Australia’s Loose Lips have unleashed one of the most urgent rock and roll albums of 2025.
Hearing the lean, lo-fi collection Last Laugh for the first time I was struck by the specific stylistic fluency. It’s the perfect soundtrack to sleazy late night fun, a clarion call to the immortal outsiders who still fly the tattered gutter glam flag.
“It was written with a feeling of not caring about what anyone thinks or perceives of us or the band,” said guitarist/vocalist Josh Hardy of the raucous rallying cry “Nothing That I Want.” The trio is completed by Nadine Muller (drums/vocals) and Ethan Stahl (bass/vocals).
Loose Lips deliver 10 snarling, staggering nightclub anthems clocking in at under 25 minutes.
“Most of the songs were written a few months in the lead up to recording and then a couple of them we pumped out on the day such as 'Too Late to Call' and 'Tonight We Go,’” Muller said of the album.
Fans of New York Dolls, Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, Nikki & The Corvettes, The Muffs, and The Whiffs will probably love this album, but Loose Lips is also an Aussie underground supergroup in their own right, featuring members of The Prize, The Chats, and The Unknowns, among others.
“I think we feel a lot of freedom within Loose Lips and it allows us to be void of any limitations, especially because we're recording it all ourselves and able to experiment with that process,” Muller said.
I caught up with Hardy and Muller as vinyl editions of Last Laugh land in the U.S. for the first time courtesy of Dig! Records.
Loose Lips Interview
Congrats on the great new album. Can you tell me a little about how this collection was recorded?
Nadine Muller: Thank you! It was fun to make. We recorded ourselves on Josh's 8 track over the course of a weekend in Bendigo.
We had it mixed and mastered by Owen Pengilis from the band Straight Arrows. Our friend Danysha Hariott took the photo for the cover which a talented Melbourne based artist Jessie Rose painted.
"Too Late To Call" is a great opening track that really captures the core of your sound. Can you tell me a little about how that one?
Josh Hardy: Cheers. I wrote ‘Too Late to Call’ a few days before we went to record as I knew we needed a few extra tracks for the album.
I was listening to a lot of the Ronettes at the time and taking inspiration from anthemic pop songs of the ‘60s.
Is the writing/recording process for that song typical for how Loose Lips songs are created?
Josh Hardy: Yeah, sometimes I'll bust something out and show the others and they add their own flair and other times it is a more collaborative process. Often I'll show Nadine a riff and she'll come up with a melody and then we work on lyrics together.
Album closer "Tonight We Go" is an anthemic rocker. Is that a road song?
Josh Hardy: Yes. We wrote it because every rock and roll record needs a good driving song. Shout outs to Carey Paterson (of The Prize) who loves a good driving song.
If I got in the tour van with Loose Lips, what would I most likely be listening to on the stereo?
Nadine Muller: Depends who’s shotgun on the aux cord, but there would definitely be some Rolling Stones, MOTO, Blondie, Nikki and the Corvettes, and a lot of the Red Bird records catalogue!
Three More From The Modern Australian Underground
I originally included Chubby and the Gang on this list, but they’re an English band! Still a cool band to check out, but not an Aussie band. My bad.
Thanks for introducing me to this group. Nadine Muller absolutely mashes that drum kit! And that is one dirty guitar sound! Hope they eventually tour the states and come somewhere near me!