Melbourne’s favourite death-folk maestros, the Tom Budge Band, are in Shanghai this week to show local music lovers their dark side. In the lead-up to their two shows at the Glamour Bar this Thursday and Friday night, guitarist, keyboardist and backing vocalist extraordinaire Hamish Michael took some time out to answer some light-hearted questions.

Your MySpace page says “Garry Ribald saved our lives”. Who on earth is Garry Ribald?

Really, who isn't Gary Ribald. He's both man and myth. He's a stimulating cocktail of calamity that is generally only visible to the naked eye as he grinds and hops his way into your personal space.

Every description I've heard of the Tom Budge Band includes the words honest and dirty. Just how honest and dirty are you guys?

Honestly? I think that the grit and truth are in the eyes and ears of the beholders. Descriptions tend to say more about the descriptors than the descriptees ... that said, we have described ourselves that way. So yeah, perhaps a whole bunch of both. We'd encourage you to come and decide for yourselves though, you music-loving, free-thinkers you.

Would you say you're more honest, or more dirty?

It can oscillate on any given day. The present forecast is a light sprinkling of incorruptible virtue with frequent trustworthy periods. Patchy recollection and isolated misdemeanours in the afternoon, becoming cloudy with a late chance of debasing one's equilibrium. A cold, dark night of the soul is expected.

What should punters at the Glamour Bar expect from your live shows (without using the words honest or dirty)?

Can we use un-honest and not-clean? Look, I must say that it's not 'dirty' in a filthy way. Let's not get carried away and imagine that the Tom Budge Band is a lecherous, wheezing collection of moral-destroying reprobates. Those two are staying in Australia.

More 'dirty' in the way that any wonderfully perfect thing has inherent glorious imperfections, like the Persian artisans who made deliberate mistakes so as not to anger their god by arrogantly attempting to create something 'perfect'. In turn, it's not 'folk' as Peter, Paul & Mary would have it. It's 'folk' that has been humiliated, stared in the face, shaken, beaten, had a long hard think about itself, and is now trying to play its song with broken fingers.

Punters can trust that their hard earned RMB 150 will be nurtured, loved, and transformed into an expansive sea of beautiful and, at times, jarring sounds, that lap and crash around the ship of Tom's meandering monologues of maudlin and magical metamorphoses.

What are you expecting from the shows?

To survive. And a reception akin to Beatle-mania, with just a handful more screaming teenagers. Really, I think it's going to be an extraordinary experience. It's a real honour to be invited to play on the other side of the world in such a fascinating and beautiful city. They're great songs to play and we have a lot of fun doing so. In Australia I don't have a grand piano, so that will be a treat. To be able to share the songs with new people, a different culture, and to see how they relate and what they glean from the music will be somewhat interesting, don't you think?

It's been bloody cold here in Shanghai lately, do you think Tom will still get his shirt off?

One comes to realise as one continues to spin ever-further around the sun that removing one's shirt in front of a crowd of strangers can be less than dignified – especially when the sartorial stakes are so high. Need I remind you it's a Glamour bar. More so, it's The Glamour Bar.

Tom has only ever taken his shirt off as a by-product of his, at times, 'enthusiastic' performance style and complete commitment to the moment. So, it's really up to the moment, not us. That said, we still orbit the sun and Tom still commits ... These are facts.

Your music makes you sound kind of angry. What really gets your goat?

China Eastern will be getting our goats and transporting them in specially made goat flight-chambers. Then a nice man at the airport will get them and bring them to our hotel room. We love our goats and refuse to tour without them.

Angry? Noooo ... Surely not.

19 & 20 November. RMB 150 including one drink. Glamour Bar, 6F, Five on the Bund,20 Guangdong Lu, near Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu. Tel: 6329 3751. Web: http://m-theglamourbar.com