Nick Nuisance & The Delinquents chat about fitting in, performing at a wrestling match and their Rekorderlig Sauna Sounds performance.

Having burst onto the scene a couple of years ago, Sydney quartet Nick Nuisance & The Delinquents have been making waves with their unique take on garage rock. With the group racking up plenty of shows both around town and interstate, they’ve earned a reputation as an eye/ear catching live act and as a hardworking collective, cemented by their well regarded 2017 debut EP Cheap Things.

“It’s not a slog, it’s definitely not. It’s actually so much easier than it used to be,” drummer Cath Conlan says shortly after their Rekorderlig Sauna Sounds performance. “I get very emotionally invested in wanting to set out for goals and then achieve them, I used to get pretty butthurt when…”

“We played some shit shows,” adds bass player Declan Press.

“And when we say shit shows, it’s like you know, we played wrestling matches and no one watched us,” Cath says.

With the group sonically flowing between straight-up garage, mutations of surf and freakbeat, punk and indie rock, it’s difficult to put your finger on their sound which is nicely linked together by the abrasive and distorted vocals of their namesake, Nick Nuisance. Ultimately it’s a tight, yet fluid entity, which they see as a major advantage.

“It lets us play with a diverse set of bands without it being like, “What are they playing with them for?’” says Declan.

“And we don’t pigeonhole ourselves. We’re not restricting our crowds. If you’re punk, you’re punk,” Cath says. “You’re not going to go watch Cinderella twirling around kind of bullshit, but I feel like we offer a little bit more than that. I guess it’s a bit of poppy, there’s a little bit of pop in there.”

Jumping in the sauna as part of the second instalment of the Rekorderlig Sauna Sounds series, where we get a close-up look at some of our favourite Sydney acts, the group show they definitely know how to turn it on in a small space. Outside of being a little sweaty, they look right at home inside the little wooden box, delivering an energetic rendition of ‘Head.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wsKBd67ECA

“No we’ve played in a sauna like seven times before. It’s where we wrote the new album.” jokes Declan.

“It was recorded mostly in a sauna, partially in a pool,” laughs Cath.

As you can see from the pic below and their sauna recital, the world of aquatic luxury and pampering really suits Nick Nuisance & The Delinquents. In fact, the only problem was getting them out of the water when we were done!