Getting to Know My Pet Rhino (Interview – Written)

My Pet Rhino is a Sydney-based alternative rock project combining progressive rock elements with simple, hard-nosed grooves and pop-driven melodies. Their latest single, ‘Knots’, is out on July 10th, 2025. In this interview, we get to know them a little better.

1. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to chat to us. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.

I started My Pet Rhino as a recording project to give me an outlet to finally record a few tracks I had been slowly accumulating over the last 20+ years and thought were worthy of finishing off properly. I really wanted to showcase all facets of my individuality and creativity, both in my songwriting as well as my playing, so decided to start the project off by doing as much of the work as possible myself; only employing other people to help with the skills that I could not do adequately myself. It has been a long labour of love, but I am stoked that I have been able to start a musical project that is a true reflection of my musical tastes.

2. Someone comes to you and asks you to sum up what kind of music you play – what do you tell them?

I like to describe it as a mix of strong, hard hitting alternative rock with hints of pop and progressive elements thrown in. Think Queens of the Stone Age meets The Killers meets Radiohead. I love to explore new and interesting ways to find catchy hooks and grooves, as well as keep things fresh and diverse by making sure no two songs sound the same, so there will definitely be something for everyone’s tastes somewhere on our albums (current and future)

3. What’s currently keeping you busy? A new album/EP/single release? A new video? Playing live, or planning ahead?

I am currently busy promoting our debut album, Arrows, and will be switching focus to our latest single from the album, Knots, which will be released on the 10th July 2025, along with a little music video to accompany the release.

4. What is about this current period that is particularly exciting for you?

Being the debut album, and an album which is a collection of all the best tunes I have been working on for such a long period of time, is really a dream come true. It is so exciting to finally hear songs that were once just a figment of my imagination in the same playlists as all of my favourite songs, and know that they actually can hold their own compared to the songs that inspired them!

5. Tell me about the work that has gone into making it a reality and what it means to you.

The album was recorded and mixed at Zen Studios in Sydney part time of the course of about a year. I played the majority of the parts myself, but employed session musicians on drums and vocals as I am not really up to a professional standard on these instruments. The lead vocals were actually recorded remotely by American vocalist Leanne ‘LeeLoo’ Greenman – I would send her backing tracks and scratch vocals for her reference, and she would then send back her vocal files of the final performance for us to input back into the track in Sydney. Doing it this way not only gave me a good sense of control over the overall direction of the tracks, but also gave me the opportunity to broaden my search for the best vocals to suit the tracks, and finding LeeLoo was an absolute blessing as she brought unbelievable power and energy to the tunes that I had not really found with anyone else. It means the world to me that I have been able to finally add my contribution to the global musical landscape – I think deep down all musicians aspire to do this in one way or another in their careers, so to finally have the opportunity to achieve that feels amazing.

6. Making music and being creative can be a very positive experience and can be very good for the mind. In what way has making music had a positive impact on your mental health?

Literally every step in the process has had a positive mental impact on me at some point or another. Even simply just getting home from a crappy day, picking up the guitar and hitting the strings hard and loud can be incredibly therapeutic. There have been many times where I have done that and a new song has just fallen out of me, and all of a sudden the frown from a bad day has well and truly been turned upside down! These songs often act as nostalgic reminders of my mindset in the past, so can be great to look back on and remind myself that things maybe aren’t so bad after all. As I have gone onto record and release music, I get similar rushes of joy when I see that others are enjoying my tunes too. Hearing my tunes on the radio for the first time certainly gave me an instant little mental health boost!

7. It can also be incredibly challenging, more so in the modern times. What have been some challenging aspects of making music and how have you overcome them?

