BATTLESNAKE: Taking the piss, seriously (2023)

By IAN JESSUP

BATTLESNAKE, the hard rockers from Sydney’s Northern Beaches, are full of surprises.
A metal band from the beaches is the first surprising thing about this very likeable seven-piece outfit.
In the 70s and 80s it was Midnight Oil carving their career in the sweaty beer barns from Manly to Mona Vale. These days it’s the much tamer sounds of Lime Cordiale, Eagle Eye Jones and Rosa Maria playing in far more gentrified pubs and bars.
Then there’s Battlesnake, the misfits flying the flag (literally in the case of keytar player Billy) for metal and hard rock.
And oh boy are they on a roll – supporting no less than KISS last August and about to tour here with the Smashing Pumpkins.
I first came across them supporting RACKETT at Waywards in Newtown in late 2018.
RACKETT singer Bec Callander said: “They dress like Borat and sound like Black Sabbath, but way better, on that drug Bradley Cooper was on in that film Limitless.
Borat? Another surprise.
The guys go through a last minute sound check, pop off to the loos, then leap onto the stage dressed just in undies or a pair of shorts.
Bassist Elliott Hitchcock explains: “The budgie smugglers (provided generously by our friends at Keel Swimwear which is literally Olympic-grade stuff) were born from one of their reps approaching us at a gig and working with us on a design over a few weeks.
“It was one of those things where someone comes up to you at a gig and says, ‘I can do this for you, I can do that for you.’ We thought ‘Yeah, right’. But within a matter of weeks we had our hands on some custom white swimmers with our logo and thunderbolts on them! In short, it’s too hot on stage to be fully clothed!”
“If people haven’t seen us play before it usually takes a few songs for them to transition from ‘WTF is this?’ to being a fan but generally speaking people tend to love it. I reckon it touches on that innately Australian trait of not taking yourself too seriously which people tend to appreciate.”
However, their ‘costumes’ didn’t please HM reviewer Dave Kingdom who said of Battlesnake at the KISS gig: “Musically, they were not bad but I was put off by the fact that they played in their underwear and not much else.”
Lighten up, Dave!
Besides the undies, you’ll often see Battlesnake members dressing up all medieval, playing up to what looks like a D and D crowd.
“I honestly have no idea how the chainmail came to be but we are going through a bit of a costume reinvention as we speak,” said Elliott
“All of our costumes in the past have come to be by happenstance but this time around it’s quite intentional and focused while still being a bit tongue in cheek.”
Battlesnake offer chugging riffs, soaring harmonies, virtuosic soloing and wailing vocals telling tales of wizards, dragons and kings of old… forged deep in the fiery pits of the underworld.
My take is that they are the 21st century version of Spinal Tap: taking the piss most of the time, but pretty bloody good musos all the same. And making fun a priority.
Fortunately, and as already flagged above, Elliott agrees.
It’s a refreshing attitude in a metal scene where so many (the vast majority men, of course) take themselves so seriously.
“I guess you could call it that, said Elliott.
“We take our actual playing quite seriously in terms of how tight we need to be and how cohesive the whole show is but other than that I suppose it is a bit of a piss take. We just want to have fun.
“We love the theatre of it all; and there is theatre in seriousness as well as in playfulness. It’s a balancing act but whichever way you cut it we do have our tongues firmly planted in our cheeks.”
Ben (guitar) and Sam (vocals) are brothers and the rest are connected either by growing up on the Northern Beaches, through university or the music scene in Sydney. The band is something they all fantasised about creating for a very long time, and the stars aligned in 2018.
One guy’s a postie, one a sound engineer, one a labourer, one an air con technician (I bet he has been busy this summer!), one a TV producer and two are professional musicians. [Singer Sam is also in Thunder Fox, a band about as diametrically opposed to Battlesnake as is possible.]
The hard rock / metal genre seemed the obvious route but their combined individual influences are so varied.
