Private Function
Australia’s premier pub-punk kingpins Private Function have just released their second full length, Whose Line Is It Anyway? via Damaged / Caroline Australia – and now, they’re bringing the album to the live circuit.
Private Function make music for everyone – from skate punks to truckers, rock-dogs to glamour girls, bar flies and beyond. Over their three-year career, the band has amassed legions of devoted fans, hooked on their livewire intensity, belter songs, explosive live shows, outrageous stage presence and outlandish comedic flair. Yet all jokes aside, Private Function are a band that should be taken very seriously.
Whose Line Is It Anyway? was always destined to be a success in the Australian market. Private Function had already gained attention amongst punk-rock circles after signing a record deal with Australia’s formidable punk outfit Clowns’ new label Damaged, and coupled with Private Function’s status as one of the country’s most chaotic and unpredictable live acts, news of a second album less than 12 months after the release of their widely celebrated debut LP St Anger was causing serious buzz long before it hit the shelves.
Private Function are notorious shit-stirrers, the type of band who persistently make a joke out of music culture as a whole, playing up all of rock’n’roll’s mythologies, clichés, and tropes we all know so well. And their fans are 100% there for it. So when Private Function kicked off the campaign for Whose Line Is It Anyway?, their fans were waiting with anticipation to see what tricks the band would pull out for the new release. They weren’t disappointed. Ahead of the release of Whose Line Is It Anyway? the band put a limited edition ‘mystery vinyl’ on sale, which featured nothing more than a puzzling question mark and a higher price tag. The records sold out in 15 minutes. The vinyl, the band would later reveal, contained bags of an eyebrow-raising white powder sandwiched inside the record – the first of its kind in Australia, which just added more buzz to the band’s impending record release.
The album singles, ‘I Don’t Wanna Make Out With You’, the border uniting anthem, ‘Albury Wodonga’, and the heavy-hitter ‘Sleep Paralysis’ proved to fans and beyond Private Function’s ability to write timeless, hook-laden, pub-punk tunes, while never losing the tumultuous looseness and tongue-in-cheek attitude the band are famous for.
You can catch Private Function performing at this year’s Meadow music festival in Victoria. If you thought the initial Meadow lineup looked good, these recent line-up additions should really excite you: Private Function, Prequel, King Stingray, C.Frim, Kult Kyss, Mindy Meng Wang 王萌 x Tim Shiel, The Seven Ups, Bones and Jones, ctrl + me, Matt Bourke and the Delusional Drunks and Birdsnake, plus DJs: Dr. Condiments, Joey Lightbulb, Annaliese Redlich, Emerald and Ramdaddy. These acts will join an already stacked lineup of King Gizz, Angie McMahon, HTRK, Surprise Chef and a whole heap more for three days and two nights of music, camping and real-life hangs at the iconic Bambra Bowl this April.
Hear Joe Hansen of Private Function join Jackson & Brad recently on The Music Weekly:
