“Australia's probably never had a PM this bad,” Wil Wagner, frontman of Melbourne's Smith Street Band, told Faster Louder on January 13.
Wagner was explaining his band's latest single, succinctly titled “Wipe That Shit-Eating Grin Off Your Punchable Face” and released with artwork featuring the prime minister looking extra punchable with an especially shit-eating grin.
The song, according to ToneDeaf.com, is “a scathing attack on the Australian government’s treatment of asylum seekers”.
Wagner told Faster Louder: “Even in the last few years there’s kind of a racist undertone, and it’s a question now I guess, are Australians racist because of Tony Abbott, or do Australians vote in Tony Abbott because they’re racist?
“There’s a sleazy and racist undertone to a lot of Australia that just doesn’t seem to exist anywhere else in the world, really. And knowing that half of Australia gets the Herald Sun ... it’s fucked. It’s brainwashing. It’s terrifying.”
On how to respond, Wagner said: “If there was ever going to be a viable left, and people were going to properly kick off about stuff, then this is the time they’re going to do it.”
Putting their money where their politics are, The Smith Street Band and their label, Poison City Records, will donate 100% of all digital sales (available here) of the single until the end of February to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC).
The band will also play a fundraising show on January 26 at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne, with funds going to ASRC, the Refugee Council of Australia and Oxfam. Visit the band's website for more details.
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