On the edge of Merri Creek in Melbourne’s north, Amy and Lexi are housemates and bandmates in a home made up of musicians.

Old friends, bandmates and housemates Lexi Love-Dack and Amy Pettifer have lived together in the past, but it wasn’t until they moved into their current home in Melbourne’s north that they were able to better bring their musical practice (both play in the local band Lazertits) together with their living situation.

Alongside their other housemate Ivy (bass player for the band Porpoise Spit), Lexi and Amy’s home is not only filled with music from those that inspire them, but a place to rehearse, experiment and develop their own musical practice.

Who are you? Tell us a little about yourself.

Lexi Love-Dack: I’m currently studying my BA but I’ve worked in screenwriting and copywriting over the years.

Alongside that, I’m the guitarist of Lazertits—I took up the role when our previous lead guitarist moved back to Sweden. I’d been the rhythm guitarist and had always been more in the background, though I wrote a lot of the guitar parts and lyrics. When I took up lead, I took lessons to get better as quickly as I could.

Amy Pettifer: I work in community engagement for Aboriginal Affairs in the State Government, and I’m writing my thesis on Aboriginal Land Rights at the moment, which is lots of work but I’m adjusting to studying and working at the same time.

I also play in Lazertits; previously I was “just” the frontperson but I had a hang-up about not having an instrument in the band so when Lexi became lead guitarist I became the rhythm guitarist. I also play in another band called Club-Med with some other friends, and I make weird music with my partner on machines that I don’t really understand—it’s experimental, modular, synth, drum machine stuff.

Music is a part of my life that I want to put more time into, but I have a million other things happening right now.

What does a typical day look like for you?

LLD: We’re both studying at RMIT at the moment which is fun, because we get to see even more of each other. Amy works four days a week and I’m at uni full-time so my day usually includes walking the dogs, going to school, doing lots of writing and assignments.

AP: I don’t have classes but alongside my job I need to work on my thesis all the time, so my weekends are no longer strictly for frivolity and I have to really manage my time.

We come together the most as housemates when it’s time to watch The Handmaid’s Tale, but we also cook together and cook for each other and with Ivy—we have people over for dinner a lot.

What do you love about your home?

AP: It’s very musical; we’ve always got music playing and when we were more of a ‘broke’ band we’d always rehearse in living rooms and once we even rehearsed in the garden. It was really nice but I was paranoid about disturbing our neighbours so I was freaking out the whole time!

LLD: I love where we’re situated; our house backs right on to Merri Creek. There’s kookaburras and butcher birds in our backyard every morning, and there’s a huge garden which apparently won a Kitchen Garden of the Year Award back in the 60s. I love the archways in the home and its high ceilings, it’s a beautiful layout and we get so much sun despite being on a slope.

The garden is my favourite thing; from the front we look like any old brick house but then there’s this huge backyard with all these fig trees, fruit trees and lush greenery.

Do you have any daily or weekly habits or rituals around music in your home?

AP: I listen to PBS and Triple R all the time; it makes me feel nostalgic to be able to get up and turn on the radio, getting ready for work and listening to it.

LLD: I play guitar a lot. Because I do guitar lessons on Saturdays I’ll usually try and do some theory stuff before then; my guitar teacher is amazing and he gives me lots of homework, but it’s great to learn about new methods and modes of playing, it really encourages me to practice. I set up my amp in the living room or my bedroom, or when it’s nicer weather I’ll practice in the backyard.

Tell us about a time when playing guitar has positively impacted your life, or a highlight of your guitar ‘career’?

LLD: Playing at The Forum was definitely a highlight—we opened for Peep Tempel’s last show with Batpiss. It’s funny because we’re usually pretty bad at rehearsing and I’ll write myself tricky guitar lines before I have the ability to play them confidently—but for this show; we knew it was the biggest thing we’d ever done, so we practised really hard and smashed out the most perfect set we’d ever played.

AP: My dad came to that gig and at the last minute he brought a spare guitar in case we broke a string—something that hadn’t happened in ages and we clearly hadn’t thought about. So of course broke a string in the outro to one of our longer songs and just casually walked off stage to pick up the spare guitar, tuned it and was ready to go just in time for the next song. As a small time band playing a big professional show, it felt pretty great to pretend that we were organised and wasn’t actually just my Dad being organised for me.

Do you feel like your taste in music has changed over the years?

AP: It’s circular for me. I started off listening to a lot of alt-rock as a teen, watching Rage and being obsessed with bands like Nirvana, Jane’s Addiction, Smashing Pumpkins and then when I got a bit older I realised it’s okay to like pop music. I think at least in the past there’s been a lot of shame around liking pop music if you consider yourself “into” music.

I’ve also come back around to music I liked as a teenager, but with a renewed passion for it. But the biggest shift for me is that I listen to a lot more local music now, more bands and musicians in the same scene as us.

