Saturday, February 22, 2025

Hippycrits


 
ORIGINS: Sydney, NSW
GENRE: Punk
YEARS ACTIVE: 2001-2004
 
MEMBERS:
RELEASES: 
  • Self-Titled (2001) - Download Here.
    • 1. Cousins Cow
    • 2. Kerry
    • 3. Don't Even Try
    • 4. Sick Greed
    • 5. Sweet
    • 6. Big Brother
    • 7. Pissheads on Patrol
    • 8. Gotta Be Free
    • 9. Get Fucked
    • 10. Beer Song
    • 11. Rewind
  • Lost Album (2003) - Presumably destroyed
    • The Pirate Song
    • Unknown songs 
SUMMARY: The Hippycrits emerged from the ashes of earlier punk band Dropzone as an Inner West exercise in crust debauchery. Embarking on some short tours of regional NSW, the band cycled through several guitarists and recorded two albums (one mostly unreleased, the other lost and/or destroyed) before members moved on to other things.
 
SHOWS: 

?

ORAL HISTORY:
AARON: Adrian (The General) had put together the second incarnation of Dropzone, which consisted of Lesleigh on bass, Fran and Luke on guitar, me on drums, and himself on vocals. After playing a few terrible gigs where we couldn't keep in time with Adrian, we decided to kick him out, rewrite lyrics to some of the Dropzone music, and change the name to Hippycrits. 
Aaron Cortilla (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025
 
LESLEIGH: Dropzone had split but Adrian wanted to get it going again. It was Dropzone until we got rid of Adrian (he couldn't keep in time to save himself) and the rest of us stayed together and re-branded as the Hippycrits. We all did vocals - we all had a few lead vocals while the others did back ups. It was great! It wasn't a conscious decision, it just kinda happened - we'd write a song and someone would sing and it would work. I think if you were to really break it down, Fran and I were the lead vocals, but Aaron sung two leads and Luke and I would bounce off each other in leads.
Lesleigh Kehlet (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025
 
AARON: Fran suggested the name. I think he had been sitting on it, you know when you have a list of band names ready to go... anyway, we all thought it fit, so we agreed we were now the Hippycrits.  
Aaron Cortilla (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025
 
FRAN: The name came from a common hatred of hippies - filthy, vile, lazy usurpers. All the arseholes ruining the planet are from that era. Fucking hippies.  
Fran Toller (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025
 
LUKE: My main memory of recording is... not much. Beer, cigarettes, and amphetamines mostly. I know we got on Geoff's (the engineer from Zen) nerves and were kicked out of the control booth a few times because we weren't happy with the bass sound or the drum tones or a bunch of other things. He was a good sound engineer but he had a shit ear for punk tone. We always had a love hate relationship with Zen. They were always great but me and Fran would always owe them money and we weren't always very well behaved, haha. 
Luke Turner (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025
 

 
LESLEIGH: We went to Lismore - my brother lived there so he got us on a gig with his band, Evil Geniuses. We all took Magic Mushrooms in Lismore. 
Lesleigh Kehlet (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

LUKE: We played the mushroom gig at Barry's place in Lismore. We also played a bunch of shows in Newcastle and down Wollongong way, and a show in Canberra. 
Luke Turner (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

AARON: Lismore, Wollongong, and Canberra were as far as we went from Sydney. Hahaha, 'the mushroom gig'... I had no idea what song we were playing most of the time but still had the best time. We'd been offered a few gigs around Lismore over a weekend so we packed up the vehicles and headed north. We left pretty late, I guess some of us had work, and ended up sleeping on the side of the road in our cars the first night before arriving in Lismore the following day - only to discover the guy who had promised us the gigs hadn't organised a single thing. Luckily we were staying with Lesleigh's brother, Barry, who put together a house gig at his place. The fellow who was supposed to organise the gigs felt pretty bad because we had driven all that way and weren't even going to make petrol money so he payed us with a box of dried-out magic mushrooms. Hey, better than nothing. Of course we all scoffed them down just before playing the gig in a tiny upstairs room of the house. I remember it was so hot and humid - we were all sweating buckets. Luke was sitting in a plastic chair to play 'cause he had done something to his leg and was in a cast. Like I said, I didn't have a clue what song we were playing most of the time so I was just playing along to whatever was going on in my head. It turned out to one of the most fun gigs I ever played. Not sure if the ten or so people watching enjoyed it as much though...!
Aaron Cortilla (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

