Red Rockets of Borneo Jean Phillipe was online to talk about the new release. But first I wanted the info on the name. It had to be interesting and it was.
‘Blame James Seros our guitarist. He was watching a documentary on Proboscus monkeys of Borneo. he noticed that their penises looked like red rockets. Fascinated by this fact, he wanted a band with that name. It’s as simple as it gets!’
So this guy wasn’t interested in their cute faces, or their “cutesy” human-like ways. He focuses down south?
‘It’s all sweet.’
They recently released their debut album described in the music press as “Adrenalin riddled mirth.”
Mirth? What’s mirthy about the album?
‘I’m stuck on that. I didn’t write it.’
It’s not ’mirth’?
‘I think the whole idea of this band was to have fun. We just wanted to make some music that made us get up and have some fun.”
What are some of the comedic elements of some of the songs?
‘F#@k Shit Up’ was written during a trip to Meredith a couple of years ago, where we saw kids absolutely side-trolleyed by 10am in the morning. It’s looking back at being a teenager and how you couldn’t give a f#@k about anything.’
‘Ghengoid’ is a song about our name for someone that really pisses you off at the end of the day. ’Ghengoid’ is our name for a wanker. We wrote about Ghengoids!
Serious songs deal with how Jean feels about honesty. About how so many people he has met have not been honest with themselves or others around them. It’s a social commentary. A lot of the lyrics are about being “straight up” with your fellow man.’
At thirty-five years of age Jean admits that a lot of the first album was about getting “the angst out.”
Interestingly enough this is Jean’s second band. He only got into bands when he was thirty. He and mate James Ferros (aka Fez) were looking to make music for fun. Energetic music for skaters and surfers!’
So what has been the most fun about being in the band?
‘Working together as a team, we recorded our album in two days, then just used two sessions to mix it. We pretty much wrote the album in two weeks. It was a lot of fun. The whole nature of how it fell into place. Getting our bassist Kat in the band also made a big difference. It was nice to have a girl in the band. It’s been a very quick organic process. We’re already writing for our second album!’
The Red Rockets of Borneo are next playing live at The Espy in Melbourne on November 10.