“Rock, metal, jazz, world music, EDM, rap, literally all of it,” said Elliott.
“Rock and metal are the obvious ones but particularly on the new record we’ve branched out a bit into those other genres. There’s nothing quite like the sound of really loud guitars though.”
All three of them. Yes, three guitars. I’ve seen bands with three guitars and for most of them that was two too many. Not Battlesnake. You can hear each guy clearly, like the different string sections of an orchestra.
Whether it’s two elaborate solos at the same time plus one on rhythm, or just three blokes churning out separate riffs. They make it work, and you often need multiple listens to a song to appreciate the contribution each guitarist makes.
For the first few years they opened with Road Warrior, a six-minute mash-up of multiple hard rock genres. It’s still my favourite song of theirs, and the supersonic keytar at the end elevates the driving beat to a symphonic high. Your head’s banging, your feet tapping.
It’s a bit of Sabbath, a bit of Purple, a bit of KISS. Even, as one review posted – Monty Python meets The Darkness.
You’re caught up in it; and you’re surprised by just how quickly.
The band name is a surprise too, as is the word Elliott uses to describe it, because it’s NOT the name of the mobile phone game: “It’s actually a mondegreen (a word or phrase mistakenly heard) of King Gizz’s ‘Rattlesnake’. [Perhaps the two most famous mondegreens in music are “Alex the Seal” or “Excuse me, while I kiss this guy”.]
“We just misheard it and thought that would make a great band name!”
The guys do awesome cover versions of Let There Be Rock (AC/DC) and Highway Star (Deep Purple). True to the originals but with the Battlesnake touch. Are they now feeling confident enough in their body of work to no longer rely on the big cover song to make an impression?
Yes, but… “I reckon we’ll always incorporate a cover or two into our set! The audience always loves it and it’s really educational for us to learn the songwriting of some of our favourite bands.”
With song titles such as “The Rotten Priest”, “The Nightmare King” (already more than one million streams on Spotify), and “I Am The Vomit”, you can see how Battlesnake’s cheeky, cheesy approach shows no sign of letting up.
It’s also getting them noticed at a serious level: they contributed a song to the Warhammer video game, got featured in the Ozzy Man Reviews video spoof of Game of Thrones season eight episode three – The Long Night!, then last year had the gig of a lifetime – supporting KISS at the 18,000-capacity Qudos Arena in Sydney.
When I saw their Facebook post announcing it, I thought “How the **** did they pull that off!?”
“Far out, what a show and most definitely a career highlight for all of us!” recalled Elliott.
“That was all thanks to our booking agency who has a good relationship with One World Entertainment (the promoter). They took a punt on us and seemed to really like it… more on that below. I don’t think the fans were expecting what they saw to be honest, they looked a bit shellshocked for the first few songs (which we kinda love) but we won them all overeventually!”
So, what’s on the horizon for Battlesnake?
“One World seemed to enjoy the show with KISS so much that they’ve put us on The World Is A Vampire Australian tour with The Smashing Pumpkins!” said Elliott.
“So crazy. The Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction, Amyl and The Sniffers, Redhook, wrestling and… Battlesnake. So that’s happening in April and then we’re releasing our album!”
In a world where everything is so fragmented and there’s no longer a TV show like Countdown to give you national publicity, getting any kind of musical traction is almost impossible.
That Battlesnake have done so is just another wonderful surprise.

Battlesnake links:
Album: https://www.battlesnake.com.au/products/battlesnake-album-vinyl-red
Facebook: Battlesnake | Facebook
Triple J Unearthed: Battlesnake | triple j Unearthed (abc.net.au)
Bandcamp: Merch | Battlesnake (bandcamp.com)
Spotify: Spotify – Battlesnake
YouTube: plenty of clips!
Battlesnake are:
Ben Frank – Guitar
Billy O’Key – Keytar and flag bearer
Daniel Willington – Guitar
Elliott Hitchcock – Bass
Nick Zammit – Drums
Paul Mason – Guitar
Sam Frank – Vocals