Confusing U2 fans, pondering plastic surgery and agitating against the indie-pop mainstream, these are intriguing times for Republic of Loose. Oh, and there’s also the small matter of their fiendishly good third album Vol IV: Johnny Pyro And The Dance Of Evil to consider. Fearlessly inventive and frequently indecent, this “flawed masterpiece” could either propel the band into the big time or see them put behind bars. AU counts the odds with Mick Pyro and Benjamin Loose.

Words by Francis Jones
Photography by Lili Forberg

As Republic Of Loose’s obscenity babbling preacherman, Mick Pyro is used to travelling the pathways of perversion. But this time even he thinks he’s gone too far. He runs a hand through his hair in an anxious, self-comforting gesture before confessing, “I’m terrified of what’s gonna happen when people hear the lyrics, this record could get me thrown into prison!”

In person Pyro is an altogether more measured and thoughtful individual than the maniacally hollering figure we are familiar with onstage. Dressed in fantastically blinging neon blue jacket and outsized white-rim shades, he is erudite, affable and constantly self-effacing. He’s also only half joking about the possibility of getting carted away to the big house. Containing some of the most startling lyrics the Loose have ever committed to record Vol IV: Johnny Pyro And The Dance Of Evil will need more than a parental warning sticker. This bad boy should be kept under the counter and sold in a brown paper bag lest young and impressionable sorts lay their ears upon it.

And yet as Pyro and gloriously laid back bassist Benjamin Loose stress to AU, it’s not just the bounds of taste that the group are pushing against here. As impishly indecent as certain lyrics are, what is most inflammatory about this record is the socially and politically motivated observations, the caustic commentary upon everything from nation to royalty, gender to identity.

“I wanted to go for more straight narratives here,” insists Mick. “When we were making Aaaagh! we were listening to a lot of Eighties R ‘n’ B, that was our vibe at the time. I was trying to create funky ciphers then, whereas on this album I just told the truth and if not the truth then something akin to it. I’ve put more content in here. There’s also more of a sensitive side exhibited as well. Overall this is a bit more political, it’s weightier, and it’s meatier.”

It is also a considerably darker record than any of the Loose’s previous offerings, a development prompted in part by the singer’s immersion in the novel Funeral Rites. As he explains, “the book suggests that to understand evil you must first become evil. Thematically that’s probably the biggest part of this record and there are lyrics that are gonna be really offensive to some people. That’s why I’m putting those ideas to say dance beats, so that people understand that just because we’re throwing ourselves into evil it doesn’t mean we endorse it. This album is an attempt to get deep into the heart of evil and to expiate it, it’s pretty complicated shit,” he guffaws.

However, it’s not simply the lyrics that have the potential to cause alarm. Taking a wrecking ball to the walls of genre, this album will scandalise those who anticipated 16 variations on the funk-pop clarity of ‘Comeback Girl’. Instead we are presented with songs that skip willy-nilly through music’s myriad genres, an open-minded and matchlessly imaginative proposition.

“People will hear it and go ‘what the fuck?’ laughs Pyro. “You’ll get an old school soul ballad beside a crazy hip-hop track, or an old Sixties Motown vibe juxtaposed with a house track. It’s a very ambitious album in the way it straddles so many different genres. We pulled it all together by making sure that every song had loads of hooks, almost like an album consisting entirely of singles. It’s a really long record and we didn’t want there to be any lull anywhere. I think we’ve achieved that.”

In fact the group believe that this album elevates them to a whole new plane.

“It’s a vast affair. I like shit that has that aspect to it, King Lear or Heaven’s Gate” says Mick. “That film might have been a flop, but at least it was a flawed masterpiece. Who knows maybe this record is a flawed masterpiece too? It’s definitely a huge leap forward and it’s the first of our records that we wouldn’t mind listening to ourselves. We’ve improved so much as musicians and songwriters and, after all these years of touring together, we’re better at communicating with each other. On this album we’ve harnessed the abilities of everyone in the band, all that energy brought together to a much greater degree than it ever was before.”

That Republic Of Loose could have created the 16 track, sprawling majesty of Vol IV: Johnny Pyro And The Dance Of Evil had they been signed to a conventional record deal seems inconceivable. Hence why, like its predecessors, this album will be released on their own Loaded Dice label.

“Independence is the lifeblood of this band,” asserts Benjamin. “We’d be fucked otherwise. For the bands, most deals with major labels are bad deals, in fact most record deals are bad deals, bad in terms of art, bad in terms of business. The business model that worked for the last 30 or 40 years is no longer viable. It’s a completely different scenario now.”

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