It’s happy days for Frenzal Rhomb fans as the band recently added 5 new dates to their Australian tour in Victoria, New South Wales and Tassie, to join the previously announced shows in South Australia and Western Australia. The new tour dates see the band that brought you such classics as “Never Had So Much Fun“ and “You Are Not My Friend” play at the Manning Bar in Sydney before taking the show down to Hobart, back up to Melbourne and then dropping into Miranda and Mona Vale in New South Wales.
We caught up with Lindsay McDougall to chat all things Vegan, tour van munchies & punking with each other with laxatives before shows…
What were your food influences when you were growing up and what kind of food did you eat at home or with your family?
I grew up in a mission brown house in the mission white suburbs of the Sutherland Shire. Thus my food influences were pretty western Euro –chicken casseroles served in vol-au-vents, spag bol and bangers & mash, nothing too fancy, it just confuses them.
I had some pretty severe allergies so my mum got into health food, no wheat, dairy, I couldn’t even eat the same fruit two days in a row when I was a kid. Lentil pie was on the menu, we got into corn spaghetti before any of you coeliac hipsters, and there was some horrific tasting liquid called Rejuvelac that Mum lovingly used to brew up that scares me to this day.
I remember going to kids’ parties and having to bring my own food. Ryvitas and sugar-free jam instead of cake, that sort of thing. No wonder that at Christine Keyes’ “P” themed birthday party, (I came as a prince, she a princess) Andrew Middleton, dressed as a Pirate chased me around the yard with a Pocketknife. Prick of a kid.
Until I got old enough to cook my own stuff – which comprised frozen crumbed chicken or fish in the microwave and one-minute steaks. I was a real gourmand. Had so little interest in food until I went vego and later vegan and realised that food could be really bloody interesting. And non-hurty to the animals (but let’s stay off the soapbox here).
What are your favourite tour van/plane munchies?
Jason likes to believe that I travel with a feedbag like that of a horse, and just tie it around my ears whenever we’re in a van or plane. And it’s kind of true. I like to always have a whole bunch of nuts, dried fruits, and tasty dark chocolate things on hand (or stuffed in pocket) for trips over 20 minutes, and get all excited about choosing which brand of plain potato chip to buy at servos.
Even though we get pretty good vego food on planes, I like to supplement it with a homecooked meal, just in case they mess up, and it is a sad-but-true story that one morning Gordy and I missed a flight to Japan whilst in the Qantas club. Not by smashing TVs and drinking beer out of the taps, but coz Gordy was making a cup of tea and I was getting the fried rice I’d made the night before heated up in the microwave for the impending trip. Hopeless.
What type of food do you hate, and what is the most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten?
Within the bubble I live (vegan, allergic to eggplant, cashews and pistachio nuts) there isn’t too much I hate. Baby corn can get fucked, and water chestnuts are a bit like chewing into crispy wax. I do hate when you go to some fancy thing, and the vego option is some soggy steamed vegetables on a bed of wilted lettuce and a bit of mandarin over by the bread roll.
If you’ve ever tried Natto, that Japanese fermented bean stuff, you’d know about eating horrible stuff. If not, ejaculate onto some cold baked beans, then blow your nose on it and mix it all up. Serve tepid.
What type of food do you make sure to avoid before a gig or going on stage?
I jump around like an idiot so probably shouldn’t eat anything before a gig, but I regularly forget and so spend half the gig smiling through some horrific cramps, which sometime manifest into rather gaseous discourtesies for my beleaguered stage friends.
Once, whilst deep into a South African tour, started punking each other with laxatives. And when I say each other, Gordy started it and pretty much finished it. Tom and I both had a very uncomfortable show in Capetown, the clench in our arses visible on our faces, and I was wearing cricket whites on stage for heaven’s sake! I survived intact somehow, but I do remember a pair of trousers looking a lot like Tom’s left in the corner of the band room as we left…
Imagine for a second you can request anything on your rider for your current tour. What food and drinks would you put on it?
We’re a simple band, with simple requests. Corn chips and salsa. Vegetables cut up all nice and hommus. And please, not too much celery, it’s not a fucken celery party. Jason and I fight over who gets to take home the peanut butter, but I usually let him take it coz I’ve got a job. I would love a new tub of nuttelex every night, and perhaps a delicious vegan meal to eat straight after the show, but a bottle of Jamieson looks heaps more attractive after an hour jumping around.
What has been your biggest cooking disaster to date? Tell us the story.
I’m pretty sweet with cooking these days, vegan bubble boy necessity being the mother of tasty invention, but I remember once making some muffins and trying to be all healthy, swapping out vegetable oil for Flaxseed Oil, which is good for hippy pricks who don’t eat fish.
However, no one told me you’re not supposed to cook the stuff, and if you do, it starts to smell very much like the seafood which it nutritionally replaces. Needless to say, fish muffins were not the hit they were supposed to be.
If you were throwing a dinner party and could invite any musicians, living or dead, who would they be and why?
Well for starters I wouldn’t invite dead musicians, because they’d just take up space and smell all rotty. I’d stick with alive ones, who could talk and eat. Probably Jason, Tom and Gordy, because I like making them pretend to like my cooking. And maybe some other celebrity vegans like Weird Al Yankovic (to sing humorous parody songs for me), Moby (actually stuff him, I made him a vego meat pie once and I bet he didn’t eat it), and the Propagandhi dudes, coz we ate at their café once in Winnipeg and I want to return the favour.
Where’s your favorite music venue to eat at in your hometown?
Dumpling King. It’s not vego, but it’s vegetarian pan-friend dumplings are the best thing in the world, closely followed by their salt & pepper tofu. In fact I’m gonna get some as soon as I finish this.
Oh, and Revolution Foods. It’s a new vego place on Enmore Road, it’s all vegan and has amazing burgers, nachos, deserts and deli stuff like vegan meat and cheese. I can honestly say it is the best restaurant/café/deli in the world and I’m definitely not saying it because our manager Chris runs it and I’ve invested a significant amount of cash in it at all.
What music do you like to play when you’re cooking?
I generally listen to whatever band I’ve got to interview the next day, which can affect the cooking experience in a bunch of ways, otherwise something loud and grating like Future Of The Left or the aforementioned Propagandhi, because it can obscure me yelling at the broken wok if it slips off the bench, or if I burn myself on the rice cooker again.
What is one meal you could not live without?
I remember we were in Glasgow and were starving; tourbus travel around Britain had left us weak and cold. We heard of a place at the very end of Sauchiehall Street, which is a 3km stretch of road that takes quite a while to traverse in the freezing Scottish sleet and wearing stupid band clothes. When we finally got there we ate the best god damn vegan bangers and mash we’d ever had. Lashings of garlicky, creamy mash, fat as fuck snags that burst out hot flavoured air when you cut into them, and all the appropriate sauces, mustards and condiments you could wish for. There was caramelised onions, mushrooms in some sort of red wine sauce, probably even a few green vegetables in there too. Warms my balls just thinking about it all. Fuck it, I’m having that instead of the dumplings now. See ya.
Frenzal Rhomb 2013 Tour Dates
Fri 12th July Manning Bar Sydney with BLOODS & BATFOOT
Sat 13th July Brisbane Hotel Hobart with UNCLE GEEZER & SKUN KNEE
Fri 2nd August Corner Hotel Melbourne with CRISIS ALERT & HUG THERAPIST
Fri 9th August Carmens Miranda with NERDLINGER & IVAN DRAGO
Sat 10th August Mona Vale Hotel Mona Vale with FRANK RIZZO & COFFIN
