I got to interview the wonderful comedy group called The Beards, I get taken back stage and meet 3 of the band who introduce themselves for me thusly;
Johan Beardraven and I’m the lead singer, I’m Nathanial Beard and I’m the bass player, lead bass. I’m Facey Mcstublington and I play rhythm and lead guitars, 2 guitars.

Can you give us a brief history of the band for people reading this who might have just come across your music?
Nathanial: We’re a pro beard propaganda band, and we formed in South Australia in 2005 and when we did we set out to wage war on all those who shaved and try and convince as many people as possible to grow beards, and ever since we’ve been playing songs about growing beards to people around the world and convincing people one face at a time to grow a beard.

You guys are all about growing beards, who would you say has the most impressive beard in the band? And do you ever mix up your styles?
Johan: We do mix up our styles

Nathanial: But we do make a point of not ranking out beards, because having a beard isn’t a competition having a beard is state of mind and a way of life.

Johan: We’ve all got such good beards in our own ways, it’s not just about length it’s about thickness, density, smell, touch, moistness, waft.

Nathanial: Softness, hardness and all types of things, we don’t like beard competitions either as we don’t like the idea of bearded men competing against each other, we think that bearded men should be competing against beardless men and dominating them in every circumstance.

As you might be able to tell, my editor wrote these questions and he is beardless.
Nathanial: They do sound like beardless questions, and that put me off a little as you’ve got a great beard, and it’s always an honour to be interviewed with someone with a great beard as yourself.

Facey: I think perhaps you should start editing, because really if your boss doesn’t have a beard then really you are his boss.

Nathanial: Ah the old adage is true.

What advice would you give to your fans who want to grow beards as impressive as yours?
Johan: Nothing, just do nothing and you will grow a beard as good as us.

Nathanial: Well if you wanted a beard as good as us, then you should have started growing one seven years ago, that would be a good start

Johan: But, you should also listen to the beards, it’s proven to help stimulate follicles.

Facey: And buy our merchandise, every t-shirt you buy is another cm on your beard, give or take, that’s science and there’s a bit of leeway either side.

Nathanial: But yeah, it’s mainly about waiting for your beard to come, and to avoid shaving.

Well that’s how I’ve got mine, without shaving for the past year and a half,
Nathanial: It works a treat

Facey: You look great

Just so you know I’ll keep asking for compliments throughout the interview.
All: You won’t need to ask, they’ll be coming your way anyway.

You have three studio albums out and they are all crammed with songs about beards, what would you say your favourite songs you have created so far are and why?
Johan: That’s a good question, and great beard by the way. I really like a song called, I think Beards Are Great, and it sums up our attitude towards beards. It also has the word beard in it about 39 times, count it, which is a good amount of beard. There’s a song on the new album called, I Have A Beard And It Looks Really Good, which will blow people’s minds, it really sums up what where all about that song.

Nathanial: I also like a song from our second album called, Beards Don’t Kill People, People With Beards Kill People.

Facey: That’s one of my favourite songs too.

Johan: It really sums up what where all about that song,

Facey: and it also says bad things happen buts let not blame the beard. The beards not at fault.

Nathanial: Nor can it ever be at any time. And you have a very nice beard if we haven’t said so.

You are currently working on your fourth studio album what can you tell us about that?
Nathanial: It’s about beards.

Johan: It’s really quite about beards.

Nathanial: I think it will go down in history as being the definitive beard related concept album.

Johan: We looked at our current situation a little while ago, and though to ourselves three albums about beards is not enough, its bullshit it what it is.

Nathanial: It’s a really crappy output on our part

Johan: We feel we haven’t begun to scratch the surface on our love for beards and our feeling for beards. This album we’re taking it to the next level about our desire to have beards.

Natanial: Our first three albums are very much about beards, but if you listen to our new album in comparison to our old ones it would seem those albums where not about beards at all.

Johan: You go back and listen to them and be like, what the fuck is this!

athanial: Yeah but still go and buy them.

Johan: Yeah you should buy our albums and you will have a really good beard.

You have written so many songs about beards do you now find it tougher or easier when writing new songs?
Nathanial: Was that question written by the beardless person?

Yes
Nathanial: See they just don’t understand

Johan: They just don’t understand how much we like beards.

Facey: It actually gets easier every day

Nathanial: As does everything when you have a beard. Like I get better at everything every single day my beard grows. I’m faster, I’m smarter, I’m stronger, I’m taller, I’m larger, I’m slightly fatter.

Johan: You have a more superior air about you.

Nathanial: I’m more confident, I’m better at bigging myself up, I can sing higher and faster, I’m better at writing lists and better at writing songs about beards, I’m the best.

So you have been touring mainland Europe since the beginning of the month, how has the tour been and what has been your highlight from it so far?
Johan: There’s been some good highlights, your beard.

Nathanial: Your beard is right up there, and I would say that since we’ve come over to do these shows your beard has been the best beard on an interviewer.

Johan: We saw a really good beard in Germany.

Nathanial: Oh yeah… but I might be thinking of a different guy

Johan: It doesn’t matter

Nathanial: Germany had some amazing beards, and it was great to play in places we hadn’t played before like some parts of Germany and the Netherlands, and it’s great to see that the majority continental Europe is abuzz with a beard fever, which I assume will never end.

Tonight is the first show from your UK tour, what can we expect from the show?
Facey: Songs about beards.

Nathanial: Lots of beard stroking, we will be stroking our beards, each other’s beards and the audience’s beards, and they’ll be stroking out beards and each other’s beards and their own beards.

