SHADY NASTY are a brooding punk band from Sydney that skirt the boundaries of the genre – think Show Me The Body, meets King Krule, meets Iceage, and you’re on the right sort of track. They just released their new EP Bad Posture through Royal Mountain Records and Inertia Music, and today we are thrilled to give you its full stream with lyrics below.
Sydney trio Shady Nasty take an unconventional approach to the ever-transforming landscape of their city:
“We feel disconnected within our music scene. We sound different to every band here, but at the same time, we write about our life and our experiences, so in a way it is Sydney-based,” muses Kevin Stathis, vocalist and guitarist. “We live in a globalized world, we can see what’s going on in the United States and the UK, but we view it through a different lens,” continues drummer Luca Watson. “We want to reinvent it. There’s a legacy of Australian rock bands who thrive on the local, idiosyncratic reference stuff, but I am not interested in extending that legacy. I want to do something different.”
With backgrounds in jazz and classical music, Shady Nasty subvert expectations. Inspired by the likes of Show Me The Body, King Krule, Iceage, Low Life and Mount Kimbie, the Sydney trio play an energetic and weirdo breed of punk that skirts the boundaries of the genre, driving at an intersection of hardcore, hip hop and post-punk. Their unconventional approach resulted in signing with Royal Mountain Records and Inertia Music for their forthcoming EP, Bad Posture, which is out now. They have toured Australia multiple times, played at Brisbane’s BIGSOUND Festival, had regular radio airplay on Australia’s renowned Triple J and will be performing at more shows this year. The band will be playing at both SXSW and New Colossus Festival in support of the release:
March 11th – New Colossus Festival – New York, NY
March 16th – SXSW – Austin, TX
Modding cars. Chinese heritage. Making ends meet. Bad Posture explores these themes with a snarling, swaggering confidence, tackling the expectations placed on them by immigrant parents, revelling in the liberation of rebellion, all while facing mental health and addiction head on whilst railing against a city slowly being crushed by big business.
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Clayton Segelov at The Brain Studios.
On “Get Buff“, Stathis addresses his heritage with a swaggering, confident spoken-word delivery, tackling the expectations and pressures placed upon him by his parents, even sampling genuine voice recordings of his mother lecturing him about his insistence on modding cars – a constant tension in their relationship that led to Stathis being kicked out of his family home. “Jewellery” is an ode to Stathis’ gold Volvo 240 which lay at the core of his familial strains. It explores the liberation and ecstasy he finds in car modification and drifting.
“AA” sees Watson speak to his declining mental health after a painful lung operation. It depicts his subsequent obsession with gaming and disconnect from reality as his city crumbles under the weight of big business. It is Shady Nasty at their most brutal and cataclysmic. The EP’s closing track “77SUNK” deals with growth and adversity. The opening lyric “Bad posture” refers to Stathis’ hunched back of which he is constantly reminded of by his relatives who tell him to ‘straighten up’. This directive offers a glimpse of the rigid notions of how one should live that his immigrant family have tried to impress upon him. Importantly, Shady Nasty presents a new path that many of Stathis’ friends and family would not be able to understand.
Jewellery:
Lyrics:
Fists up, wearing your Nikes, chin up
Fighter, but you aren’t gonna fight me
Pull up, see you in my driveway
No friends, I drive like you like me
Chin up chin up chin up
I write your eulogy
240 no number plates how I get registry
Embossed in my memory
Car keys another accessory
Hanging off the chain of my belt
So they stay true to me
No friends, I drive like you like me
Looks like a hearse, but not enough room for my eulogy
Never wore gold, 240 act as my jewellery
Looks like it hurts, no time for commuters, fuck your life fuck your uber
Funeral, the way that you are they don’t sell insurance
In my rear view mirror why’s your number plate gone
Undercover uppercutter back on the ropes you’re gutter gaunt
Looks like it hurts in your ear
Gold 240 in your ear
And I’m rough as the dog on the next street, puncture my tyres
Sinking its teeth like its raw meat, ask why I took out the back seats, fuck it, in debt for my outlet, forgive
And forget, that’s what I bet, I’m rolling through streets like a sore in your neck!
I split the tar, smoke out the window of my car
Fists up, chin up, pull up, no friends
Chin up chin up chin up
I write your eulogy
240 no number plates how i get registry
Embossed in my memory
Car keys another accessory
Hanging off the chain of my belt
So they stay true to me
No friends, I drive like you like me
Get Buff:
Lyrics:
“Kevin, how much time you think you have to waste? Are you happy with yourself?
Focus and concentrate on the thing that’s important to you in your life”
Young gun, wasting all that time again
Your pens a mess you wrecked a desk, off the rails angry like a freight train
Tick tok, put a list in my dock
Fuck off
Chock full with the shit I gotta do,
Ronald feeding nuggets through the cracks of my guts, I made no fuss
Climbing stairs I’m not puffed
You don’t stand on the bus
Got some rice on my cuffs,
Why you hyper at 3am?
Tough love, you’re not working hard enough
Get Buff
Seen the dust, I can feel my whole body buck
I can feel my whole body buck.
