You won't find Bloody Hell on social media.
The band's frontman Sean Cook says life on the outside has been a blessing.
"Publicity is a phase a lot of bands get trapped in," Cook says.
"This perpetual cycle of thinking about publicity. It's just a shitty world of false validation."
Cook is no stranger to the slings and arrows of the music world, having played drums in two acts on the brink of big things, the indie-pop group Long Island Sound and the alt-rock band Maids.
When forming Bloody Hell, a Frankenstein's monster of hard rock, punk, metal and spoken word, the project had to operate on its own terms.
"When I got off [social media], that's when I wrote the music I wanted to write," Cook says.
"To me it's the equivalent of, back in the day, bands handing out bootleg cassettes. It was so exclusive and only for a few people. At the moment, at least, Bloody Hell is a cult band and that's all I want - a mad cult following."
The band has now applied their outlier aesthetic to the curation of a festival at the Lass O'Gowrie called Cult Classic.
Over a dozen bands, including Shady Nasty, Fungas, Downgirl, Doris, Saylor and the Flavor and Dust, will coalesce for a showcase of Hunter music.
"Having the word 'cult' in the title ties in with Bloody Hell," Cook says.
"I find that cult and underground bands don't have as many opportunities in Australia. If you're a bit left of field and alternative, especially playing darker music - and more than 80 per cent of the bands on Cult Classic are of the darker variety - then that type of music doesn't get represented on festival bills a lot of the time."
The band's previous event was the wildly successful Carrington Crawl, which saw local acts play across multiple venues, closing with Bloody Hell's packed-out performance at popular gin joint Earp Distilling Co.
But they're more than just event promoters.
Bloody Hell, which also includes drummer Gabe Argiris, bassist Andy Price and guitarist Alex Apostolou, acquired Carrington recording studio and rehearsal space Novotone in November 2019.
The Waifs, Hoodoo Gurus, Lee Kernaghan, Ben Gillies and Goanna are among the acts that have dropped by to jam, while the music hub also hosts music tuition in drums, guitar, bass guitar, singing and piano.
Despite the pressures of running a business, Cook has found time to write the follow-up to Bloody Hell's 2021 debut record Australian Underground.
The songwriter believes the album will drop in June 2023, with the working title Holiday in Pandemonium a reference to both Dante's Paradise Lost and the Dead Kennedys classic Holiday in Cambodia.
"It's also a play on 'pandemic'," he says. "I went through a hellish time during the pandemic, living life and running a business, and this collection of songs, in a sense, was a holiday, an escape, where I could process my thoughts and emotions."
Bloody Hell has freed Cook not just as a writer but as a performer.
While his previous projects saw him sing from behind the drum kit, the playful songwriter is now front and centre, microphone in hand. The move has allowed him to become a theatrical frontman, drawing comparisons to Faith No More's Mike Patton in his propensity for vocal gymnastics, with lyrics known for their sardonicism.
"It was a political angst project," Cook says of the project's beginnings. "I started writing for [Bloody Hell] just after Trump got elected and the whole world went psycho and really divided. And a huge PC culture of censorship. It got me really angry at the political climate that took over - I just had to get that out, to be extremely provocative with lyrics, extremely testing and challenging. That's what Bloody Hell was about. The second album is not so much about that because I've found my courage to transcend it."
And while Cook might write the lion's share of Bloody Hell's songs, the musicality of his bandmates is not lost on him.
"I'm a chronic perfectionist and I don't really like artistic collaboration that much," he admits.
"I'm just lucky to have these guys on board who really like the music and love being involved. And they do bring a lot to the table too. A lot of bands have their one guy, but if you take away the support it would never be a shred of what it is."