Johan: And if anyone has the audacity to come near the stage without a beard, then we will quickly make an example of them.

Nathanial: We will take them down. We will end them.br>
Johan: We will also be previewing a couple of songs from our new album too.

Does the upcoming album have a name?
Johan: It looks like at this stage we will be calling it The Beard Album, which I think is representative of how beardy the album really is.

Nathanial: We wouldn’t do that if we didn’t think this was the ultimate beard related album. I mean, we thought about calling each of our first 3 The Beard Album, but they weren’t quite beardy enough to justify the name.

Johan: You don’t call your album the “blank” album, whatever colour or beard in our case, without it being a career defining move and I think we’ve done this, with this album.

Nathanial: The White Album was definitely the whitest album, the whitest sounding album ever and this will be the beardiest album ever. And The White Album is our favourite Beatles album, as they had the beardiest beards during that album, except for Paul McCartney who is a traitor to himself and bearded men everywhere.

Facey: He’s barely in the band as far as I’m concerned.

Johan: You often go on your Paul McCartney rants

Nathanial: It’s just I know he can grow a great beard, I’ve seen pictures of him with a beard, but he seemed to have a fleeting relationship with his beard.

Facey: All the rest went on to do huge things, there still thriving today. I’d prefer to be all 3 of them rather than him.

‘Laughs’

All: You have a good beard by the way. Excellent beard.

Your UK show finishes with a double whammy of shows at the Borderline in London, do you have anything special planned for these shows?
Nathanial: Gee that seems like a long way away doesn’t it.

Facey: Well you know what we said about what to expect tonight? Well just cut and paste that in there as its going to be really similar.

Johan: I’m expecting it to reach a bearded fever pitch when we reach London.

Nathanial: I’ve noticed with each show we play I’m becoming more pro beard, and I thought at the start of the tour I was as pro beard as humanly possible.

Johan: I thought that to, but you blew that out the water.

Nathanial: Each night I get more, fanatical with my bearded views.

Johan: Our beards will also be at the maximum lengths for the tour.

Nathanial: So our London shows will be quite the shows.

‘John Beardman Jr walks into the room’

Nathanial: John Beardman Jr everybody

‘All the band start to clap’

John: Aw man fucking look at this beard!

#8216;Laughs’

John: I left because I thought the guy interviewing us didn’t have a beard.

Nathanial: No the guy who wrote the questions doesn’t have a beard.

John: Well fuck that, I’m out of here.

Nathanial: The questions aren’t much, but the interviews going great.

John: Well I’ll stay; he’s got a great beard.

How do shows in the UK compare to those back in Australia?
Nathanial: Well the shows are bigger in Australia

Johan: The bearded to non-bearded ratio over here is greater than in Australia

Nathanial: You mean in the crowd?

Johan: Yeah

Nathanial: Some of the German shows, I looked out into the audience I could hardly any beardless men and most of the woman had beards too.

John: Good woman in Germany.

Nathanial: Most where fake, but most were quite convincing. Great beard by the way.

Back in October you announced that you had to cancel your North America and Canada tour due to the US immigration denying you performance visas have you got to the bottom of this issue now and will you be able to return in the near future?
Johan: Where still working through that, people who work in those organisations are quite beardless so they struggle to get anything done.

Nathanial: The US Government in general are quite the beardless organisation they’ve never liked beards and they’re scared of our message and what we could stare up in that country.

John: And they’re right to be scared.

Nathanial: They are, because once people realise it’s about beards, then they’re finished.

Johan: They’re beardless regime will be over. But no, we are hoping to get over there this year at some point.

If you met someone who had never heard of The Beards what one song would you ask them to listen to, to understand what the band are all about?
Nathanial: I would recommend they listen to No Beard No Good, good song.

Johan: That sums up what where all about.

Nathanial: That’s almost our mission statement.

Johan: You could listen to any of our songs, as they’re just great!

Facey: They really sum up what where all about.

All: Beards are what we are all about, and nice beard by the way.

What do you have planned for the rest of the year?
Nathanial: After we release our album, we will be…

Johan: Growing our beards

Nathanial: Well the whole time we’ll be growing our beards.

Johan: That’ll be our number one focus, anything we do outside of growing and maintaining our own beards will be purely coincidental.

Nathanial: But we will be doing a big Australia tour to launch the album, and then we will follow that up with shows in other countries.

Facey: And maybe back here.

Johan: Pretty likely to be back here before the end of the year.

Nathanial: Most likely this country and countries in this countries vicinity

Johan: There’s allot of countries close to each other hear, which is weird for us.

John: Great beard by the way

Nathanial: Oh yeah you do have a good one.

One last random question that we ask every band, if you could be an animal out of a zebra or Giraffe which one would you be and why?
Nathanial: A Lion, because it’s got a beard.

Johan: But if it is just out of those two, it would be giraffe though as it’s got longer to grow its beard.

Nathanial: yeah a giraffe could grow a heaps long beard. And you’ve got a good beard too.

Johan: Lion, no our final answer is Lion.

Facey: Bearded Dragon.

All: That’s a good one

Facey: that’s a good animal too.

Nathanial: A billy goat that’s a good one.

Johan: Beard, oh sorry I thought we were just naming things.

Thanks for your time is there a message for your fans reading this?
Johan: We’d like them to know that you’ve got a really good beard.

Nathanial: And I’ve got a message for everyone, if you don’t have a beard then you’re finished!

‘Everyone then stands up and says good job and shakes each other’s hand before telling me again that I have a good beard’

Interview by James Daly