Apprehending Opus Kink to talk about music, medieval morbidities and marmite! (An interview)
- twistednippleevent
- Sep 21
- 16 min read
Updated: Oct 12
Opus Kink - An interview- Leeds Belgrave - Dark Arts Festival - November 2nd 2024
By Jack Arnold
On a chilly winter November evening in Leeds, we vow to hunt down potentially our favourite band on the UK punk circuit., the enigmatic Opus Kink. On a quest to crack open the lyrics that fly of frontman Anguses’ tongue, drowsed in medieval literature and dark, depressive themes, but delivered with electrifying eccentricities. Drawing influence from jazz, punk, disco and older influences from folk, country and Latin. The striking obscurity of Opus Kink is something we felt urged to delve deeper into. To find out what makes them tick, the stories behind their sardonic songs, and of course... to find out if they like marmite…
We’d arrived in Leeds on our yearly pilgrimage to Darks Arts festival at Belgrave, making a traditional stop at wax bar to indulge in a cocktail. We popped the band a message on Instagram to find out were they were. They changed the meeting location several times in accidental game of cat and mouse, trying to avoid both the chattering crowds inside, and the biting temperate outside, an almost impossible task. We eventually settled for some park benches outside some large biffa bins, armed with a collection of tinnies from the shop, we were ready to conduct a classy interview.
J - What are the origins of Opus Kink? How was the band birthed into to existence?
Angus – He (Sam Abbo) was in bands and I wasn’t, and I was a bit jealous, we started listening to Latin and afrobeat music together and wanted to do that.
Sam - At first we were going to bed a funky instrumental dance band.
Angus - But we didn’t know how to do that, and it felt a bit inappropriate, so we took punk and bastardized that instead.
J -And how did it evolve into what it is now?
I expected a detailed intellectual response, from the pits of the belly of, in my eyes, a genius poet who can weave words like wool…
Angus – I don’t know man…
J - Was it time?
Angus - Yeah time is definitely a major part of the process.
Sam- A lot of painful trial and error and shouting at each other.
J - As you’ve developed has their been a formula and ways you add the layers to the music, or is it spontaneous?
Angus - Spontaneous, we try to not have one way of doing it.
Sam - Sometimes bits of songs are brought into the studio, sometimes more complete.
Angus - Changing from what is was, to what it is now, it’s just become more of what we actually are, rather trying to be something else, a lot of bands go that way I think.
Sam - The live shows and touring really shapes it and what you want to do onstage.
Angus - Identity kind of settles itself after 2 years, if you’re lucky.
J - Do you have anyone you draw inspiration off as a band?
Angus - There’s so many different influences cause theirs 6 of us in the band. In the beginning, maybe James Brown, and music from our parents, like the Fall, the standard 70’s, 80’s 90’s stuff.
Acclaimed Hull radio presenter ‘Burnsy’ likened their first ingle ‘Faster Than The Radio’ to The Clash back in 2022 when he interviewed us ahead of our ‘Tarantino Fest Part 2' At Adelphi, which the band headlined. This 1st serving of music to the world is noticeably more jangly and joyous then their current offerings, like ‘Malarkey’, where the intro immediately injects a sense of dread, the creepy, haunting, creaking melody emulates the same feelings and tensions you get before a jump scare in a horror film. The build continues, before Angus suddenly erupts into a heart gripping scream at 1:40, forging that fear into excitement so adrenaline pumps through the listeners veins. Live, Opus Kink have become masters at this craft, controlling audiences worldwide in a cult like a manner. Their performance of 1:18, which I have witnessed and willingly participated in many a time, demonstrates this perfectly. As the songs slow intro chimes in, Angus clambers down to the audience and parts their loyal followers like the Red Sea, literally holding them in the palm of his hand, as he instructs with hand gestures to rise with him slowly, lifting his arms as everyone chants ‘aaaahhh, aaaahh, aaahhh in unision’, then as the music stabs, he abruptly pulls down to the ground, causing all those under the spell to collapse downwards as if they were puppets on strings attached to his fingers. When the ritual is finally over, the tempo eratically increases, then the bands proclaimed ragged horn section kicks in, releasing everyone into a ferocious frenzy of clashing bodies as the mosh pit unfolds. The power Opus Kink give to their people is what’s won them masses of decidated disciples.
