How a funeral and a song called Squid led to a breakthrough for this local band

“The thing about this band is if I’m in a bad mood, after we play it’s all sweated out of me,” says Romy Vager. “This is a pretty good job to have.”

The frontwoman of Melbourne art rock quartet RVG (Romy Vager Group) is holding court in a bustling Thornbury cafe and talking about her band’s third (and finest) album, Brain Worms. The buzz around RVG is practically deafening.

Brain Worms has been a featured album on radio stations across the country. Overseas tastemakers like The Fader and Brooklyn Vegan are full of praise, and last month the band had a breakout moment at new music festival The Great Escape in Britain.

RVG formed while Vager was living in a sharehouse in Preston. She had written some demos and her friends made her promise she’d play a set. Vager roped in three mates (Reuben Bloxham, Angus Bell – later replaced by Isabele Wallace – and Marc Nolte) and named the quartet in homage to Patti Smith Group.

Vager has a lightness to her today. A history of depression and addiction feels more like a footnote than a black dog scratching at her door. The glint in her eye can be attributed to one big win: RVG put it all on the line and recorded Brain Worms a year ago in London with acclaimed producer James Trevascus, who has worked with Nick Cave and PJ Harvey.

“We took a huge risk and spent all our money on recording in the UK,” she says. “The best-case scenario is we make a great record, the worst case is we have a very expensive holiday.”

RVG released their debut album, A Quality of Mercy, in 2017. Jangly guitars offset darker themes of alienation, madness and ennui.

“The jangle has always broken up the sad stuff. As much as I want us to be a goth band I think the rest steer it away into nicer territory. Every time someone calls us an indie band I cringe. Every time someone calls us a post punk band I cringe. I’d associate us more with Julia Jacklin than Fontaines DC.”

Brain Worms is a different beast to the band’s previous album Feral. Much more muscular and dynamic, it pats you on the back while slapping you across the face. “It was time to make each song its own universe,” Vager says.

Thematically, Brain Worms covers coping mechanisms, maturity and the healing power of kicking out the jams.

Vager sounds tough as nails on Brain Worms, but like so many, she had a rough time during COVID – losing her grandmother, her cat and a close friend.

She wrote the song Tambourine after watching a funeral over the internet. “They’re playing Drops of Jupiter because they never really knew ya.”

“I went to a couple of online funerals, one in particular was someone who was very quirky and out there – and it was a White Lady Funeral and it was so beige. It really shit me because we should have been listening to EDM [electronic dance music] or something,” she says.

If Tambourine has the best opening line, current single Squid has the most cathartic chorus. It nearly didn’t make the album.

“The band were looking at me, ‘Have you got another song?’ They were getting pissed off. I pulled out my little book and started playing some ideas for Squid and they built on top of it; I instinctively sang, ‘Don’t go back in time/ It’s not worth it’. We ended up with this strange song.”

A strange song for a strange time. “It feels like everyone has a concussion, and they’re trying not to sleep; it’s rollover from the pandemic,” Vager says.

She may have a hard-won glow about her, but Vager admits feeling “so tired” of dealing with things such as the rise in anti-trans rhetoric, TERFS and the banning of Drag Queen Storytime sessions.

“We’re all at capacity. People come up to me all the time and say ‘When I first saw you I thought you were shit … but then I listened to you and it was really good.’ I’ve seen 50-year-old guys in Brisbane change their mind about trans people. All I know that works is playing these songs and changing people’s minds.”

RVG are performing at Forum Melbourne on June 14 as part of Rising festival.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.