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Australian punks The Chats unleash their debut album High Risk Behaviour. The record buzzes like an out-of-control chainsaw, propelled by Eamon Sandwith's spoken-spit-sung vocals, their three-chords-is-one-too-many approach, and an exacting combination of youth, vigor and drunkenness. It's a perfect name for an album that does not fuck around – one that's over in 28 blistering, funny, sweaty, unforgettable minutes. To create High Risk Behaviour, the band worked with engineer Bill Gardner in his studio on the Australian coast. It took nearly 18 months to finish and several, quick-paced sessions.
"If we'd just done a week and slogged it out we could have had an album before now but we just kept going in there and making newer and better songs so it's hard to put a stop on it," explains Sandwith. Its lyrics are drawn from everyday experiences; from paying attention to the kind of stuff so banal that the rest of us don't even notice it. "We don't make songs for people to look at in a fucking emotional or intellectual way. We just make songs for people to jump around and have fun to."
The Chats formed in 2016 while still in high school. Since then, they've released a self-titled EP in 2016 and 2017's Get This In Ya EP, and have accrued a fanbase that includes Dave Grohl, Queen of the Stone Age's Josh Homme, and Iggy Pop – the latter two who asked the band to open on their respective Australian tours.