Meet ‘Rapscallion' – a nameless youth who runs away to the city (craftily dodging ticket inspectors along the way) and joins a crew of misfits. During his travels, Rapscallion gets his first, heady taste of crime, drugs and brawls, and eventually, love and tragedy.

Sounds like the plot of a gritty teen adventure novel, right? Well, it's actually the story driving The Murlocs’ sixth album, Rapscallion. Ahead of the record's release on September 16th, we had a chinwag with the Melbourne band’s frontman Ambrose Kenny-Smith about the real-life experiences and fictional tales that inspired Rapscallion, how guitarist Callum Shortal composed the record’s rock-and-roll tunes, and more.

What kind of story are you telling through the record? It's based on the character ‘Rapscallion’. He isn't named, but it's a coming-of-age story that begins with him being an outcast in his coastal country town, and wanting to escape and find his way in life. So, he hits the road and makes his way to the city. There he meets a bunch of vigilante vagabonds and starts rolling around town with them.

Each song is in order – it all gets to a climax at the end where he finds love, followed by tragedy. By the last track, he's got a bit of a sombre pop in his step, but he's keeping his chin up and riding into the horizon.

So, each song is like a chapter in the story. Yeah, totally. I grew up being obsessed with things like Stand By Me and The Goonies; adventure-type stuff. During the pandemic, at a time when you couldn't leave the house, the best way I could think of writing without reflecting on my own anxieties was to force myself to think outside the box (because no one wanted to hear a song about the lack of toilet paper on the shelf and stuff like that).

Were you actively consuming that kind of media while you were writing the story, or were you just reflecting on stuff you already knew you loved? I was reflecting on my youth, in a lot of ways. There's lots of moments in the songs that I experienced, my friends experienced, or we all experienced together from a young age. I was a really keen and sponsored skateboarder, so I used to travel constantly on buses and trains, and hitchhike. I’d have run-ins with authorities – whether it was security guards or the cops or just angry, difficult people on the street. All those things are wrapped in with it all. It was a nice feeling to reminisce and take things to a more extreme level.

You've mentioned the novel Blood Meridian as one of the inspirations, as well. Can you tell me a bit about how that influenced the story? That encouraged me to dive into this younger character that's surrounded by older, scarier, ragged figures. I got really excited by reading that book and trying to do my own spin on it, because I did have a history of being the younger one among an older crew who definitely corrupted me, but also took care of me. So, there's all those sorts of flavours, but it's a lot nicer than Blood Meridian.

Which track on Rapscallion was the hardest to create? Cal Shortal wrote all the music and I wrote the lyrics and the storyline. The spoken-word stuff on "Wickr Man" and "Bowlegged Beautiful" was hard to do because it's not melodic, so there's nothing steering you in a direction – it’s up to the feel. There were definitely moments where I was second-guessing some of the scenes.

And were there any that came to you really easily? Some of the more up-tempo, punchy ones were really fun to smash out, like "Bellarine Ballerina" and "Virgin Criminal". But they were all pretty tricky, to be honest. Cal writes such strong melodies on the guitar, so I'll try to sing something that weaves around or complements his melody. And a lot of the time, I end up reverting back to following his licks. Then when I start trying to play it on guitar and sing, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, really. This time I didn't have to get Cal to change much because everything was so strong and solid. I was able to really focus and conceptualise the whole storyline, which was great.

What was it like doing all of this while the pandemic was going on? We finished our album Bittersweet Demons in February 2020. And then the pandemic happened. By March, I was mixing that album over Zoom with John Lee, who only lived about 10 kilometres from me.

Then we thought we’d have to just push through and keep creating to keep our sanity. Cal started writing Rapscallion songs pretty quickly, because he didn't have any songs on Bittersweet Demons. I nudged him a bit and he really pulled through and started sending me tracks every couple of days. They came in somewhat of an order, so it was really nice to piece the music together, and I was able to write a story and envision how each song was going to depict what the character was doing.

Did Cal know that you were intending on making a narrative-driven record when he was coming up with those tracks? He was just writing the music himself. I don't think he ever really gives a shit when I say that a song is going to be about something. He always says, “It’s just a riff to me.” But I didn’t really know what I was doing with it, and I was probably scared as I wasn't sure if it was gonna work. But I managed to pull it off and I'm still quite surprised – I don't know if I'll be able to back it up anytime soon.

That's so interesting, because it all meshes together perfectly. Cal’s tone and sound is pretty much Rapscallion anyway. We're a perfect combo of two scumbags making music – we get the best out of each other.

What do you hope listeners get out of the album? I hope to just connect with people, and that they pick up on the storyline and listen to the whole album.

You're about to set off on a tour of the US and Canada. What aspects of the tour are you most looking forward to? Playing a bunch of venues, and bigger ones than normal, like Webster Hall in New York. That’ll be a nice milestone for us. We hardly get to tour, so I went for the first jog in a long time this morning because I need to get fit and bring the energy that’s needed. I'm hoping that I'll be able to pull off the best performance possible. We've got a lot of songs to learn, so we're gonna start practicing.