LESLEIGH: Luke kept ditching band practice all the time and I suppose, really, we asked Luke to leave. Kerry Foulke joined on guitar - he worked at Zen Studios, where we practice, and he was in the band for about a year and then left to pursue MM9. Tim Walter then joined for about six months or so and then Luke re-joined.
Lesleigh Kehlet (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025
 
LUKE: I was in Hippycrits for quite a while. We recorded an album and played plenty of gigs but eventually I was fired because I was getting fucked up a lot and started missing rehearsals and not showing up to gigs so I was replaced by Kerry Foulke. 
Luke Turner (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

KERRY: I'd known Fran for a few years from doing shows together with various bands and Hippycrits used to rehearse at Zen in St Peters where I worked at the time. From what I recall Fran invited me around to jam at his placer with him and Aaron after work one day. I think they'd had to cancel a session and were still keen to play. A while after that they asked me if I wanted to join. I really dug the songs and they were such a fun and talented group of musos so I jumped at the chance. Funny side note - a few years before I joined, I'd written a song called 'Hippiecrits' for my band Flugebinder. I used to enjoy taking the piss out of Fran by taking credit for naming his band. He claimed he didn't remember the song but that never stopped me, haha.
Kerry Foulke (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

LESLEIGH: I had a slipped disc in my back when we had that Canberra gig. Painkillers and alcohol don't mix well so I had a nap on a couch before we played. Next day I dropped the boys off in Fyshwick to get porn while I bought fuckloads of fireworks. 
Lesleigh Kehlet (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025


AARON: We played all over NSW but never played interstate unless you count Canberra... we played heaps of gigs around Sydney and the surrounding suburbs, as well as north to the Central Coast, down to Wollongong and Kiama, and out west to Blacktown and Penrith. Anyway, Canberra - the guys from The Bigots - Tim and Joel - had invited us down to play one Saturday night. We decided to meet at Lesleigh's place and head down in one car. Lesleigh, Fran and myself were all living in the Inner West so we met up first and devised a cunning plan. Luke had to travel in from St Ives so was going to arrive an hour or so later. We figured if we smashed a few beers we'd be over the limit and Luke would have to do the driving. So at about 9am we cracked our first beers and by the time Luke arrived we were well into it. We drank the whole drive to Canberra, which ended up taking twice as long with all the piss stops we had to make for Fran. By the time we arrived the three of us were pretty hammered. We weren't due to play until late that night so Les, Fran and I were hungover as fuck and struggled through the set. Luke, however, was in fine form. 
Aaron Cortilla (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

KERRY: I was with the band maybe a year. I remember playing the Green Square a bunch. At least once at Bar Broadway. We were gigging pretty regularly. 
Kerry Foulke (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

LESLEIGH: We recorded a second album with Kerry but never had the money to pay for it. That was at Noisegate in Castle Hill. We were just all too broke to pay for it and it stayed with Noisegate and I assume it was destroyed.
Lesleigh Kehlet (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025
 
AARON: I don't recall when or why Luke left but at some point he was replaced by Kerry Foulke. Kerry then went on to join a more professional band that didn't leave time for us misfits. 
Aaron Cortilla (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

A street press spread from an October 2002 magazine called Large. Note the graffiti... Aaron says, "The graffiti was done by Fran and I on a wall across the road from a house I was renting in Sydenham. The wall would have been at the front of one of the houses that was knocked down because it was under the flight path. 
 
