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LOVE ‘EM OR HATE ‘EM, THE CHATS HAVE CORNERED THE AUSSIE PUNK SCENE LIKE MOST BANDS WISH THEY COULD. BUT WHAT IS IT ABOUT THIS SUNNY COAST TRIO THAT MAKES IT ALL CLICK?

Few things in this world are more powerful than the collective unity of the internet when a funny video starts to spread. When they dropped the low-budget video for “Smoko” – a belting bastion of blue-collar Aussie humour – in July 2017, The Chats didn’t think they would end up selling out theatres around the country, touring the world with their heroes or dropping their debut album at #1 on the ARIA Charts (with critical praise to boot). But alas, social media buckled under the hilarity of Eamon Sandwith and co’s loose and lively tradie-punk anthem, and two years later – the spark kept alight by follow-up gems like “Pub Feed” and “Identity Theft” – The Chats are all but engraved into the annals of Australian music history. According to guitarist Josh ‘Pricey’ Price, the crash-hot debut album HighRiskBehaviour is just the beginning for these Sunny Coast scamps.

Let’s go way back to the start: how did you first discover the guitar?

My dad introduced me to the guitar when I was, like, four years old. My dad’s a complete guitar freak, so I grew up in a house where there’s always been good guitars everywhere – we’re pretty much just stepping over guitars. I used to play at the pub every Sunday with him with I was ten years old, just playing acoustic guitars together and learning the ropes. And then I went to school, and it wasn’t until grade 12 that I had to do a music assignment with a band. I’d always either played by myself or with another guitarist, but I actually had a really good time with the band. So then Matt and Eamon were like, “Oi, do you want to join us?” And yeah, the rest is history.

Did you kick things off with any ambitions to be where you are now as a band?

Absolutely not. No one even spoke about it, really. We just sort of hung out and shot the shit. We had another mate with us as well – he couldn’t really play that much, but he had this big shed at his parents’ place and he put us up. He was just like, “Yeah, I guess we can jam here,” so we used to jam there just about every night during school. And then when school finished, we just kept jamming. It wasn’t until we released “Smoko” that we were like, “Oh shit, we’re a real band!” That video blew up, and suddenly it was like, “We could actually do something with this”. We didn’t realise that we could actually be anything.

So after you went viral, did you have to learn how to be a “proper” band, or did you slip into the touring and stuff pretty easily?

We had to do a bit of learning. It was definitely a big transition, going from our mate’s shed to travelling everywhere and actually being up on stages in front of people. It was an easy decision to make, though. As soon as the opportunity came, we went, “Okay, we’re actually doing this. Let’s give it a go!”

What was it like catching the attention of people like Dave Grohl and Josh Homme? Are you a part of the rock ’n’ roll Illuminati now?

I will say, it was pretty special when Dave Grohl came up to me and called me Pricey, gave me a hug and said, “Y’know, I’m a big fan.” He watched our whole set from the side of the stage, and we had a beer with him after. That was surreal. And then Josh Homme as well, taking us under his wing on that Australian tour, showing us the ropes and how to drink tequila properly… Yeah, it’s been nuts.

How does a Chats song usually come to life?

Eamon’s a really good lyricist, so he’ll write a lot of things. Either he’ll bring in a song in or I’ll bring a song in, and we basically just smash it out. I’ll write a little riff or something, and we’ll just jam it out until it works, really. And when we record, we tend to just do it quickly – we’ve been doing this thing where we’ll do three takes of a song, pick the best one and call it there.

Are you tracking live?

Always. That way you don’t really get stuck on a lot of songs, and you don’t end up wasting a whole day on one part – you just slap it down and move on, and if you really want to do it again later down the track, you can do it at the end. We try to just keep the ball rolling and make sure we’re not stuck in a rut.

There’s a beauty in the simplicity of a Chats song. They’re not half-assed, but you’re also not f***ing around with any over-the-top rock ’n’ roll wankery.

Not overthinking things is definitely a big thing with us. Even if I’m laying down a guitar solo or a more complicated part, it’s the same sort of thing: I’ll give myself three takes and pick the best one. With the solo on “Identity Theft”, that was my first take. I recorded that and went, “Oh nah, that’s rubbish, let me do it again,” and I ended up doing it like six more times. I went, “F***, I’m never going to get it!” And then the guy who was recording with us went, “I think you got it on the first one,” so I listened back, and it was totally the first one. I actually had to re-learn my own solo because I couldn’t figure out how to do it again [ laughs].

How long would you say it took to piece the album together from start to finish?

It probably took us about ten months, because we were in and out and doing tours and stuff inbetween. We’d go [into the studio] for a day or two at a time here and there, and then we’d go on tour for a month. And you can hear that throughout the album, how our sound sort of changed a little bit.

What gear were you rocking?

I mostly used a Jazzmaster, and I had a Takamine GX-100 for some extra little bits. And we’d just go through the Fender Twin with a Soul Food pedal and a Hotcake. I don’t really use that many pedals; you can actually hear that the guitar tone gets a little bit better throughout the album, and that’s just because I bought the Soul Food halfway through recording.

Why is the Jazzmaster your go-to guitar?

I don’t know – it’s weird, because I’ve got two of them, right, and one of them doesn’t sound as good as the other one. Maybe it’s because of the way it’s wired or something, but it just sounds really fat… But not fat at all, if you know what I mean? It sounds like a good rhythm guitar, and then it just unleashes on the Hotcake.