It’s taken a little while since recording for Goons of Doom’s debut album to see light of day; the original scary plan was for Goons of Doom to record The Story of Dead Barbie and Ghost in the space of a week and then release it the week after. Such a scary schedule didn’t work out quite that way, with guitarist Vaughn producing another offspring, and the band decamping to New Zealand for a whirlwind tour.

Now back in the bosom of their homeland, Goons of Doom have recently returned from being the main support for Pennywise around the nation, a band that they don’t necessarily have all that much in common with. Guitarist Killer Whale and the seductive Bang Bang Bunny Fang collapse into a fit of the giggles.

“It was pretty full on,” Bunny says. “Their fans are really dedicated to them and they came to see them, so it’s like a reunion for them, and everyone has been waiting for ten years and finally they’re back together to go on tour. It was a big buzz for Pennywise fans, so they didn’t really expect anyone else.”

“You haven’t lived until you’ve had 1000 people tell you to fuck off,” adds Killer drolly.

“After the first support band stopped the whole crowd started to yell ‘Pennywise, Pennywise’…and then we came on,” Bunny says, smiling. “The Sydney show was pretty heavy, but the Brisbane show was pretty good. It started off like that…but after three songs it stopped and it was like ‘okay, let’s give those guys a chance’. And by the end we had the moshpit going on.”

It’s started a war on the Goons of Doom internet forum, as it is festooned with Pennywise fanatics insisting that they should go forth and fornicate. Whilst they do have an amount of aggressive material on The Story of Dead Barbie and Ghost, they also have a range of more intimate material, like the wonderful “Ballerina”.

“Well, we didn’t play “Ballerina”, no,” Bunny assures.

“We only had half an hour every time,” Killer explains, “so we concentrated on the shorter songs.”

“Short and fast and loud,” she agrees, emphatically.

The writing process for the band’s debut record showcases their diversity – with each member writing songs and four singers, it’s a democratic process with each bringing what they have to the table and then it undergoing the Goons evaluation. “We just jam them out and start playing,” Killer explains.

“We don’t stick to any particular style, and just do our thing,” Bunny says.

Worrying about achieving a cohesive balance is not a concern for Goons of Doom. There’s a sense of naïveté in their involvement within the music industry, as they don’t worry about anything but the music – the business side of things completely passes them by. This is what makes them such an exciting proposition in this wonderful world of commerce; here’s a group who are so wrapped up in their own creations that nothing else matters. If only everyone was like that.

“We don’t think about the concept or what’s in fashion in the music scene,” Bunny agrees. “If we all feel really mellow then we’re going to have a really mellow set, and sometimes I come up with a really girly, girly song, and the boys want to punk it up a little bit. So it does mould into the Goons then, but it’s four songwriters so it’s all different styles, and that makes it the Goons.”

On occasion, all four songwriters do work together on the one track, playing around with the basis of the song before they record it. When they were making Story of Dead Barbie and Ghost it was an extremely chaotic experience, with four songs on the final product coming together in the studio. “We had little ideas but we hadn’t jammed on them before and it just happened in there,” Killer says of the recording experience.

“All of the older songs we already knew what we were doing, more or less,” Bunny extrapolates. “It was such an intense process in the studio – we were in there for two days where we didn’t know what we were doing, so we jammed and then after those two days we started recording.”

The initial plan was for Goons of Doom to stay in a caravan outside the studio, but as Killer puts it he ended up sleeping in the studio with his guitar in his hands. “I’d fall asleep on the couch and then get up again and start recording.”

Part of this was the excitement of recording for the first time – Bunny says that she was lying on her bed, thoughts running through her head, not wanting to sleep but just itching to get back into the studio. “It was amazing.”

Now that the experience of making their first record is behind them, Goons of Doom are naturally eager to return and make their second. “I can’t wait,” Bunny confirms. “Now that we’ve had this experience we can work with that.”

“At the same time,” Killer cautions, “we don’t want to repeat the experience but I can’t see an album ever taking us a month to do at all.”

With four different songwriters, there must come a sense of disorganised chaos within the Goons ranks when putting together an album. “Unorganised chaos,” Killer says drolly.

Goons of Doom’s The Story of Dead Barbie and Ghost is out now. Dates:
11 August – Club Chaos @ Country Hotel, Newcastle
12 August – Club 77, Sydney
17 August – The Pub, Bendigo
18 August – Peninsula Lounge, Moorooduc
19 August – TLC, Baywater North
20 August – East Brunswick Club, Melbourne
26 August – Mona Vale Hotel, Mona Vale