The three things I have found to be the biggest challenges so far are budget, promotion, and finding people who care. From a budget perspective, I did not realise just how much every step in the process costs. Even with doing a large portion of things myself I was not able to stay anywhere close to the budget I had initially anticipated. Promotion has also been tricky as the online world is quite treacherous to navigate, especially for someone who is learning on the job like myself. Literally every music promotion platform in one way or another looks like a scam at first glance, which makes it very difficult to decide which path to take that will have the desired impact. Playlisting and dealing with all the gatekeepers involved with that has been a bit of a punish, but there really is no way around dealing with them these days. This leads into the issue of getting people to care about the music as much as I do, which is challenging because you basically cannot get anyone to do anything for you (even something as simple as just listen to a song) unless you pay them, and even then it is often debatable how much impact they have on your overall success. Absolutely none of this is geared up to allowing independent artists like myself to succeed – even if one song is successful (not even one album, just one song), the return on investment is so low that it becomes prohibitive to continue to ply your trade.

I have tried to overcome these obstacles by taking on as much responsibility as I could for the project myself (minimising the overheads of paying other people their fair fees), providing incentives to people to listen and adopt the project as their own, and focussing on promotional avenues that will have a more direct impact on overall streaming numbers. One of the more enjoyable ways of achieving this was when I invited a large group of family and friends to the studio to help sing a crowd chant at the end of the song, Is This Really How It Ends? Not only did this sound great, but it helped those involved get some attachment to the project themselves, which incentivised them to promote the song in their own way. As a result of this, the track is currently the most streamed song on the album!

8. How do you handle the online aspects of being in a band? Having to put out content constantly, promoting across several different social media platforms, and having your success measured in likes and follows?

I definitely find this very challenging! I have absolutely no desire to be a ‘content creator’ that is constantly publishing all sorts of new material. I am a musician, and I want to be publishing good quality music and doing so at my own pace (good things take time). However, it is very difficult to have any degree of success that way as attention spans are incredibly poor on these online platforms, and there are noticeably diminishing returns for new content when all you publish is just self-promotion of your music. I handle this by just trying to remind myself that it is ok to do things my way, and I don’t necessarily need anyone else’s approval to create the music I want. The fact I have released my music and done it my way is success enough for me – if anyone else wants to come along for the ride, great! They have made a fantastic choice!

9. How do you make this part of things enjoyable, and fulfilling, for yourself?

All I can really do to achieve this is just celebrate the little wins when they come. Just making sure to share any success like when songs get played on the radio, or a new article about our music comes out, or a song gets added to a big playlist etc. keeps people engaged in the short term and helps to keep us in their memory for a little bit longer – hopefully long enough to lead to an extra stream or two. Over time success should bring more success, but it is a long process. It will be immensely satisfying to look back and see the path taken some time in the future – or so I keep reminding myself!

10. Speaking directly to listeners – what would you ask they do to help support you?

Your opinion is more important than my opinion! If you like one our songs, word of mouth from a listener is far more impactful than me, the creator, trying to tell someone how good our own song is. The single most impactful thing you could do is just tell someone else how much you enjoy our tune(s) and encourage them to listen to it themselves. Of course, adding our tracks to your playlists and buying our tunes or merch helps too. In the end, however, any support is good support so long as you have actively done something positive to show it – like, follow, share, comment, add to playlists, buy, promote; whatever it is you feel like you want to do to help, it all makes a huge tangible difference to us at the other end of it.

11. Outside of music, what do you like to do to relax?

I love my sports, especially cricket and AFL football, so I spend a lot of spare time either playing or watching sport in some capacity. I really enjoy travelling and seeing new places, trying new foods, and making new connections with people from different countries. I am also a big craft beer nerd and enjoy visiting breweries all over the world to see how different cultures go about creating new and exciting brews.

12. Where can people find you?

We can be found on all the major streaming platforms worldwide under the name ‘My Pet Rhino’. Any new announcement and sharing of everyday successes will come on our Facebook page (MY PET RHINO) and Instagram page (@my_pet_rhino), and all of our music videos can be found on our YouTube channel (@My_Pet_Rhino).