For over three years now Frenzal Rhomb have been well known for their blazing speed, questionably 'offensive lyrics' and wild 'in your face' on-stage antics. What would the interview be like, we wondered, as we waited on the other end of the telephone line for our interview with Romb frontman Jason X. Recently the 'hype' over this Sydney band has been moving into extreme mode. We quote from the official bright orange history of Frenzal Rhomb that landed on The Buzz's desk. "Frenzal Rhomb's history is about to catch up with them. On the band's last visit to Melbourne, their arrival was greeted with a phonecall. The police had arrived with a warrant for the arrest of Jay, mild mannered showman with F.R. Two weeks later a pair of burly thugs arrive at Nat's home, with a view to repossessing furniture and personal effects on behalf of Telstra. The communications giant had not accepted Nat's claim that he was deceased and therefore not available to pay his anonymous telephone debt. The band has been on the move since, lurking in the shadows, staying away from main roads and living on beans and the generosity of passers-by. Daniel Johns of silverchair was threatened with failure by his high school music teacher after he expressed an interest in performing the FR song Genius for class assessment. Jason set his house on fire. Ben's dad has him committed to institutional life and Molly Meldrum was heard to remark "yeah. Good band. Like 'em. The country is getting nervous. With the momentous new album So Tough Now the band have blown their cover, bringing you the tunes, the breakneck speed and the brutal sense of the ridiculous that the kids have been queueing up for since they started The band toured with NOFX, released a single through Fat Wreck Chords, played Livid, Big Day Out, The Push Over, sjows with Offspring, Propagandhi, SNFU, The Meanies, injured themselves, injured fans, got attacked by the TRG and finally put their hands up in defeat and signed to Shock.. Phew!!!!! Hype in most cases far exceeds reality and it was a surprise to learn that these Sydney 'hardcases' met while studying physics at a Sydney University. Inspirationally the name 'Frenzal Rhomb' was coined or maybe still exists deep down in some of those mythical physics books that Ben aned Jason were studying prior to their miraculous conversion forum physics nerds to punk purists. Perhaps truth is stranger than fiction after all! The Frenzal Rhomb guys are about to release another album Not So Tough Now! which features 17 short, punchy songs. Those with semi advanced CD players might fall for the 53 tracks display on their CD dials, but 17 there is just one secret track. Describing themselves as 'pretty young at heart', Jason is pretty proud of the fact that he can write songs that the kids can relate to or as he proudly puts it "K.I.D.S. spells R.O.C.K.' Have the guys changed over three and a half years? "We've been writing the same kind of songs for ages. I think we developed not at all in the past three years.' Hey wait a minute, we've read a couple of reviews that have described Frenzal Rhomb as developing enormously eg. "Where there was first tack and bad jokes, now there's tack, bad jokes and lots of great hooks." "We those reviewers, well, they're all wrong. Many reviewers say we're shit, we've only got about two good reviews that can be sent to you. When the last album came out we had a string of bad reviews, then the record sells heaps, then you get another string of reviews that say it's really good." Taking a serious note for a few seconds, Jason admits to The Rhomb refining their skills. It's something they've been aiming for and he hopes that it's pretty evident in the new album. "Ben is a lot better as a guitarist. Lex has stayed on an even keel." Having toured with US punk legends No FX had this affected the Rhomb guys with the new release? Jason didn't seem to think so, but mentioned English band 'The Toy Dolls' as something that he was right into describing them as a "pretty seminal punk band" as compared to what he felt was the generic brand of punk pop coming out of west coast bands such as Blink-182. "There are a lot of bands doing the same thing at the moment and it's pretty difficult to stand apart from getting boxed in with these bands. I prefer listening to jazz." Frenzal Rhomb's thematic approach to teen life comes across in a number of numbers: 'Parasite, Now Is Not Your Time, Wrong Is Right, Disappoinment' are just three. 'Disappointment is something I wrote when I left school. We re-worked it for this album. That one is a bit more naive, if you will, since I wrote it so early on. Wrong Is Right, though you can't really tell is about capital punishment in all its forms. The problem with these lyrics is that I wrote most of these lyrics on the days that we recorded them. The new album was just really rushed this time around. We wrote most of the songs really quickly. Most of the songs were written two weeks before the recording and I wrote most of the lyrics two days before we recorded. It was a good thing really as it ended up sounding really live, even though we had to do about twenty different tracks in about fifty different takes. Don't read much into the lyrics. The last record had a strong anti-violence theme. This one has a little bit of that with Punch In The Face and Wot Not. We realized that we hadn't put out a record in about a year, that we should get it together to do another one. We didn't have any money, so we decided to cut our losses and sigh with Shock. It seems to be working out pretty well. We've got a good deal with them. They're going to try and set up deals overseas." Punch In Your Face features some pretty interesting sound effects to grab your intentions with. Where did you get these samples? "These were recorded after the song when we thought we should put in the sound of someone getting punched. It was off one of those old vinyl CD's, you know 'Punch Face One, Punch Face Two. It's actually called "Two Men Fighting in an Alley.' Uncle Ken has to be based on someone you know? Jason admitted he built it around his very own Uncle Ken "a very nice guy whose politics leave a lot to be desired. He's a Sunshine Coast developer and inclined to want to put up big high risers and isn't concerned with the natural flora and fauna of the region. He believes that mangrove swamps are swamps and should be destroyed." Well we thought are you sending good ol' Uncle Ken a copy? "No. I don't think so. He's heard abnout the song, but he hasn't heard the lyrics. It will probably cause a terrible family rift.' Frenzal Rhomb's reputation for confrontational lyrics means you don't play it in front of your grandparents (or maybe you do). We wondered whether this was deliberate, how you feel at the time or just plain angry all the time. "Maybe I don't have a particular good command of the English language, I prefer to use swear words. I think that in lyric writing you may as well say what you mean in the simplist terms rather than try to dresss it up and make it self indulgent. I think it is pregeable for this style of music. I prefer to say 'You are a knob' rather than say 'There are various aspects of your personality that I am disatisfied with." 'Not So Tough Now' will be out this week, so walk down to a good indie store and pick up a copy before Uncle Ken buys them all up. The Melbourne launch will take place July 12th at the Palace of Punk Rock, Oxide in Prahran.