Nick Allbrook is the singer and songwriter for Pond β and also a tender and thoughtful soul that generously indulged me for the following conversation.
Battle of the Bands crown I happened to witness. Mink Mussel Creek was a petri dish, occupied by then obscure, talented and willful kids sharing filthy houses in Perth, and which spawned Pond and Tame Impala. Fame came, and Nick would tour with Tame for some years, before leaving, harmoniously, in And also anxiety and our lingering sense of fraudulence.
I want to get into two things, I guess: Perth and creativity. But first, I have to ask you about Freo.
How are you feeling? One of them was beating Port. Hope is dangerous β a dangerous thing from which you can fall. Because they might be reclaiming their success a little too quickly after their dynasty? I have something to show you, Nick. No, not at all. If someone was arriving from overseas, and driving from the airport down Leach Highway, they would be real fucking confused that I could find so much juice in this weird, flat, hot, dry shit-hole.
But I love it. And me and a few other school friends, Steve Summerlin and Richard Ingham of Mink Mussel Creek , and many other brilliant but criminally under recognised projects, revelled in our little corner of filthy otherness.