Sam - It was from Mosquito onwards that an element of doom really came in.
Angus - We stopped trying to be cheerful and became who we were, we accepted the misery.
J - In relation to that, there are some aspects we’re quite curious about. You kind of have this theme of medieval jargon, and references to medieval torture throughout the music. We wanna delve deeper into that. Can you give us an insight into what any of this is about? I’ve done a little background research , obviously there’s the one about Wild Bill..
.James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876), better known as "Wild Bill" Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West known for his life on the frontier as a soldier, spy, scout, lawman, cattle rustler, gunslinger, gambler, showman, and actor, and for his involvement in many famous gunfights. Born and raised on a farm in northern Illinois at a time when lawlessness and vigilante activity were rampant because of the influence of the "Banditti of the Prairie". Drawn to this criminal lifestyle, he headed west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice. He earned a great deal of notoriety in his own time, much of it bolstered by the many outlandish and often fabricated tales he told about himself. Some contemporaneous reports of his exploits are known to be fictitious, but they remain the basis of much of his fame and reputation. His notable escapades include saving the life of 11 year old boy who was being beaten to death... this boy grew up to become Buffalo Bill Cody, his lifelong friend . There was also a famed encounter with an angered bear, in which he wrestled and slit it's throat. And the Mcandles Massacre, perhaps the incident that most cemented his fierce reputation. Visiting an old freind while the Mcandles gang were pursuing him, he killed 5 in quick succession, knocked out another, an bested another 3 in hand to hand and knife combat. The sort of impossible feat you think may only be reserved to the confines of your television. Bill claims to have killed over 100 men. True or not. Wild Bill was truely a legend.
In 1876, Hickok was shot and killed while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (present-day South Dakota) by Jack McCall, an unsuccessful gambler. The hand of cards that he supposedly held at the time of his death has become known as the dead man's hand: two pairs; black aces and eights.
Angus - A lot it, you’re just trying to think of something to write a song about, so it’s whatever you’re looking at at the time...
Sam - Oo look a rat!
Angus - Yeah, we take a lot of inspiration from rats.
J - There you go, a next song, about a rat we spotted outside Belgrave.
.
Angus (To the tune of ‘The Dust') - biddyly bidbbly bidbbly ba, the rats!
J - Rats are pretty dark creatures.
Angus- Misunderstood .
Cringe- They’re only cleaning up after us aren’t they.
Lucia- I like rats.
Cringe - Rats didn’t even spread the plague, fleas and human ticks did.
Angus - Yeah, don’t shoot the messenger.
J - So, out of all your songs, what would you say is the most interesting?
Sam- ' chuckles’.
Angus - Whatever we're writing at the time, the most recent thing.
Sam - always the most recent thing.
Angus - Themes wise, there's a general obsession with writing about meaningless , nothingness and emptiness. We hope not in too much of a depressing way. It just comes from reading all these absurd things about existentialism. Having these anxiety conditions , it's just the way you look at the world, to try and have a good time in this era.
Lucia - Did you have a pre existing interesting in medieval literature before this, those nuts lyrics can't just come from nowhere...
Angus- It's just geeky stuff.
Sam- We're just nerds at the end of the day.
J - So you sort of just become a geek in the moment about a certain thing?
Angus - Yeah definitely, you sort of grasp in the ether for nothingness then catch a hold of something, follow it through for a bit, then it becomes interesting through that , rather than some incredible potent obsession at the start. The potent obsession is just yourself , and narachism and ego. If you find another way to talk about that, it's better, more collectable.
J - What's St Pauls Tarantula about, the one in London or?...
Angus - I was watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain. It was in southern Italy and they were doing something with the Tarantella, and those words came up as a caption and a translation.
Sam - I remember you called me up straight away like, I've got a great name for a song.
J - And there's the reference to Tarantism, which is about hysteria causes by a spider bite.
