Five Minutes alone with Umlaut’s Angus
Angus Leslie is the eclectic and eccentric axe wielder in Bär McKinnon’s Melbourne based band Umlaut.
I managed to “pin him down” for an interestingly brief interview recently and the following is the result:
1. You seem to know your way around a guitar fairly well, at least enough to impress Bar which is no mean feat, how long have you been playing, and are you self taught?
First of all, thanks! It appears I have fooled some people into thinking I can play… Now to answer your question, I have been playing guitar for a little over eight years now, but only had lessons for the first three years. A lot of what I do on the guitar I have learned from listening to lots of different music and attempting to emulate the sounds I hear, so I guess I am kinda self-taught in a way. It isn’t THAT hard to impress Bär I mean, first of all he likes ponies and I’m NOT kidding! (There is no second of all.)
2. Speaking of knowing your way around stuff, does being in a band with Bar help you pull the ladies?
Aside from the odd pair of soiled panties thrown directly into mine or Shane’s face during shows, I wouldn’t say it has made much of a difference. A large percentage of the audience for this kinda music are dudes, so I’d say those panties would probably have been thrown by a pimply, male Mr. Bungle fan anyway…
3. What gear helps you create the Umlaut sound?
Well I play a Paul Reed Smith, and try to use as few pedals as possible, although I should probably invest in a tremolo for some of the tunes… My pride and joy is my Fender Deluxe amp, for it’s clean tone and spring reverb. I try and get a real heavy surf tone for the clean parts, plus the Fender distortion and the occasional brutal stomp-box. I think a band like Umlaut demands the kind of dream-like quality that you can only get from a tonne of reverb, so I like to coat my sound with it…
4. Tell us the story of how you became Umlaut’s main axe-man?
Well I approached Bär to play a show with a couple of my bands in late 2007. It just so happened that his guitar player was about to head over to Europe for a while, so he was in need of a replacement. After he left in disgust during our brief line-check in front of the audience, the aforementioned guitar player and Bär’s soon to be manager watched our set and thoroughly enjoyed it. A few weeks later I got the call to join, and the rest is history…
5. You’re also the creative mind behind Melbourne band Sex on Toast, tell us a bit about them?
Sex on Toast has been around since I was 16 years old and has been my main compositional outlet since then. We try and play a wide variety of music, including soundtrack-influenced instrumental stuff, vocal-harmony drenched pop tunes, and really crazy, high energy jump cut compositions. We try not to limit what we do in terms of genre, but we are also becoming more interested in focusing each individual direction into separate bodies of work. We hope to record an album in the next year, so stay tuned!
6. How did the first Aussie Umlaut tour treat you? Will it happen again in the near future?
Umlaut’s first Australian tour treated us to the white hot excitement of Hindley st. in Adelaide, the sexually charged debauchery of Syrup Nightclub in Hobart and the violent and murderous streets of Newcastle. We hope to tour again in future as we had a blast on the road!
7. I noticed you guys played a couple of new songs, is there a new album in the works?
We have had a few vague plans for an EP and a full-length album in the future. One of these projects may involve a remix by a certain guitar player from a certain HEAVY band… that is all I will say!
Angus’ alternate musical outlet, Sex on Toast take up residencey for the month of August at The Empress, Fitzroy. Check out the FB event for more info.
2020 is when Bungle return…..at least according to Bar’s tongue-in-cheek response to the question posed to him by Music Vice in a recent interview:
