over from Andrew Brough playing for Straitjacket Fits. I think this opened the door to being more creative and bringing something to add to The False Waltons. I have never heard of Watershed. Marcus said he was in a band while he was at university, in Hamilton. Hamilton.  30 August.  30 August.  At the Last Place. Hamilton. Hamilton. With Bitter Defeat.  30 August. Hamilton. Ja, natrulich. Das ist gut.
 
Ben: Beer. Any free beer in Hamilton? I’m the drummer. I can sing and play drums at the same time. We have a song called Sideways Is King.  But it’s super-not.  Beer is king.
 
HUP: Tauranga seems to have a healthy music scene, with at least a couple of great venues. Have all of you been in active in bands over there previously?
 
Marcus:  There is a very healthy scene in Tauranga.  It’s not the exception to the rule to be in a band in Tauranga. Austin Cunningham, who plays in a band called Threat Meet Protocol is a major focus point - having been a player and general ‘make gigs happen’ guy.  He wears shorts year-round and is a great frontman [funny and great to watch]. He organises a 12 hour event called Loserpalooza with a different band every half hour - two stages - it’s big-time worth checking out. The bands are all really something - stretching from Fun-Velvets Groove [Club Meds], '70s cocaine-rock influenced bands [Somacaine], Industrial-Disturbo [Threat Meet Protocol], Punk-Skill [Stunt Clown], Skeleton-Metal [Carrion Bride], Synth-Art [We Will Ride Fast], Earth-Rock [Eddie and the Dreamers], Two Piece Mayhem Trick-Rock [Grown Downz], Wall of Noise Macho-Drone [This is How We Die] and stuff you might not be able to attribute to any particular genre [Skonk]. There are too many bands to name - but the level of talent is frightening. Austin seems to give any band a crack at playing - which I believe is part of his whole ‘get up there and do your shit’ ethos.  It’s super impressive - given that most people struggle to organise doing the dishes - only to give up, not bother, and watch crap on Netflix.  Or is that just me? Ben drinks beer.
 
Pete: Ben and I do the covers band thing for beer-money. But it’s getting tough with city urbanisation. Original music is where it’s at.  
 
Ben: I’m the drummer in both bands and the glue that holds them together. No me equals no bands. I am the creative genius in The False Waltons. You’re welcome. Beer anyone? I’m not offering. I’m asking if anyone has any beer.

False Waltons · Sideways Is King

HUP: Over the last few months there have been various hints of a forthcoming album. How close is that to coming to fruition?
 
Marcus: Yes. Eight songs. It’s all engineered, tracked, and mixed.  We’re all from the generation where vinyl albums were a thing - so it ended up being a case of waking up at 4am to mix until the day started. It’ll be up on Spotify very soon. From this point, as we write them, we’ll record them maybe two songs at a time. These days, it’s a good idea to know how to engineer your own music. I play in a studio band called Window - with a compadre called Damian who has been into recording music since he was a kid - making his own mixing desk, using reel-to-reel tape recorders [in a Greg Locke stylee] and then transitioning all that knowledge to the digital realm using Pro Tools, etc. He has been very generous with his expertise - urging me to get a particular set of microphones, a particular compressor, or whatever. I play drums for that band - because we had no drummer and wanted to track real drums - which is a dark-art in itself.
 
Pete: We’re pretty happy with the sound of the album.  it’s not bad for having been recorded in a lounge - in the sticks - where we rehearse. I get scared when I go there. There’s chickens walking around wanting to be picked up and it’s up a long, skinny, country road - with corners that hit pretty hard. But we know the road pretty good now. We like to get sideways around the corners on the way home - while we slag off Marcus for being a shit guitarist and a crap singer.  Is Ben banging on about beer in his replies to these questions? I bet he is.
 
Ben: There’d better be free beer at this gig in Hamilton. I’m the drummer. Humble yourselves and bring offerings of the amber liquid, or I’ll get shitty. If I get up from my drums to get a beer - BOOM!! - Marcus is on the kit, thinking he can play. He can’t. He’s a horrible drummer. Sitting there with his face and hair and socks and wanking on about paradiddles and some wrong concept called ‘constant release’ on the kick pedal. What’s that all about? He’s lucky we even play music with him. Pete and I are the engine of the band and then there’s Marcus - thinking he’s the shit - on my drums?  Wanker. My name is Ben.  I have a beard.

​- with Ian Duggan