Angus - Yeah, and that just sounds like good fucking crack doesn't it, I mean not for those infected...
Angus - Again, something strikes your imagination, and you strike yourself while the iron is hot.
Sam - Wasn’t that song written about a year after you came up with the title?
Angus - Nah I did it pretty quick, we released it about a year later. It starts of as one thing, then you add your own bent on it, then the band's influence comes in and it becomes something else entirely.
Sam - It starts off as a folk doom song, and it can become a funky death disco!
J - And there’s the storyteller aspect...
Angus - Yeah, there’s the storyteller influence, you take inspiration from writers, then people like Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. There’s lots of stories and darkness, it’s just very seductive world to be in, it makes you want to live in it yourself, you don’t want to go too far in the living of it, but it does help a bit.
J - your live shows, they tend to get pretty crazy and wild sometimes… Do you have anything really obscure you’ve witnessed at a show?
Sam - There was someone who broke their tooth at a gig, then broke it again at the same gig a year later, that was pretty weird.
Lucia - Adam Baker?
J - 80’s looking kid with curly hair, he’s very fragile, made of glass.
Angus - I don’t know if it was this same show, but there was this young kid, a bit too young to be there, or maybe just looked young, but he kept smashing his face into the railing, so I went and anointed myself with his blood.
All - (enthusiastically) - That was Adam Baker!
J - What about in relation to fan mail, do you get any of that?
Angus- It’s just messages nowadays, but we get a lot of that. I find that to be one of the biggest successes. When you get some little freaks suggesting bizarre business plans. Do this, or when I come to the show do this. I’m just like, no man…
Lucia - Why? What do they ask, I need to know now…
Angus- Just stuff like, ah me and mate are coming down from Glasgow to see you, when you do the show can you spit in my face?...
Lucia - Or show us your arse, you got your arse out in Stockton!
Angus- (pretending to be aghast) Did I ?
Lucia - Yeah, and at Polar Bear, you were pretending to jizz on the audience.
Cringe - That’s funny though!
Angus - Yeah, that kind of thing, blood and sweat and stuff. Rock and roll is the only place you can do that sort of thing and people will cheer you for it . So you exercise that right during the show and all is forgiven afterwards. Unless it’s too bad , but I think we walk the line quite well.
J - Definitely. And outside of Opus Kink, how do you deal with pressure and stress, how do you release?
Sam - Aha drugs- I mean… alcohol free lagers…
Angus - There’s 2 sides to us. Me and him are quite addicted to the burnout and recuperation cycle.
Sam - Sardine pasta and medieval audio books.
Angus - Tavern music and swimming is really good. You feel better so then are like, alright, I can go into the heart of darkness for a month, you come out the other end, then do it again.
J - Many bands have a real brief recuperation, just for a day or two, where they just go to a sauna or something.
Sam - Don’t get me started on saunas.
Angus - Anywhere there’s a plunge pool and sauna, we’ll take that any day over the pub. It’s the stuff back home that fucks you up. Not being out and doing stuff. The devil finds work for idle hands.
J - Random question, if you could spend 24 hours with any musician, dead or alive, who would it be and what would you do ?
Sam - I just freeze up with these sorts of questions.
Angus - Umm I dunno, maybe just some travelling bard from the dark ages, and just be like, what makes you tick? Or the people who when there was a hanging in the 1700’s just wrote a song. A lot of the gallows music I like now, it seems kind of weighty and time worn and beautiful. But it’s actually hits they knocked out when someone was getting their head cut off.
Cringe - With a flute.
Angus - Or a fiddle, I’d just hang out with em and ask how they're pumping out these tunes.
Sam - I’d just wanna hang out with Harry Styles.
Lucia - What a contrast!
J - And anything, doesn’t have to be music related, one interesting thing on your bucket list?…
Sam - Ummm, zip wire over sharks.
J - Google it, that’s probably something possible.
Angus - I’d want to die by zip wiring into a shark's mouth.
Lucia - Sounds like the sort of stuff I have dreams about after too much cheese, and wake up in a sweat.
J - That’d have to be the last thing on your list though!