KERRY: In 2002 I had the opportunity to join up with MM9. At that point MM9 was just starting out and the schedule to get it off the ground was pretty hectic. We were doing two late night reharsals plus a full eight hour day of writing in the rehearsal space every week. I remember some nights I'd do a Hippycrits rehearsal and then go straight into an MM9 rehearsal afterwards. Add in a day job and that's kind of a lot. If I'm being honest though, I think the real problem was that I just wasn't mature enough as a player to give both bands the attention they deserved. These were two great bands that were wildly different stylistically. As a musician, I was adaptable at the time, but I struggled to change gears between the two so I felt like I had to choose and I went with MM9. Up to that point I'd only played in punk bands and I really wanted to try my hand at something different. It wasn't an acrimonious split or anything. The guys in Hippycrits were really understanding and we still hung out for a long time after that. Without getting too soppy, the Hippycrits still holds a very special place in my heart. I'm super proud of the stuff we did together. In the middle of MM9 recording our first album, I had Fran tattoo the Hippycrits logo on me. I was kind of honoured that, even though I wasn't with the band that long, he still thought I was worthy of it!
Kerry Foulke (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025
 
LESLEIGH: I asked Tim to join when Kerry left. I was good mates with Tim through Unpaid Debt. I loved having Tim in the band but I felt like he thought it was a bit much for him. He was great though. Unpaid Debt were also doing quite a few shows and it was too much for him to commit to us.  
Lesleigh Kehlet (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

TIM: I knew Lez through Matt and Damien (Unpaid Debt). I was in the band for only a gig or two I think. We rehearsed at 'Cat Piss Studios'... the place smelt like cat piss. The owner of the studio never came downstairs and in the rehearsal room was an old AC30 and old Roland Space Echo. If I wasn't honest I would have them in my possession and the owner probably wouldn't have noticed. Anyway, eventually I stopped getting calls for rehearsals - I think the others thought I wasn't overly interested and I was probably recording a bit at the time. It was good fun though - real crusty fun. I enjoyed it. 
Tim Walter (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025
 
KERRY: I got a call from Lesleigh one day asking me if I could do a show with them at the Lansdowne the next night because Tim couldn't make it. Mind you, this was 9 months after I'd left the band and remembering the songs was a serious stretch. On the night they even launched into at least one or two songs they'd written after I left and no one had shown me. That was a hilarious show. Such good times, haha.
Kerry Foulke (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025 
 
LESLEIGH: Hippycrits was just awesome guys, awesome music, and so much fun. I loved this band. We had a song called 'The Beer Song', which I wrote, and it got to a point where everyone would buy me a beer when the song started. I used to get so drunk with all those beers. Little did I know that in writing that song I would be able to get drunk so cheaply at gigs! 
Lesleigh Kehlet (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025
 
FRAN: Playing in the Hippycrits was wasted, crazy fun. Porn, pyrotechnics, prosthetics, ex-limbs, and weed - all out of Fyschwick in the ACT. I urinated on Azo and Lesley that night in their beds, courtesy of Tim Bigot's moonshine. It was always wasted fun. 
Fran Toller (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

LESLEIGH: The band ended when I moved away to Batemans Bay with my boyfriend (now husband). I think we had come to an end before that but that was the definite ending. 
Lesleigh Kehlet (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

AARON: I'm not sure that Hippycrits has ever officially broken up. I think people just stopped turning up to rehearsals until there was no one left. No one can keep that level of partying up forever... Seriously though, I think life just moved on and so did the band members. Les got married and started a family. Fran and I tried to keep the band going for a while, recruiting friends to play with us, but things had basically deteriorated into free jazz type rehearsals until eventually we just never booked another.
Aaron Cortilla (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025
 
RELATED BANDS: Turtle Slime, Kevin, Dropzone, HYMG, Headbutt, MM9, Blackbreaks, Stalin's Organ, The Last Hemeroids, The Picaros, The Dynamic Lifters, Bullwinkle's Revenge, Groin, Bastardos, Vae Victus, Dead Wasted, Dark Horse, Change Over, Unpaid Debt, Speckled Foam, Staunch, My Name is John, Switchkicker, Mz Ann Thropik, Flugebinder, Mz Ann Thropik, Switchkicker
 

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