LLD: I have pretty varied taste, but in the last year or so I’ve started going to heavier shows, which can be intimidating to go to especially if you don’t prescribe to all the things that go with the metal scene, but I love going to gigs and try to see heaps of local bands.

There’s such an insane music culture here in Melbourne and most of our friends play in bands, Amy’s partner plays in an electronic group—so since last year we’ve been seeing way more electronic shows; I never thought I would get into “noise” music but I find it so intense and enjoyable.

You’re at a party and get corralled into playing your guitar for the crowd—what do you play? Do you have a go to song?

LLD: I always do the Divinyls ‘I Touch Myself’—it’s my karaoke go-to as well.

AP: I don’t have one, my guitar playing skills are very limited within the scope of writing our own music. But! the first song I learnt by myself was the Pixies’ ‘Where Is My Mind’ and I think I can still remember how to play it.

Tell us about your guitar—where did you get it and what do you love about it? What makes it special to you?

LLD: I bought my guitar for my ex-boyfriend years ago, and when we broke up he let me keep it because I’d been gigging with it for two years. I didn’t realise how special it was when I bought it—it’s a beautiful thing to play, it’s the most perfect fit for me so I’m very glad he let me keep it.

AP: My dad bought me my Les Paul for my birthday a couple of years ago which was so nice. He’s a guitarist and a musician and he was very openly chuffed that one of his children was into playing guitar so he found this on Swap Shop or something—it’s a Les Paul model so it’s new but has been redone with all the classic fittings so all the pegs and stuff are from a 70s model. I'm still working on my finger picking skills so I don’t do anything too fiddly on it, but I love the heavy and rich sound it has and I’ve got very used to playing it.

What's an album you never get sick of?

AP: ‘Dots and Loops’ by Stereolab is my favourite album and I’ve been listening to it at least once a week since I first heard it a few years ago. I’ve got it on the record player right now. I don’t know why I love it so much, but I think I came upon it at a time when I was going through a big, important change and it reminds me of that era.

LLD: If I want to feel nostalgic I’ll always go to ‘Grace’ by Jeff Buckley; my best friend and I used to just listen to it constantly when we were in year 8 and 9 and I still never get sick of it. More recently, there’s an album by a now defunct Melbourne band called Bad Family and their self-titled album is one I can just listen to on repeat.

And your favourite album cover?

AP: Lately I’ve been listening to ‘Too Many Voices’ by Andy Stott, which has a great cover.

LLD: I’ve always loved ‘Houses of the Holy’ by Led Zeppelin because it’s so iconic, and I love ‘#1’ by Fischerspooner because it’s really visceral—it’s a lot but I love it.

Any great resources, lessons, books or tips and tricks for learning guitar?

AP: I’ve taken guitar lessons from my Dad and also a friend who also plays in a local band; I think it’s really helpful to have someone teach you who won’t make you feel inadequate, which has happened when I’ve tried to learn music in the past. As a fully-grown adult it can feel very intimidating.

You need someone who can remind you that it’s okay to be starting out and it's also okay to not fully understand all the things your amp does. There’s a lot that goes into not letting music intimidate you when you’re starting out.

LLD: I was so intimidated when we first started, and I got so much unwarranted feedback from dudebros saying things like “there’s a chord for that” but then I started taking lessons and really got into theory. Now I understand what I’m doing I’ve become really particular about the effects I use, and because I’ve come back to soloing again and even though it’s nice to have that understanding to help form what you’re playing and writing, at the end of the day it’s just what sounds good to you, it’s all experimentation.

I’ve discovered I’m doing pretty much the same things as when we started, but with the confidence of knowing I’m choosing to do things that way.

What inspires your writing or influences your music composition?

LLD: We started out doing four chord songs that were pretty shouty and in your face, also because we started our band as a joke, everything had a satirical type of feel to it. It still has that tone, but there’s much more serious undercurrents now; we’re sincere but we have a sense of humour about it, and we’ve found our sound a bit more.

Our songs are pretty different, but they’ve come together really well on the album. Because we recorded the album live there’s a consistency between the tone of the songs and I feel that’s helped us find a nice dynamic with our instrumentation, but in the future I think we want to get a bit heavier.

AP: We’re inspired by the local bands and broader scene we’re a part of; Moaning Lisa are great, Hexdebt are unreal and Porpoise Spit, Cable Ties are all great musicians.

What keeps your musical spark alive?

AP: Going to see live music. Every time we see a new band, it reminds me how much I love playing music.

LLD: Seeing bands, and I love seeing composers—I’ve dabbled in doing a bit of composing for films and TV. Music is so much a part of my daily routine, I listen to it when I wake up, at the gym, in the house, even on my commute—I’ve tried podcasts, but it just doesn’t work for me. I have to have music backing everything I’m doing. It’s a soundtrack to my daily life.

Listen to Lazertits here →