Angus - Not necessarily, I mean look Joan and the whale, people get spat out of these things.
J - Anything else?
Angus - Maybe go to New Orleans and become a street person, lose a few teeth.
Lucia - Like Bob, an American Bob.
Angus - Number one thing on my bucket list. Become Bob. We’ve already got the same haircut.
Lucia/Cringe - It’s not a bad thing.
Angus - Did I say it was a bad thing? I just said I wanna be the man!
Angus - I wanna zip wire, while playing the 3 bird guitar solo, over Bob infested waters.
J - Do you have a vision for the future of Opus kink, a thing you set out to do or a quest you set to conquer?
Angus - To have a world that’s ours, that we’ve made, that hopefully other people would like to inhabit from time to time. To be one of those groups, where there’s a sensation, mood or feeling you can only get from this band. That’s harder than it sounds I imagine.
J - People always refer to it as a cult. But that’s got negative connotations attached to it. So like a good cult.
Angus - Not if you're in the cult, it’s positive .
Sam - Or if you’re the cult leader.
J - I’m in, I mean, I have been in it for years.
Angus - You want it to be a despicable thing from the outside, but when you get in, it’s great.
J - I mean, people have been signed in blood…
Angus - You started the fan page didn’t you? The unrepented soldiers . It didn’t really kick off.
J - Er no, we forgot about it … Do you want us to try again?
Angus - Yeah do it again, maybe not on Facebook, on tik tok or something.
Lucia - Where do all the kids go these days? Can you even have a group on tiktok?
J - I’m only young, and I don’t even understand tiktok.
Angus - You're 24? You seem wiser.
J - That’s ‘cause I'm actually a wizard who’s 110.
Angus - Ah get ya. 24 is your public age.
J - And… Any Exclusive scoops?
Angus- We’re making an an album, it’s been a bit too under wraps, but it’s really good .
Lucia - Are you still playing the wedding?
Angus - Yeah if you remember to have it!
J - We forgot this year, we kind of got overshadowed by Adelphi’s 40th anniversary, they did a gig every day of the month and it was just too momentous for us to book anything, plus we forgot how much planning it takes.
Angus - We’ll write a song for the wedding.
J - Great, next question ... so some of your lyrics, from my inference appear to be about industry struggles, the lyric we picked out is ‘ hang the upper management that gave you al that rope’, tell us a bit about it, without metaphorically shooting yourself in the foot.
Angus - Oh yeah, that wasn’t about band management or anything, we didn’t have management at that time, that was kind of just a general angsty, childish, fuck the man sort of thing.
J - What would you say, are the struggles of a band trying to make it in the industry?
Angus - Firstly, there’s no money in anything.
Sam - Spotify fucked that.
Angus - Organic spaces, were people can freely and cheaply do this are virtually non existent, or to our estimation anyway. And it’s a cutthroat industry, we’ve learned that and are learning that. Within ourselves, struggles are a relative thing, and we’re very lucky in what we do. It’s amazing to be headlining here tonight on this billing, were we started at the bottom. But you know, inner struggle never ends, and may it never, we need that stuff.
J - And what you have any advice to bands trying to make a break?
Angus (Jarringly) I mean don’t ask us, cause we haven’t had a break!
Sam - quit your job , put all your money into it.
J - Loose everything...
Angus - I’d say, don’t try and cotton onto a movement or a trend, do what is yourself, it all hack knee stuff but it’s that for a reason. Remain authentic, and you know, play, it’s playtime, explore, do what you you want to do and don’t shackle yourself to ‘we should do this’. Which is not to say, we don’t ever do that...
J - There’s got to be balance hasn’t there? Have fun with it, don’t take it too seriously, set your vision.
Angus - It’s don’t take yourself too seriously, but take your art very seriously. If you wanna do this, you might as well throw your whole being into it. You can tell when a group or artist doesn’t live their creation.
Cringe - You include your audience in your performance and it means a lot.
Angus - Cause it’s for us and for them. To get down, and get in, and get dirty with the scum.
J - It closes that separation.
Lucia - There are some bands that I love the sound, but when I see them live I decide I’m not that into them anymore.
