From their early days in Perth to their recent shift to Sydney, Tucker B’s have always been a band that follows its whims wherever they might lead. DOUG WALLEN talks to founding member Andrew Houston about their incessant genre-bending, their ludicrous album titles and the difficulties of finding new fans 15 years on.

On its treacherous surface, the Tucker B’s’ fifth album Nightmares in the Key of (((((WOW))))) is a lot like the weirdly named albums that preceded it: Pip Karna Eh, Arm A Drunk, Bish Bosh II: The Bosh Bosh and Chubby. It’s erratic nearly to the point of hostility, yet glued in place by the enduring quartet’s genre-blind chops and seamless mingling of sincerity and irony. But unlike past albums, which were a year or sometimes longer in the making, Nightmares was dreamed up in a mere two weeks.

Rather than work in the comfort of a home studio, the Tucker B’s backed themselves against a wall in a “real” studio – Big Jesus Burger in Sydney – to see what would happen. “We didn’t have the luxury of our own little place that we could take forever in,” says bassist Andrew Houston, who formed the band 15 years ago in Perth with singer-guitarist Matt Rudas.

Now based in Perth again while the rest of the band lives in Sydney, Rudas was exchanging musical ideas for Nightmares with Houston by long distance. The band gave themselves one week to write the album and another to record it. “We were running on panic and adrenaline, which was a heap of fun and really different for us,” explains Houston. “We were quite ready to not put anything out [if] it didn’t work, but it did and we’re really proud of how it came out.”

So fresh were the new songs, in fact, that the Tucker’s jettisoned several they had previously written. The result is an ambitious album that stands up well against such fearlessly diverse indie rock classics as Pavement’s Wowee Zowee and Ween’s The Mollusk, which happen to be two of Houston’s favoutites.

Rudas and Houston met while attending high school in Perth, bonding over trips to buy records and watching local bands like Bluetile Lounge and Mustang. By the time they decided to form a band, the pair were in their first year of university and, as Houston puts it, “had lots of free time”. Armed with a four-track and instruments, they taught themselves how to play and record, eventually convincing a friend to get behind the kit.

“I’ve met a lot of people that had seen us play before they’ve met us and had the impression that we were absolute maniac psychopaths. We’re actually sweet, lovely guys.”

“Perth was pretty great at that time,” Houston recalls. “There were lots of folks just like us, and the music was sort of lo-fi and sloppy, so there weren’t any barriers to getting a show.” The band’s first incarnation was called the Tucker B Wilson Explosion (Tucker B Wilson being the pair’s nickname for friends who acted like idiots). But venues never seemed to get that name right on flyers, and since fans had already begun calling them Tucker B’s, the name was quickly shortened.

For the past decade and a half, Rudas and Houston have remained at the band’s core. Darren Nuttall joined in 2000 on vibraphone, but that instrument proved difficult to lug around and mic properly, so he switched to second guitar. Meanwhile, there was a revolving cast of drummers until the band landed Matt Blackman, formerly of Purplene and now of Charge Group and Palace of Fire. Luckily, Blackman doesn’t mind juggling bands and is an old friend of the Tucker B’s from back when Purplene first visited Perth on tour. “I think he’s a keeper,” says Houston, cheekily adding that Purplene were “sort of carbon copies” of the Tucker B’s, only from Sydney instead of Perth.

As for the Tucker B’s’ relocation to Sydney a few years ago, the band wanted to try living and playing in a different environment. They even considered moving to the States, where they enjoy a reasonable following (San Francisco label Grimsey released the 2004 EP 29 Serious Girlfriends and they recorded a batch of songs live at Seattle’s beloved Crocodile Café that same year). Houston says that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to win over new fans in Australia, especially considering they’ve been around for 15 years.

“We had the sense then and still have it that there’s not too many more people in Australia who are going to get our music and fall in love with us,” Houston says. “We’re sort of getting close to capacity. I’d like to be wrong but I don’t know.”

