billiam has a hard time believing in billiam

Billiam has a complicated relationship with external validation. His new album Animation Cel was released on Erste Theke Tontraeger and Legless, two labels that he holds in extremely high regard as a listener. He’s in the same echelon as his peers Busted Head Racket, Autobahns, Prison Affair, and the Gobs. Presented with that evidence, he swats it away. “I could have written ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’—I could have Yesterday’d and had the entire Beatles catalog in my head and given it to them—and I would still feel inadequate next to every other band on those lineups,” he said.

The Aussie garage punk wunderkind will accept external praise when people compliment him on his songs or shows, but he’s quick to couch it. “I feel pretty honored that people call me prolific; I would say I’m pretty fuckin’ lazy,” he said, as one example. He is prolific, though. The new album follows last year’s Corner Tactics, and prior to Animation Cel this year, he put out a tape comp, a split, two singles, and a synth punk EP under the name NTSC PAL, which doesn’t count his collaborative stuff. Within a week after our conversation, Billiam was working on a new album, a “real album in a proper studio.” 

That setting marks a new kind of pressure for a Billiam record—he usually records solo in his room, writing songs about characters from the Sonic games, for example. The Sonic fandom is legit, but within reason. He plays Sonic Mania, but when I ask about the Sonic movies, he says he hasn’t seen them. “I don’t wait in line at the cinema with a little ticket dressed up like one of those dudes from that video where they’re waiting in line for The Matrix Reloaded doing kung fu moves.” Billiam and see/saw both strongly recommend consulting the YouTube video titled “Matrix Nerds.”

The secret to his fruitfulness as a songwriter is that he doesn’t care for scraps. “I just record everything and try to finish as much as I can,” he said. “I don’t like to leave stuff unfinished.” He has a list on his phone of every song title that pops to mind; he follows through on all those kernels.

Can you open the list of names and give me one?

I would be absolutely honored. It’s in reverse chronological order, I’m just gonna read the first 15. “More Forward in the Present,” “Spitting on the Moon,” “Balancing Antlers,” “Second Destruction of Atlantis,” “So Repressed,” “Bovine,” “Retro Star Excursion,” “Auto Industry,” “Lucid Interval,” “Drain Tame,” “Cherry Pomade,” “Basalt Beret,” “Medical Tourism,” “Always Another Monster.” So there’s a little sneak preview of songs that either I will release or record and then bash my head against the wall until I record a better song.

How did “Where Is Jackson Reid Briggs?” happen? It’s a song about the dude from Split System, so I wondered if there was a story.

Billiam and the Split Bills, the live band, played in Western Australia, which for anyone not in Australia is the most geographically isolated state in the country. We were playing one show in Geraldton and another in Busselton, which are two regional towns. The story of those two shows is like another fucking separate novel I could write, but the drive between there is eight hours and we were in the van with Greg who booked the shows and drove us, absolute legend. Split System Vol. 2 had just come out, then we put on Vol. 1, and then we were just listening to the two seven-inches they put out, and he keeps mentioning the street. We were also on a Hank Wood and the Hammerheads kick and I forget which song, but there’s a street song. It became a joke—how can you mention the street. It would seep its way into conversations, like we’d be trying to direct people and be like, “Go over there [sing-shouts] ON the STREET.”

You’ve introduced me to a bunch of bands that I’ve loved. Is that one of the main ways you spend time—looking for new music? 

Yeah, absolutely. I’m very, very lucky to not only be in Australia right now, but to have people be interested enough in me where they want to play shows with my band, and I get to see all this insane music. I’m really privileged with that. I’m also a huge troll. I love going through the SoulSeek compilations, reading through radio show’s and people’s mixtapes. There’s no greater feeling in the world than finding something that’s new and haven’t heard and it resonates with you. But I mean, I’m not going to act like I sit all day in this big library of music—a lot of my day is me watching video essays on failed Kickstarters.

When you’re approaching a new record like Animation Cel, do you go in with the idea in mind of how the songs will work with that title, or does it sort of reveal itself to you?

Kind of a mix of both. I spend more time trying to come up with the album title and cover than I do actually writing the songs for the record. I always want to create something that when you hold it, it’s an appealing looking package down to the song titles. I’ve had the next album title for ages because it’s kind of a concept album. This one, I just wanted a cover that was an animation cel and I ran with it. 

Do you have ambitions for Billiam that haven’t happened yet?

I’m just fucking in awe at the point it’s gotten to because I don’t think what I do is particularly special. I’m proud of the songs I write. I’m proud of the music. I’ve gotten better at writing them and recording them and putting together packages, but I don’t get how I’m releasing a record on Erste Theke Tontraeger and people are genuinely excited to listen to it. Like to me, it’s like what the fuck has gone wrong with society? I don’t get it. I’ve got a record coming out on Legless and I’m about to go to a bunch of countries I have never been to. I’ve never met anyone from there, and there are people there—I don’t know how many people, it might be like 10—but there are 10 people who are actually excited to see me. And that’s fucked. 

How’s your self-esteem?

Look, last year was so weird. I put out Corner Tactics and Split Bills toured in Australia, and so much positive stuff happened. I got so much praise, but it was still the most fucked year for my mental health. And I was probably the most unhealthy I’d ever been in my entire life. It was to the point where I got diagnosed with having a full-blown psychotic episode and was at risk of further psychotic episodes. I had such a terrible year mental health-wise. I can have an ego, but also, I’m kind of realistic in that I don’t think particularly highly of myself, especially when I’m surrounded by so many incredible people. Sorry to fucking do a therapy session. I just want to keep making stupid punk sounds and writing songs about cardboard and playing those songs in places until I can't or I get bored with it and then move on to…what are people meant to do when they get bored with punk?

Solo glam vanity project.

I do really want at some point to write a full Thin Lizzy hard rock power pop record. That’s one of my dreams. I don’t have it in me yet, but I am praying that someday I figure out how to solo and write a full record where the album cover is just me in a classroom in a leather jacket smoking a cigarette. Then I could just be like, “I’m done.”

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