I guess I should start by saying who the current members are. Well there's me (Simon) who isn't going to be leaving any time soon and at the moment is on guitar and vocals and have been playing guitar since the beginning, there's Ondie who has resided behind the drumkit since the beginning, there's Ricci who rejoined after initially quitting to give us a bassist once again, and there's Alistair who has been playing guitar for us since the beginning.
Out of the six original members, four are still in the band, with Richie quitting vocals in early-mid 2005, and Gaelan leaving because of difficulties within the band. Richie has expressed interest in recording a few songs with us sometime which will be good, and we all still maintain good friendships with Gaelan.
But I think the main thing left out of the old Aspirations page was the addition of Dale on vocals and as a major song-writing contributor. He joined approximately a month after Richie left to play a gig he had organised as a fundraiser to send himself and his sister to Sri Lanka to help tsunami victims, which he did. Of course, because of this, RT&TPCM had no singer for a few months, but none of us complained because Dale was doing something pretty useful.
When Dale came back to Australia we had some band practices. And then he left again, this time heading up to Brisbane with a friend to visit some other friends. In the process he organised a gig for us to play in Melbourne with the Wastas, Steve Townsen and My Precious. He came back in time to play what has probably been our best gig to date, at a Parish Hall in Cowes. A week later we played in Melbourne at the My Precious/Wastas/Steve Townsen show. Then a few months or so later, Dale went to New Zealand.
This left me (Simon) as the vocalist, just in time to record our first demo, an eleven track ep, which turned out a lot better than expected.
Fortunately Dale did not quit RT&TPCM, but simply put himself on hold as our vocalist. His expected return within the next few months should put him in the (fairly) permanent lineup again.
As for music, RT&TPCM have from the start been a band that revels in improvisation. Whether in small or large quantities, we always enjoy adding an unexpected element to our shows, jams and recording sessions. Starting from our first gig at a party for Alistair's friend's eighteenth, where we played only covers, we've always tried to add extra bits into our songs. At that gig we managed to stretch Psycho Therapy (the Ramones) from a two minute song to a five minute song, Iron Man (Black Sabbath) from five minutes to ten, and play a few "covers" from only the very basis of the song, all through improvisation and band co-ordination, something Ondie and myself are particularly good at.
Due to the nature of this gig, we managed to incorporate different styles into one song, where they had previously not been used. This became a turning point for us and the week after, Ondie and I wrote our first song, the simple Anal Cunt and Daughters inspired grind song To Stab In The Stomach. Although it is fairly typical of the style that inspired it, To Stab In The Stomach was never meant to be anything more.
Instead, the real genre blending began when we were jamming with Dale for the first time, in front of a small "audience". They were basically a group that was listening to us and playing cards, etc. One of this group shouted a request for a Britney Spears song. In answer to this I started playing the intro riff to "Toxic", which me and Ondie then turned into a four second grindcore song called Britney.
Also during this jam session we penned down the basis for Rotting In A Rookey, a Catharsis inspired crust composition with emotion fuelled lyrics courtesy of Dale.
It feels unusual to reflect on the styles of music and bands that influenced what we have written, but it's also enlightening to me. For instance, with my favourite song of ours, One Fine Spring Morning The Hardcore Kids Will Make Hardcore Hardcore Once Again, I can remember that the verse riff was very Slayer inspired, yet the end product sounds very little like Slayer to my ears.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Dale, Ondie and Ricci's funk and HipHop anthem, Two Grindcore Girls Go 'Round The Outside, was inspired by Dale's severe dislike for Eminem and his lyrics. The main hints at this inspiration are Dale's lyrics, the music sounding like a cross between funk and Run DMC style hiphop, with the tradional grindcore bridge.
We continue to try and blend music genres in our music as much as possible and I think we do an okay job, but judge for yourself. I'm in the band so I talk it up.