Radio support hasn’t eluded them, however. ‘Bullets’ and ‘The Turning’ from their third album Chubby received a surprising amount of airplay on triple j, thanks in part to their relationship with Melbourne label Remote Control. However, casual listeners would often be perplexed by the rest of the band’s material, which was a far cry from the songs aired on triple j.

“We’re an odd band for [triple j] to get their heads around,” Houston admits. “It’s not immediately apparent why they should be playing us, which is understandable. When they were playing [singles] off the last record [Chubby], we’d literally have people coming to shows because [of that]. You’d speak to them after and it was not what they were expecting. It’s almost like false advertising.”

Despite a spot opening for Wolfmother’s 2006 national tour – “I don’t think we were their management’s first choice,” Houston jokes – the Tucker B’s have always been a band that follows its whims wherever they might lead. Nightmares is all over the shop – from heavy psych jams and lovely balladry to freaky punk and jittery folk. The constant swinging between extremes might scare off some listeners, but others rightly admire the band’s skillful balance between the accessible and the experimental.

“The music we listen to is exactly like that as well,” explains Houston. “Each of our record collections is split between really pretty pop and country music and really extreme stuff. That’s always been central to the band, that dynamic. We’ve never wanted to be just a heavy band or just a pop band. [We] try and have everything we like doing in there. Sometimes we just resign ourselves to the fact that a song should just be pretty, but it takes a bit of work to get there.”

A perfect example is ‘Wow (Bear’s Not A Man)’ off Nightmares, which opens with a slow, spine-tingling vocal sample that sounds like it’s been lifted from a snuff film. It later takes several detours before an instrumental climax that’s equal parts Trail of Dead and Explosions in the Sky. “That [the sample] is just us messing around,” says Houston. “We used to do that a lot on our earlier records. They’d be filled with random stuff and people would go, ‘Where do you get all those voices from?’, and I’d go, ‘It’s actually just us. We’re idiots.’”

As for the band’s equally cryptic album titles, he says they come primarily from “babble” between bandmates. “When we’re together, the main goal is to make each other giggle at song titles and lyrics. In particular, we have a lot of fun with album titles. It’s a part of the record that we all cherish. I can’t remember who came up with Nightmares’ title. It might have been Matt Rudas. But from the moment it was said, it was like, ‘Yep, that’s it.’”

Most of the lyrics on Nightmares dwell on the idea of manhood, albeit with a sardonic edge. “We have a lot of fun trying to write about relationships,” says Houston. “And most of that revolves around us being dumb guys in relationships and just trying to get a funny edge on that. There’s definitely something about what it is to be a 30-something still trying to be a child in there.”

But dismiss the Tucker B’s as a joke band at your own peril, says Houston. “We try to explain ourselves as best we can. People who are overly serious about whether somebody can make a slight in a song or try to be funny within a song, I think they’re missing out on a lot of great moments in music. Our favorite artists like Will Oldham or Bill Callahan, we’re constantly chuckling about how funny the lyrics are. We love humour and I guess irony, to some degree, in music. It’s always a little disappointing if people don’t get it, but I don’t know what you can really do about it.”

Tucker B’s live are an even more confusing proposition, Houston admits. “The screaming and jarring bits on the records really come to the fore. We quite often wear costumes. But we have a lot of fun. We try to be as entertaining as we can. I’ve met a lot of people that had seen us play before they’ve met us and had the impression that we were absolute maniac psychopaths. We’re actually sweet, lovely guys.”

The Tucker B’s are about to embark on a whistle stop national tour. And while you wouldn’t blame them for being jaded after such a lengthy spell in the industry, Houston says they couldn’t be happier with where they are – and where they’re headed.

“It’s never a drag at all,” he says. “We love every part of it, and I think it’s something we’ll keep on doing for a long, long time yet.”

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TUCKER B’S LAUNCH DATES

Friday, June 12
Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, NSW
w/Umpire + Richard in Your Mind + SPOD

Saturday, June 13
The Tote, Melbourne, VIC
w/St Helens + Umpire + Miniature Submarines

Saturday, June 20
The Amplifier, Perth, WA
w/Umpire + Fall Electric + Apricot Rail + SPOD