Supermarket sniper wear designer,
Rack some bread give me fibre
I’ll hack ‘til I’m dead
(I’ll hack ‘til I’m dead)
She a fighter, she a grinder
But I think she’d shrivel into white hairs if she seen what I did
(What I did)
Crumpled up along the way
(Crumpled up along the way)
Harder than a Chinese riddle
(Harder than a Chinese riddle)
Still chipping me down like a chisel
(Crumpled up along the way/chipping me down like a chisel)
Over the crest, under the sea,
(Under the sea)
Still feel it all pulling me
Tough love, you’re not working hard enough
Get Buff
Seen the dust, I can feel my whole body buck
I can feel my whole body buck
”别再浪费时间了，你的青春有几年啊？这时间都浪费了。I told you I don’t like this car and I don’t want
you to buy it.”
AA:
The latest single is called “AA.” Much of Bad Posture is built on roiling music that catalogs struggles with mental health and addiction, and apparently “AA” hones in on those topics through a specific, unsettling experience. “‘AA’ sees a band member speak to his declining mental health after a painful lung operation,” the band explained in a press release. “Sinking untold hours into FPS and RPG video games during his recovery, his grip on reality begins to slip.”
You can hear every bit of that experience and breakdown in the structure of “AA.” At first, the song lurches ahead on thudding bass notes, unnervingly pushing itself forward into something foreboding. From there, tension ratchets up incrementally until the whole thing erupts into yells and sheets of distorted guitar. – Stereogum
Lyrics:
Ablutions I’m a blank slate
Out by myself and they say
That I stare at the shapes of the high-rise
Next to industrial cranes
Check over my shoulder in vain
Another week until I’m paid
And I’m not to blame but maybe it’s best
When I live with the shame
Go to church once or twice
Depends on when I roll dice
Titanium plates on my right
The brakes on my bike
Under the pump from where I grip tight
Wear a cap out of sight
Commit to my system I fight or die
I fight or die
I fight or die
Late afternoon changes tones
Company cars on the road
Another shop falls to government tolls
And I’m not one to moan but I think that
This city might owe me a loan
Yes
Atonement, Ablutions, Whatever It Takes
I can sin again and still see better days
Atonement, Ablutions, Whatever It Takes
I can sin again and still see better days
Frothing at the lips
Debt to be paid
Scars from the whips that
Christen my name
Atonement, Ablutions, Whatever It Takes
I can sin again and still see better days
Atonement, Ablutions, Whatever It Takes
I can sin again and still see better days
Better days
And I’m not to blame, but maybe it’s best
When I live with my shame
Better days
And I’m not to blame, but maybe it’s best
When I live with my Shame
Shame
77SUNK:
Lyrics:
Bad posture
Cop it on the chin
Bad posture
Forget what my friends look like
Boy don’t hold me back, I’m levelling
These bones they thicker than tarmac too much calcium
They drop like sacks, they trembling
Strong back with the wide traps, they deafening
Sometimes I’m a fucker, get head then I stutter
Got pride so deep in won’t ever falter
Talk shit like the jeep mum bought ya
I rip it right off, aight
Throw down cos I’m sick of throwing up
I seen my life in miles that’s a lot
Wake up and go to work and smile a lot
Kill the parking lot
Bad posture
Cop it on the chin
Bad posture
Forget what my friends look like
Settling, just a reminder to myself
Fuck the pain that I thought I always felt
Pull the belt tight, run up on a mouth like
Troy St. life learnt from the best aight
I’m out for the shit that I do
Hit by the bend that I threw
Elbow like a pistol I whip that
Bust a hole in ya beamer you won’t forget that
Boy you made a mistake
Boy you made a mistake
Run up the floor on a wake,
Commodore with the V8, Tank
Boy you made a mistake
Boy you made a mistake
Boy you made a mistake
Aye, aye, aye
SHADY NASTY tour:
February 21st – Vinnies Dive – Gold Coast, AU
February 22nd – The Northern – Byron Bay, AU
February 27th – The Cambridge – Newcastle, AU
February 28th – The Lansdowne – Sydney, AU
February 29th – Farmer & The Owl Festival – Wollongong, AU
March 5th – Old Bar – Melbourne, AU
March 6th – Cactus Bar – Albury, AU
March 7th – Transit Bar – Canberra, AU
March 11th – New Colossus – Club Lola (9:15pm) – New York, NY
March 13th – New Colossus – Pianos (3:45pm) – New York, NY
March 13th – New Colossus – The Delancey (8:15pm) – New York, NY
March 15th – New Colossus – Bowery Electric Map Room (1:30pm) – New York, NY
March 19th – SXSW – AdHoc Showcase – Cheer Up Charlie’s (time TBA) – Austin, TX
March 19th – SXSW – Sounds Australia Showcase (6:00pm) – Austin, TX
March 20th – SXSW – Secret Sounds Showcase – Lucille (11:45pm) – Austin, TX
April 10th – Bad Friday Weekender – Railway Parade, Marrickville – Sydney, AU
Other bands recommended by SHADY NASTY:
