Interview: Twine (AUS) - JUNK 2025 Festival

Live favourites for many attendees at last year's Camp A Low Hum Festival, Adelaide noise rock / 'country gaze' purveyors Twine are back in Aotearoa next month as part of the majestic lineup for JUNK 2025 in Tāmaki Makaurau, brought to you by Junk Mail. Last here for a summer tour and also co-headlining the Wellington JUNK warmup show on 6th June, Twine founder Tom Katsaras spoke with 95bFM Morning Glory host Lucia Taylor about the group's roots in alt-country, songwriting touchstones and more...

JUNK MAIL presents JUNK 2025
Saturday 7th June - Whammy, Double Whammy and Public Bar, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Featuring... CABINET, DROPPER, GEORGE BARNEY ROBERTS, GIRLS FACTORY, HŌHĀ, OFFICE DOG, PEARLY*, RINGLETS, SALT WATER CRIMINALS, SCRAMBLINE (Eveline Breaker & Scramble 204), THE EMPTY THREATS (Aus), TWINE (Aus), VERA ELLEN

Tickets on sale HERE via UTR

Lucia Taylor: You’ve been described as bunch of different genres. One was folk-inspired post-hardcore, you’ve gotten chaotic noise rock, my personal favourite is country gaze. But how would you describe your genre?

Tom Katsaras: I mean, normal explanation is just noise rock, alt-country. Or at its heart, they'll be written as alt-country songs, but then play it in a real fucked up noise rocky way. The country gaze thing, it makes sense. I like all of those, I get it you know? They all fit. I was talking with some friends about that, everything can kinda be... at the end of the day, it can be indie rock. Just with different levels. So yeah, it could be indie rock, but I tend to just say noise rock, as a nice blanket.

Yeah if someone goes in expecting Clairo they might get a fright.

Exactly. You need a bit more of a concise genre tag, but yeah; noise rock, alt-country kinda works.

Obviously, in the noise rock moments, when it's super heavy feedback and shit, it's really intense. Is there something specific that you're harnessing to access that energy on stage and in recording, or is it just having fun?

I think it definitely plays into the songs being a bit emotionally charged. I find that the noise freak outs, live and when recording, is just a great outburst, I like to unleash... the songs are sad, it's kinda tied to that. They often come as written into the songs at a specific point to match up with the lyrics or something. I could talk a lot about it being deeper than it is, but it's just a lot of fun to — crank an amp and throw your guitar around. And it sounds good. It always sounds really cool.

The best of both worlds! And those noise rock elements as well, the violin really shines, are there specific inspirations that led you to including violin in the band?

Yeah. That sorta came from, my brother got me a Dirty Three record for Christmas.

Which one?

Ocean Songs. I had never listened to them before, but they're now one of my favourite bands. So that was a big thing, a big reason for it. But also, it was a nice sort of connection between the more country elements, and the noise art. But then as it's going on, I think Thea (Martin) has taken it into their own sort of realm, far beyond the idea of having the violin in it. Their playing is a big thing because they are also just a great, very talented musician.

Yeah so good. You worked with Alex Farrah for the record who produced probably my two favourite records, Rat Saw God and Manning Fireworks. What was it like working with him?

It was great. It was really lucky. We were just about to start mixing the record, and he just hit us a DM on Instagram and said he wanted to work on some stuff. Which was great, it’s a perfect fit. Because definitely, those two records are great. All of his stuff, he did Twin Plagues as well, and they just sound like really good rock records. They're big. It's still clean enough that it's still live and it's still studio, which I really like. It was awesome. From the balance of the noise with the country in turmoil.I think it was just like a real good opportunity, just like our little old band compared to the other sort of projects he works on, so it was a very nice tap on the shoulder. It was great, we’re super happy with how it turned out. Hoping to do some more work with him in the future as well.

Yeah, it’s an awesome record. I didn't even realise Alex Farrah did it until I was researching and I was like “Oh, fuck! Of course he did!” It makes so much sense. But, yeah, I really love the record. I was super bummed out to miss you guys when you came up, a few months back, so I’m very excited that you're coming back!

Yeah. I think we're all stoked. It was awesome to come back in Feb, and then to come back again so soon is crazy, it's pretty wild. But, yeah, so happy to.

There’s been such a renaissance in, like, country gaze. Well, I guess country gaze is probably like a whole new thing amidst the response of alt-country.

