We had a chat with Ben Roberts, the lead ukulele player of the unique Ukulele Death Squad after just releasing their debut single Not Afraid, ahead of their show at Elder Hall in Adelaide and nationwide tour which has just kicked off.
Glam: You have just released your debut single Not Afraid. How’s it being received so far?
Ben: It is being received quite well. We just got back from a tour of Ireland, Scotland and a few other places in Europe. We had our first physical copies over there and managed to sell close to 400 copies over the course of a few gigs, people are writing in telling us they’re loving it. We initially released it online a couple of weeks ago and we’ve been tracking the downloads and it seems it’s going well.
Glam: You have had sold out shows at both the Adelaide and Edinburgh Fringe festivals. What’s it like playing sold out shows?
Ben: It’s an incredible feeling. We’ve only been around since February 2017. We only started out really wanting to sell out three shows, that was our goal, then we were able to take it over to Edinburgh last year. Then we went back this year and maybe doubled or tripled the amount of gigs we’ve done. We managed to sell all of them out as well so it’s a great, proud feeling. We’ve been playing music many years in other bands, with the success of this it just feels like all the work over the years has been worth it.
Glam: Who came up with the name Ukulele Death Squad?
Ben: It was debated about and on for a long time, but myself and Julian Ferguson both agreed upon the name after going back and forth and seeing what avenue we wanted to take the band, after long discussions we came to the conclusion that Ukulele Death Squad was gonna be our name.
Glam: What were some of the other names you had in mind for Ukulele Death Squad?
Ben: Well Julian was heavily pushing for ‘Pidgeons on the Moon’ *laughs* which didn’t quite sit with me too well. I thought ‘squad’ needed to be in there and the way we were using the ukuleles I really wanted the word ‘ukulele’ in there, the word death was the piece that glued it all together in the middle.
Glam: How did the band initially meet and come together?
Ben: I’ve been playing around in Adelaide for years in other bands. Through the scene I ran into Julian who played in the Coconut Kids. When I started dabbling in the ukulele I knew he played as well and I thought maybe we could get together and do something for the Fringe something light, something fun. We came together and started putting together some songs. Aidan our bass player who also plays in the Coconut Kids wanted to jump on board and we started as a trio for our first Fringe season. Then we met Reuben our saxophone player, he was keen to jump on board and now we’ve got the solid core four piece which makes up the band.
Glam: What exactly makes your live show so dangerous?
Ben: We’re doing things with the ukulele which I guess a lot of people haven’t seen before. A lot of bands use ukuleles and it’s been made popular by being a happy instrument, sort of an instrument of love. The way we play our ukes, we’re doing quite the opposite. We’re bringing a bit of aggression to it and we’re bringing a bit of ferociousness to it as well. The songs that we write have a bit of an attitude, a bit more of a punk sentiment about them rather than just being a happy sort of strumming instrument if you know what I mean.
Glam: What songs can we expect to hear on the setlist for the upcoming Australian tour?
Ben: We’ve just come back from our European tour, we’ve been fine tuning the set there. We’ve got a fair few new ones coming. We learnt a few Nick Cave songs. We’re gonna pull out one or two of them circulating through the set on the tour and then we will also definitely be playing our single Not Afraid.
Glam: What songs tend to be your crowd favourites at your shows?
Ben: Definitely Not Afraid, that’s one of the reasons why we chose that to be our debut single, we do a cover the Pulp Fiction theme song called Mr. Lou. That’s generally a favourite. Then we have a few songs that aren’t so serious. Original songs of ours which are a bit comedic I guess. Lots of fans have different favourite songs so every song of ours we’re quite proud of. If it’s not good enough it doesn’t make the set.
Glam: Are you guys thinking of recording an album anytime soon?
Ben: We will release another single hopefully towards the end of this year or early next year and then we will release our full EP sometime early next year.
Glam: What kind of artists did you grow up listening to and do you think that has influenced your song writing style for Ukulele Death Squad?
Ben: When I grew up one of the first bands I was heavily into was Nirvana. In year 11 and 12, I was heavily into heavy metal music. Bands like Soulfly, Sepultura and Iron Maiden, a lot of punk bands as well. With the death squad we definitely bring a bit of that punk attitude to the songs and we’re definitely playing with a lot of intensity. I personally come from an appreciation of heavy metal music but I am very fond of all types of music.
Glam: Do you have any crazy stories of something that happened while you’ve been on tour?
Ben: We rocked up at a gig in England when we went to go to sound check the guy had to pull out an instruction manual of how to use the desk, which was an unnerving feeling. The gig ended up going pretty good, we tend to run into these problems all the time but we manage to get around them despite the stress.
Glam: Thanks heaps for the chat I look forward to seeing you guys at Elder Hall in Adelaide October 7th.
Interview by Jonathan Matthews.
More News
