How’s your day been so far, have you been getting slammed with pre-tour interviews?
Oh mate, I’ve been getting slammed while sitting in my bed. I woke up 20 minutes ago – it’s actually pretty lucky because I don’t usually wake up until 3:00 pm. I’m sitting in my underpants with the doona wrapped around me because it’s a little bit chilly today …

Well you have to make the most of it while you can, you’re about to head off on another massive tour with 24 shows around the country. How important was it that you got out to regional locations this time around?
Honestly, the biggest regret of the last tour was that we didn’t get to do that many regional shows. We always have the best time in regional spots for some reason; I don’t know if that’s to do with the amount of people coming from the country and the coast, or they’re a little more uninhibited in the way they appreciate the shows. But we always have a really good time; one gig we played was in a warehouse and it was one of the greatest, most life-affirming experiences of our career. There’s something about regional Australia – they’re the heart and the soul of the country, they’re the blood of the earth for us.

Your last national tour completely sold out – does it blow your minds how receptive Australia has been to your music?
It’s so weird. No one used to give a shit about us, and that’s the great thing about what that whole last tour meant for us. It’s one thing that people come along to listen to some tunes they heard on whatever community radio station but it’s another thing to have these people shouting stuff back at you – that’s something else entirely. These amazing human beings have no reason to like you, it’s so bizarre. It’s great vindication, it’s absolution and you feel exonerated from any past.

Do you have a personal favourite track on your debut LP The Positions, one that really means a lot to you?
Yeah, I like ‘Kansas’. I was in my underpants, covered in a towel, when I recorded the thing.

Your underpants seem to be a recurring theme …
I’m always in my underpants! Yeah I’ve always been obsessed with arranging strings and I did that song in four hours – I sat at my computer, on GarageBand, plugged in my keyboard and just played all these little string parts. I did the vocals in one take and I didn’t really think much of it. I remember listening back and I thought, “Oh ok, I should put this on the album”. So ‘Kansas’ is actually my favourite track on the record – well, I mean, it’s the one I hate the least.

Are you a bit of a perfectionist then?
“A bit of a perfectionist” for me is like saying Attila the Hun was “a bit of a barbarian” …

Is it a weird feeling knowing that people are dissecting and analysing your lyrics, or is that something you’ve just had to get comfortable with?
Well just imagine if you logged in to Facebook one day and saw that someone had dissected one of your pieces, it’s a bizarre feeling. But at the same time, it’s really important to the artistic conversation, it’s really vital to what we do.

You’ve played some incredible shows like at CMJ and SXSW, but what’s been one of your most memorable gigs so far?
One time we were playing and someone accidentally kneed me in the balls. I was singing this song, it was throbbing, my testicles were inflamed, they felt like they were contorted. So I was about to pass out because I was winded and we ended up trashing the entire stage, all of our gear, I kicked the keyboard into the audience and just left it … It was a fun show but it was a pretty bad show.

So much seems to happen at your live gigs …
Dude, we used to be so angry and chaotic. I used to perceive the live experience so differently to now.

Do you think you’ve matured?
Shit yeah. I used to be so adversarial and depressed and bitter. I used to ask myself, “Why am I doing this with my life?”, but now I’m like, “This is awesome!”

How old were you when you first started getting into music?
Probably seven. I played drums first and I didn’t sing until Gang of Youths really; I sang in some bands but it wasn’t like ‘my thing’. I was a drummer, a bass player, a guitar player and a piano player – I just wanted to be a multi-instrumentalist. I really hated my voice and still on a lot of levels I really loathe my voice now. I think I was six or seven when I knew this was what I wanted to do. I was born and raised in inner-west Sydney – it’s gentrified now, but it was a pretty grimy region, it was like the Brooklyn of Sydney, so I was exposed culturally to stuff that was pretty decent. And also Rage – my sister used to get me out of bed really late, probably when she was eight and I was four, and we’d sit up watching it. My parents were so permissive with everything we did, I think they knew they’d rather have loving children who were good people than obedient children. One of my earliest memories is the 1987 live video clip of ‘Born to Run’ by Bruce Springsteen. I saw ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ and ‘Born to Run’ and that was when I knew I needed to do this for real. I was so little. Mum always says I’m a God-given waste of a mental-level IQ because I’ve never wanted to do anything with it – I’ve made a conscious effort to be completely, unequivocally unemployable.

Can you remember the first time you ever performed for anybody?
Oh mate, I was terrified. Up until about 19, I used to vomit violently before playing. I was also incredibly reserved, insecure and shy as a child. When I was four, my mum made me be in musicals with my sister. I remember pissing myself on stage, it was my first ever musical and I had to hop along the stage on one leg … I’ve never told that story before! I pissed myself in knickerbockers, shit-scared, and I think that informed my fledgling essence. Then after that, I used to play drums at my parents’ Baptist Church. I’d screw up all the songs – it was so embarrassing – but I’d just keep going.

If you could give your childhood self any advice about music, what would it be?
Get piano lessons. I’m self-taught and I missed out on a lot because of it. I’m an ‘accomplished’ piano player, but I’m not a ‘good’ piano player. I can play pretty much everything you can think of, but not to a really exceptional degree.

We know you recorded a few demos and sent them in to a station, but can you remember the very first time you heard one of your songs played on the radio?
Yeah, one of our demos ‘Riverlands’ got played on FBi Radio in Sydney, an amazing community station. A mate of ours is actually a minister and inside his church is a big hall, so we were recording in there and we were packing up our stuff when ‘Riverlands’ came on the radio in the car – I remember us sitting in the car being like “What the hell?” Literally, we weren’t even a band, we were just recording stuff, it was ridiculous. I did that in my bedroom in my underpants – once again!