J - You really get into that mindset in 1:18 don’t you? What’s that about? A bible reference? Which one? I checked up and there are several... There’s the birth of Christ...
Angus - It’s a Ecclesiastes 1:18, when I was reading lots of absurd literature and philosophy, like Camus and Beckett, Ecclesiastes always came up. And I’m not religious or anything but I’ve always been allured by the literature and the imagery of the bible. So Ecclesiastes was in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increasth in knowledge, increaseth in sorrow.
J - And that’s lyrics in the song.
Angus - Yeah we chucked that in there.
David - Did you get permission from the bible?
Angus - We owe royalties.
Sam - There’s a court case starting next month.
Angus - Me and Sam , like how women of a shared household sync up. We seem to sync up in crisis. So when we were looking for ways to understand why we were so terrified and scared of our relatively lovely lives, you turn to that kind of thought and literature. 1:18 was kind of this lurid fasciation with the bible, in the old testament. The kind of; it’s all fucked, so eat drink and be merry - is the philosophy really. And that’s a very pop philosophy crass way to say it. But it’s that kind of reference. Then you roll with it. And you realise a year later what you were saying, and realise oh god yeah I was really unhappy then.
J - Where did the name Opus Kink come from?
Angus - We were gonna do a gig, and we needed a name, there was a book on the shelf called Hideous Kinky by Ester Floyd, which I haven’t read. But it was like, oh yeah, l like those words, and that’s were Jed's label Hideous Kink comes from as well!
Sam- Wasn’t it a Kate Winslett film?
Angus- Yeah, and some of us thought, oh no, we can’t be seen to be Kate Winslett fans, which is bullshit cause I’m a Kate Winslett fan, I think she’s great, so we thought what sounds like those words but isn’t, so we came up with Opus Kink. It doesn’t really mean anything.
J - I think I’ve exhausted my questions, so let’s ask the audience, does anyone else have questions? Do the rats have questions?
David - Who here, out of you , likes marmite?
Sam- I prefer vegi- mite, it’s got better consistency, I do eat marmite too.
Angus - He has Australian wife so he has to say that.
Sam - I must say, I’m partial to a marmite rusk, you make the marmite toast, and you put into under the grill and it caramelises...
The next few minutes of this interview cannot be published under the food porn laws, graphic images of bubbling cheese and hot saucy beans cannot be the final imprint this article leaves on you. The minutes after those other minutes are also hard to dissect, several conversations are occurring at once. Ranging from Holiday getaways, Opus Kinks appearance at Iceland Airwaves and playing in venues such as holy churches and disused abattoirs in Serbia. There's also a really good cool festival in St Vilnius , hosted in the prison were stranger things was filmed. Hull heroes Life played, along with the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets and Baxter Dury among others...
J - Anyone you'd like to work with?
Angus - There's a dearth of heritage bands who'd probably have us. For a time it was Nick Cave, but he's gone a bit Zionist, so probably not that anymore.
J - Favourite artists the current scene?
Angus - there's the really cool band called Cratl - very secret, very underground , but that's one of the most joyous live shows I've been to. The New Eves… the the best band ever. Hozy, Keg, Legs, Hotel Lux, Sudden Pelt, Weaving in Purgatory, The Getdown Services...
J - Fat Dog did that thing for ages. When they were a complete mystery, and word just got out through word of mouth, so you only knew if you'd been to a live show. So they had this sort of anonymous presence that got our there.
Angus - Some might say that's were the real stuff is, but I wouldn't say that! Reach for the stars!
Sam- Sell out!
On that triumphant note, that pretty much concludes the coherent chunks of this interview... So thanks to Angus and Sam of Opus Kink for taking the time to let us dissect their brains in the streets of Leeds. The bands performance was as joyous as ever. To us, they'll remain on of the most ecstatic and captivating live bands for as long as they keep thriving in their world. Be a part of it, join the unrepented soldiers Opus Kink fan group on Facebook and follow then rabidly round the globe, or just see them on your doorstep when they turn up. Whatever you decide, They'll welcome you with open embrace. It's Ecclesiastes baby!
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