In the wake of the release of second EP 'My Eyes, Brother!", amid their busy summer festival schedule, we sat down with Opus Kink to find out why we can't help but label them 'filthy'.
Photo: Will Reid | Words: Lloyd Bolton
Opus Kink have been making an increasingly insistent claim for the title of Britain's finest, fiercest live act for quite some time. With every tour, they seem to refine the argument, six members coalescing more deeply into one beast. Flailing horn section limbs jerk from a body of punkishly simple punk grooves all beneath the screaming skull of lead singer Angus Rogers. This effortlessly confident machismo has been hard wrought by years of gigging and collective soul-searching, and this ongoing process at last seems to be cohering into something clearly defined… and not at all ska.
"We just got a bit excited at the start of 2018 that, 'Ooh maybe we could be post-punks.'"
I first saw the band around Christmas 2019 and the general impression was that of a Windmill guitar band with afrobeat aspirations. By the time they burst back into life after the pandemic – legendarily the first band to play a full-capacity gig post-pandemic at Eggy Elbows' midnight event on 18th June 2021 – they seemed to have more in common with The Teardrop Explodes, sharing that group's live setup (horn section, synths, guitars, bass and drums) and evasion of the more predictable elements of post-punk. Plus, the riff on 'I Love You Baby' matches note-for-note that of Julian Cope's 'Reynard the Fox'.
Discussing the band's evolution backstage with Angus and drummer Finn Abbo after a storming set at this year's Long Division festival, they acknowledge that it has been a relatively drawn-out evolution. As they have progressed, their uncommon live setup and crossfading references have encouraged all manner of labels. NME hailed them as, "Horn-fuelled filth-funk, where punk and jazz combine." This is typical of the splatter of genres levelled at the group, and naturally some labels are more welcome than others. A troubled relationship with being labelled 'ska' seems to run deep. Bring it up to any member and they will shudder with an abhorring fright akin to that of actors speaking of The Scottish Play. Finn concedes "early Madness" is perhaps a fair comparison. "Madness is fine," Angus concurs, "But the rum-pum-pum, trilby hat-type thing is terrifying."
Aside from this, they are also keen to distance themselves from the 'post-punk' label. Not only has it become something of a cliché squared in its 21st Century regurgitation, it also doesn't quite sit with the band's own reference points. The band did of course grow out of a milieu that has forged a reimposition of post-punk's dominance over alternative guitar music, sharing stages, influences, playlistings and smoking areas with the likes of Legss, DEADLETTER and Do Nothing. They are uncomfortable with the label, however, and don't feel especially well placed to live up to it. "We weren't ever scholars of 1979/1980 music," Angus confides, "We just got a bit excited at the start of 2018 that, 'Ooh maybe we could be post-punks.'" As for The Teardrop Explodes, I am informed that the band only really paid any attention to that group after working with Thighpaulsandra, a long-time collaborator with Julian Cope, on debut EP "Til the Stream Runs Dry'.
Rogers' yelping vocals, acerbic and alternately poetic and juvenile, suit the tone of what Matthew Perpetua has described as 'post-Brexit' music. He also points out, "I was never that good at playing guitar, so that has always sounded a bit janky." Beyond this, however, the six members bring together such a wide range of influences that it would be specious to label them as any pre-existing thing. Synth-player Jazz Pope draws as much on the squelch and fizz of 90s dance acts like The Prodigy and Chemical Brothers as the toplines of 'Speaking in Tongues'. The horn section of Jed Morgans and Jack Courtney model the epic proportions of their licks on James Brown records. Outside the band, Angus and bass player Finn Abbo both also perform in acoustic projects, drawing on more traditional songwriting forms associated with the likes of Nick Cave and Guy Clark.
Photo: Anya Rose
"I still feel like we're in our experimental stage."
Although their two EPs have built a stronger sense of identity than previous sporadically released singles, the band themselves feel they are only just beginning to develop a fully-formed musical identity. "Even though we loved it very much, we thought the first EP was a bit of a rock opera," Angus recalls, speaking of its protracted writing and recording. Humbly, he notes that, "We take quite a long time to learn the next step creatively."
"I still feel like we're in our experimental stage," Finn adds. Latest EP, 'My Eyes, Brother!', was conceived as a snapshot, a moment in the band's development rather than a manifesto of any definitive sound. This was a far more immediate process. "We were just gigging so much that we didn't have the chance to stop and write loads", says Finn, "So we had to do whatever we were playing live."
"Which has its pros and cons," adds Angus. "It's quite a limited choice of songs because it's just whatever we had that we hadn't already recorded. At the time it felt really exciting; I guess we kind of captured the moment. But I'd quite like to do it differently for the next project."
"If filth is the prevailing wind, that's fine by me."
As the band's image and self-image have respectively cohered, the recurring descriptor that has managed to stick with any substance is "filthy." Certainly, the sweat of their live shows, Rogers' shirtless dives among fans, Morgans' insistently suave stage outfits, and the destructive passion of the whole thing maintains a certain atmosphere of sexy anarchy. Likely the name has some sway too, puzzling the imagination as to what one's Opus Kink could be. Brought into focus on the records, Rogers' salacious lyrics complete the effect. Whiskey bottles and religious figures are similarly treated with the same coating of lust. "I sacked it all off for a bitter jug of wine, And a jezebel in Jerusalem, baby!", goes the climax of the typically depraved '1:18'.
Though they didn't explicitly design themselves in any image of 'filth', they have taken a certain liking to it, and have come to embrace their reputation. Angus explains, "We definitely lean into it. In terms of a show and a sound, it's easier; you don't have to colour up to the lines so much. But we're not as immersed in filth in our daily lives as people might hope we are. We all have our vices, but we've come to realise we're not really punks, we're six quite fey men… who have oat milk."
Finn suggests mysteriously that, "These days we're trying to control the filth," a sentiment Angus seconds. Only half-joking, he traces the arc of the band and where it is headed, with the six of them "Trying to boil [this so-called filth] down into its essential components." Tellingly, he nuances this with the revision that they are, "Trying to boil away the post-punk." Though all pigeonholes are reductive, it seems the band are happy for 'filthy' to be some kind of explainer of their music rather than any ill-fitting genre name. "If filth is the prevailing wind, that's fine by me," says Angus.
'Filth' gives the band space to be themselves and to create a more genuinely rock 'n' roll spectacle. (Rock 'n' roll here relating to a way of life, not the musical style.) Reflecting on their growth into something unique,Angus explains, "It was just not trying to be any one sort of thing anymore. Something happens along the way [to any band], and you're not really sure what it is, but you get this sense of – for want of a better phrase – becoming yourself, or at least becoming something that you can't quite put a handle on. But that is worth chasing." Freed from pretensions towards and projections upon post-punk or jazz or funk, the band developed its own defined aesthetic. "I think we also just got way cooler", adds Angus.
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