I kinda think it's just like the new wave of alt-country. I feel like there’s a lot of bands taking inspiration from like Songs: Ohia, I don't know, all the really great country music, but in the modern sort of world of music, genres are a lot looser than they used to be. I feel like the mixing of noisy elements or rockier or shoegaze or whatever with country is just a cool, good natural progression of the genre. It's a funny thing, I guess it's just how the world works. But with Wednesday, when they put out their records, I was like “That’s so good!” When I first found them do that Audiotree, I was like, “What the hell? This band seems it's like the same sort of thing that I wanna do!” I just feel like it had the same influences, a lot of people share the same influences, but it's so different. But it’s good. I think it's incorporating the emotional songwriting from country music, and mixing that with the more fierce, rockier bands from the nineties, like Unwound and stuff. It's just really cool. It’s exactly the sort of music that I keep an ear out for.

Noise rock is super emotive in its own right, and then country is really emotive narrative wise. So it makes perfect sense for them to go together. And totally, people like us are having a field day cause our two favourite genres are converging.

I've been listening back to a lot of The Drones of recent. I feel like that whole sort of idea is still there back then. But I feel like they're more taking from Neil Young and noise. I think it makes sense, the two genres work, they both lean on contrast in different ways and dynamics in different ways, but they pair together very well.

Speaking of country legends, you've cited David Berman in a few interviews, as well as Will Oldham and Jason Molina as songwriting inspirations. Do you have other ones that you look at, and what advice do you get from them? Not necessarily that they've explicitly said, but something that you're kind of picked up through their work.

I always really like a solid one-liner, or a couple of lines in a song that's a real heavy hitting gut-punch line, which I think they all sort of do. But there's also a lot of metaphor, I suppose I take a lot from. I find it really hard not to write with sort of animal metaphors these days. It was never like a planned thing. But I feel like I've definitely picked that up from listening to a lot of Sparklehorse, who I really love. But also, lots of the Palace Music and Songs: Ohia stuff and Silver Jews. There's a lot of metaphors based on animals. I feel like it's very strong, you pick up the idea. There's strong imagery in a dog or a horse or a cow or you know? And it's separate each time. I think that might be my biggest takeaway. But also, with David Berman, there’s a level of almost silliness or ridiculousness to the metaphors. Which is something that I really like, that really stands out.

It's hard. I feel like, with songwriting, it's great to have moved past the point of looking too much at different songs and artists for explicit references. It's very much imbued within how I just write. A lot of the time, I will write something and then I have to double check that it's not a complete rip off. And sometimes it kinda is —

It’s a reference!

I like keeping it in. Yeah, it’s a reference and I like having little references in songs. It's like the bibliography of the album.

I love that. Are there any specific ones that come to mind?

There’s quite a few lines from Songs: Ohia. 'New Cleaner' has “Working just to keep work,” pretty sure that's almost a one for one from maybe 'Just Be Simple' or 'Almost Was Good Enough'. But there's also there's a couple that are in that same song, there's a couple of Sun Kil Moon references which have aged badly. But a couple of years ago, his albums did have a very big impact, particularly the album Goes to the Great Highway. It’s a guilty pleasure — how to shake it?! I will listen to it still sometimes, but only if I'm really going through it or I'm going on a long drive because it's really good. But he sucks.

A secret listen, you just don’t want him to get any gain from it.

Yeah, exactly. A friend of mine got me the record for Ghost of the Great Highway on my birthday a couple years ago. But on my birthday that year, the big Pitchfork article about him being really bad drops. Just really bad timing. I'll listen to it on vinyl every now and again, but yeah, no streaming money. None of that for him.

Of course, the reason that we're chatting today is because you're doing Junk Fest. For those of us that haven't been able to see you live yet, what kind of stuff can we expect from your live sets?

It’s very loud.

Bring earplugs.

Yeah I would say bring earplugs. It's loud. Last time when we were in Aotearoa it was quite silly, it was loud and silly and serious. Silly on the chit-chat. But yeah, it's quite a lot. I've heard it's a good live set, I've never been able to see it.

Oh so many people love, it; after Camp, everyone wouldn't shut up about you guys, truly.

It kinda feels like we're more well liked in New Zealand than Australia, which is fine, I'm happy with that.

I feel like everyone in New Zealand's really jumped onto the alt-country thing, and I think Camp A Low Hum as well is always people who are pretty open to hearing something quite different.

I think playing Camp definitely gave us a big, big boost in attention. The tour we did in February was a great success, and I feel like that was all owed to playing camp.

Thank you so much for chatting, and I’ll see you at Junk!

See you there!