Babe Rainbow is Elliot (Bass), Angus (Vocals), Timon (Drummer/Producer), and Jack (Guitar). They were kind enough to let us stop by and chat with them before their show at Mohawk on 8/12/25.

Elliot: Yeah, and then you nitpick it, and you know, okay. Yeah, so it's different yet.

Let's start at the beginning. I want to hear the Babe Rainbow origin story. I was reading that you guys all worked on a farm together? How did you get to know each other and how did the band get started?

Angus: Well knew each other already and then we just met this guy in the surf, this cool old English guy and we needed jobs, part time, pay the rent and yeah, it just sort of fell. That was it.

What's the writing process? Are you guys just jamming and songs come from that?

The first EP and album: how did that happen?

Angus: We were traveling around New Zealand in a combi surfing and smoking weed and I think that's all we needed to get started.

Tell me about your relationship with Stu McKenzie (King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard). He produced early stuff and then mixed the last album as well?

Elliot: He's just an old funny friend from Melbourne, which we don't really live anywhere near, but kind of met them when we were starting out 10 years ago. He's just a buddy and you we had that project and we sent it to him and you know.

Jack: We convince them to let us support them once or twice a year and hang out with them at various places around the world, and our really close friend who started off as our sound guy is now their sound guy. And it's epic.

Elliot: Same way everyone meets these days, on Instagram.

Jack: We discovered that he discovered us and liked the music, and then on some trips to America we hung out with him and then he sang. I think we put a few songs together with him. And then every time we come to LA we usually get him up for a cameo.

There's a pretty big psych scene in Australia with you, King Gizz, Tame Impala. What do think it is about Australia that brings that out?

Angus: It's just way more psychedelic than America.

Jack: LSD in the water

Angus: We've got the jungle, we've got the bush, we've got the kangaroos. Once you get there, you'll understand. It’s probably indigenous.

You had a very interesting collaboration with Jaden Smith on your 2021 album. How did that come to be?

You think it's more like an environmental thing or social or?

Elliot: Environment, because it's fuck all people here.

How is it working with him?

Jack: Yeah it's sick. I'm sure we'll do another one soon.

Elliot: He’s pretty quick, he's pretty talented.

What other artists would you like to work with? What's a dream collaboration for Babe Rainbow?

Angus: Well we've been chatting to Bieber a little bit at the moment so that's gonna be good. Jaden and Bieber sort of discovered us at the same time and the story was that he gave Bieber mushrooms for the first time and then they just listened to like

Elliot: Peace Blossom Boogy on repeat.

Timon: You're not joking.

Elliot: Apparently

Angus: Well, you know, there's nothing concrete, but that would be nice.

Elliot: They were on Mushrooms.

Angus: And we met Sheryl Crow recently, you know, baby steps there, but hopefully gets something pushed through with her. Maybe not as political as she's gone, but...

Jack: I think Air. We're going to chill with Air in France, in Paris. When we head to London, we're going to hang out with them. That'll be sick.

Angus: One of the Pond dudes, Jay, he was doing some remixes of our last album too, so... You know, a little combo there.

Let's talk about your newest album. It's been the longest gap between records, which is still not very long, but talk to me about the writing process on this new one. I think it might be your best album to date. What do you think makes it stand out from previous work?

Angus: Well, we're working with Timon now.

Elliot: Yeah we found Timon, which was a huge win. We did those little EPs in between so that was cool to do shorter releases. So we don’t have to yknow…

Angus: Get to know each other.

What do you think Timon brings? Sorry, that sounded so backhanded. How does that change how you work as a group?

Angus: Well it was kind of just the three of us always and none of us were drummers and I ended up drumming first and that was always like a difficult part of the band because we didn't really have like a great backbone of songs to record or play live. it worked, but then was like as we sort of got older and better you know we were missing that a lot and we sort of had lots of drummers and you know the drummer, Miles, that we just had for ages was so good but he's sort of doing Mac DeMarco stuff now and so we got Timon and everything sort of shimmies around.

Jack: He brings a good solid kiwi energy. Very organized.

Elliot: He’s a road dog, he’s intelligent, he’s handsome.

Angus: He’s blonde on the inside.

Jack: He’s kind of our psychiatrist as well.

Timon: I was going to say as well, one of the things that's handy with me playing drums now is that as a producer as well, can do recording and work on albums really fast. We've got another one coming through the pipeline already.

Fully recorded already?

Timon: Not fully, but it's maybe 70 % done.

Elliot: It just needs a bit of singing, but we're making it. He’s mixed it all up

Timon: Just it speeds it up, know, like, because we don't have to like go to a recording studio and like book in the time. It's been awesome and we can kind of just do stuff.

Elliot: And we kind of worked with heaps of producers over the years, sort of searching for that, like, you know, fourth energy to bounce on. And so now that we've got him with us around, it's just so much faster.

Angus: And culturally, we've moved on from the 60s a little bit.

Jack: Yeah, we're in the 70s now.

Angus: 70s, early 80s.

What do you think inspired that change?

Elliot: Our taste of what we were listening to and trying to make.

Angus: It's just a bit of false identity when you're obsessed with the past. So yeah, you move through it.

Timon: moved into an obsession with a slightly more recent past yeah slightly less false

Do you all like to write and record on the road?

Angus: Yeah for sure, yeah. Love that, yeah. Well we got like families and people should go on at home and it's easier when you're on the road.

How do you like touring America?

Angus: I love it, it’s the best.

How does it feel different than playing at home?

Angus: We can't really play at home much because it's so small, you know, it's kind of just two cities, three cities, four cities.

Timon: I feel like Australia takes them for granted as well. It's the same thing that happens in Australia. bands and kind of like, you know, they're like, “oh yeah, it's just Babe Rainbow whatever” whereas America gets into it more.

Jack: "Yeah, I’d rather just listen to their record."

Elliot: "I’d rather watch a movie."

Do you have any Australian artists you'd like to highlight or recommend or smaller people that we might not have heard of?

Angus: Yeah there's a girl called Mirren. Is that her name? Local girl?

Elliot: Mirren.

Jack: Mirren?

Angus: Mirren?

Elliot: Mirren? What’s her last name?

Angus: No idea.

Jack: I think her last name is Kieran

Angus: laughs Yeah, Mirren Kieran

Jack: You know Kirin J Callinan?

Angus: Y'know, there's lots of good stuff out there. We live in the country so we don't really get to see the latest and the greatest.

Timon: The band that Miles, the previous drummer, is playing with now, well not a band, it's a guy, Tex Crick. Yeah, he's pretty good. He's opening for Mac DeMarco over here.

Any non-Australian music? Like what have you guys been listening to on tour?

Angus: Bieber

Jack: A lot of Johnny Cash

Timon: Lee Hazlewood, Cowboy in Sweden

What are you most excited to play from the new album? Do you have any favorites for the live show?

Elliot: Ashwagandha goes the best, it sort of has a sweet spot with some of the other tunes.

Angus: it's a bit more rock and blues.

Elliot: We've got a really good disco version of Sunday, so I can’t bust that out.

Jack: Cleo, we didn’t do that at sound check. This is first gig that we're playing with this new setup so it's going to be dusting off the cobwebs tonight.

Elliot: Yeah might be a few duds

Angus: Go easy on us