The Queensland punk band may have a strong look and larrikin vibe, but with Idles and Josh Homme on their side, don’t take them at face value
The Chats might have the least aspirational origin story in music: they began out messing around together in a friend’s “bong shed” (where their chosen genre descriptor, “shed-rock”, was born) in a surf town on Queensland’s east coast.
Influenced by 1977 punks including the Buzzcocks and Wire as much as they were by the Australian outfits Cosmic Psychos and Frenzal Rhomb, the trio of high school friends – Eamon Sandwith, Josh Price and Matt Boggis – started writing their own material: hasty, crude and sparse punk songs with lyrics that channelled what they knew. Being bored in a small town. Bristling against authority. Scraping together spare change for bus fares, cheap beer and pub dinners.
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