Two decades after ALIEN ANT FARM topped the charts worldwide with their singles Movies and Smooth Criminal (#3 and #1 on Australian Charts, respectively), you still cannot visit a rock club or turn on rock radio without hearing those songs blasted; evoking joyful memories of a better time when rock music ruled the world and auto-tuned garbage was far off in the distant future.
As great as chart success may be, however, Alien Ant Farm’s enduring legacy derives from the seemingly endless catalogue of incredibly crafted and equally worthy alt metal anthems such as Yellow Pages, Homage, Godlike, Glow, Forgive & Forget, Last dAntz, etc. And, of course, the energy, ferocity and dedication with which they deliver those songs in a live setting.
2025 will see Alien Ant farm make their very long awaited return to Australia for a co-headline tour with the equally iconic CKY, fresh off of their successful North American and European “CKY 25 Years” celebration touring. Terry Corso talks to Hi Fi Way about the tour.
It feels like it’s been a long time between drinks. You must be really looking forward to returning to Australia early in 2025?
Yeah, it’s been so long, I don’t even know what to say. I got to visit Australia at a young age because my uncle was in the Navy. We came down for the Bicentennial, for the Royal Naval Review. I think I was fifteen or sixteen. I had a great time experiencing Australia at a young age. Then, we came down as a band for the Big Day Out tour, which was amazing. But we haven’t been back since… what was that, 2002 I think? So yeah, it’s been quite some time.
After a while, do the fans get quite vocal and the noise starts to build about touring their city on social media?
Oh, absolutely. Whether it’s “Come to Boston,” “Come to Australia,” or “Come to Brazil,” everyone’s trying to get you to go where you really want to go, but it’s not always on the cards or in the scheme of things. We always try to get there as soon as we can, but sometimes it turns into years, even decades unfortunately.
Big Day Out will go down in Australian music history as one of the best festivals to experience. Do you have a lot of memories from the 2002 Big Day Out?
Oh yeah, for sure. Whether you already know each other or not, you’re stuck with the same bands for five or six dates, or more if you count New Zealand. It gets has this summer camp vibe. It is like being at camp with your mates, seeing each other, hanging out on your days off, doing tourist stuff together. I made more than a handful of lifelong friends during that tour. Running around with guys from Drowning Pool and Jurassic 5. All these different genres and everyone coming together reminded me of those old Motown tours where everyone knew each other, travelled on the same bus, and hung out. It was like camp, fun.
What other things have you missed about not being able to tour in Australia?
Definitely a lot of my friends that live over there. Friends who I have known before I was there or over the years since I have been there since particularly from bands I enjoy in the Australian scene that I have made over the years where we seem to only communicate online. It will be cool to go and hang out with them finally. Plus, it’s been a while since the band has been over there, so it’ll be awesome to see all the faces again.
Touring with CKY, makes for an awesome co-headline bill. Do you know those guys well? Have you toured with them before?
Not really, no. We don’t know them that well. I think putting records out at similar times we probably played out share of festivals together maybe hanging out once or twice. We’re going to Europe and the UK with them in late October and November, so by the time we hit Australia, we’ll probably be thick as thieves.
So is it a coin flip or an arm wrestle to decide who goes on first and who closes?
We decided in the beginning that we would go on second, and they would go on first. Sometimes on tours that is the case where you get to flip-flop, but in this case, there was no pre-determined who does better than who or anything like that. It was put out there that way and we said yes. It will be locked as far as line up every night but it is co-headline as far as Australia is concerned and the UK.
Are you planning to feature a lot of new songs from Mantras?
Yeah, definitely. We’re currently playing about four new songs in our set here in the U.S., and we are hoping to have a couple more down by the time we get to Australia. It’s tough the new record which we are excited about, but since we haven’t been there in so long, we have to be prepared for people wanting to hear our songs they grew up on, or played Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 to those Anthology songs and songs from the earlier days. It’s always a bit of negotiation between the new stuff and the old favourites, it’s hard and fun at the same time.
Well, the easy solution is we’ll happily have play for three or four hours!
Oh my gosh, we’d need a nap somewhere in there!
Have you been stoked with how Mantras has been received?
Absolutely. We’re super proud of it. The record itself means a lot to us, and it’s cool that our core fans seem to feel the same. In a weird way I can feel that they find it just as important. We’ve picked up a lot of new fans with this record too. It’s a great step for an legacy band like ourselves. It shows we’re not confined to our legacy. We put a new record out and our social media numbers jumped incredibly, the online chatter has been positive, it has been successful enough for and we’re really happy. If the core fans are stoked, the rest is gravy for me. I’m happy to take care of the people that have taken care of us for years.
That’s probably the key to longevity, keeping things fresh and powering on with new material, like you’ve done with Mantras, instead of just relying on past hits.
Yeah, for sure. We’ve had some big gaps, gone on hiatus, broken up, or shifted members a few times. It happens! Some of our peers have been more consistent, while we’ve been a bit blotchy so to speak. That being said, I think there’s pros and cons for both. You don’t want to burn people out, and sometimes there is an excitement being out of sight for a while. I think it worked to our advantage, our fans were super hungry for something, and we threw it out there at the right time.
Did you ever think when you recorded Smooth Criminal that it would still be so popular today, with crowds going crazy for it?
No, we didn’t think that at all. I don’t know anybody that can predict anything like that. I feel like they’d just be saying it for the interview. We used to play a different cover song every time we played and try and figure something else out. We’ve done all kinds of wacky songs and theme songs or whatever, just having fun with it. Smooth Criminal came around exactly like that. One day we joked about it, how cool it would be to try it and then we played a show where we did the riff and people reacted. So, we went and learned it and it seemed to rise to the top from those original notions of just trying to be funny and play different songs. It actually became a little bit of a mainstay because people just dug it and then we recorded it on our independent record. The label was kind of insistent on us putting it on Anthology and we were just young and happy to be there. We didn’t think anything like, oh, it’s a hit or it’s not a hit. A lot of bands that we were into had covers at the end of their record and it wasn’t a big deal. It was just them having fun, putting their influences out there, which is what we thought we were doing and we didn’t really have any preconceptions of it. It wasn’t until we were working “Movies” at radio when I think it was KROCk, New York just decided to start playing it. It was almost like the label and radio had different ideas and the rest is history. It got played on the right station at the right time, the right trend setting algorithm and the rest is history.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch Alien Ant Farm on tour with CKY on the following dates, tickets from The Phoenix…
