Lime
Spiders
This article originally appeared in NFH #16 in
the spring of 1989.
I had hoped I was
going to have this article in the last Noise For Heroes...the folks at Caroline had
promised to set up a phone call to the band in Australia, but it never came off, which
didn't surprise me...after all, who'd want to pay for an overseas call for a band that's
getting as big as the Lime Spiders for a small time magazine like NFH?
But now I am
surprised, because when Caroline got #15 and didn't see a Lime Spiders article, they got
right back to me to find out what was going on, and in two days I found myself hustling
home from work early to call collect to Richard Lawson, the drummer for the band, just as
he was waking up after a late night in Melbourne, where the band is currently playing as
part of a tour of the homeland.
I’d seen the
Lime Spiders at a show in San Juan Capistrano, an upper class beach town that’s 60
miles north of San Diego in October of 1987 when they were supporting their lp, The
Cave Comes Alive. It was a weird show...the Spiders venture into the very heart of
yuppie-dom on earth billed as the opening act for the Silencers, that watered-down
times 25 version of U2 formed from the remnants of the fairly watery-to-begin-with
band Fingerprintz. When I arrived, the Silencers were already playing, and they
were as awful as I might have anticipated, knowing their background. And then I went into
the head between sets and all these clean scrubbed Laguna Beach types are going
"God they were so great! I can't believe what a great show they put on!"
My reaction was, please Gorby, push the button now! I don't mind dying if it sets
the world free of people like these.
Anyway, the Limies
came on and in about three songs they just about emptied the club. Sign of a great
band, that, regardless of what they sound like. Me and my friends loved it...from
the opening "Out Of Control" through just about the whole of their lp the
Lime Spiders were a powerhouse. Drums, bass and guitar couldn't have been better as
all three were just amazing. Mick Blood's vocals aren't as strong live as on the
record...he tends to pour on the gravel right through everything instead of backing
off and saving the really raw voice for emphasis on the key parts, but beyond this
I had no complaints. The highlights were "Just One Solution",
"NSU", "Ignormy" and "Theory of Thira" from my viewpoint,
but I'm biased towards the ones with the cool drum parts, and all of us there thought
it was all great. To top it off they gave out a free green vinyl single with 4 live
tracks on it.
Anyway, to set the
stage, a little history is in order. The central figure of the Lime Spiders is lead
vocalist Mick Blood. Blood formed the band with Darryl Mather in the western suburbs of
Sydney. The band’s name comes from a tropical drink that can be had at bars down
under. Mather later made his name as a power pop maven working with ex-Stems frontman Dom
Mariani in the Someloves, but early on he and Mick were heavily into 60s punk bands...all
that Pebbles stuff, the Sonics, the Chocolate Watchband, and bands like that. Locally they
were big fans of the Lonely Hearts, who were a more poppy band from the early 80s in
Sydney and had two singles on Waterfront. Blood had seen Radio Birdman a couple times, but
he was much more impressed by the band Rob Younger fronted before Radio Birdman...the
Other Side. Blood felt these guys were the wildest band he’d ever seen in Australia.
The first Lime
Spiders gig was in 1979 (Mick played guitar!), but it was two more years before they would
play another, and by this time the line-up had changed substantially. Especially key to
the reborn band was guitar player Richard Jakimyszyn, a man whose name appears on credits
of all kinds of mid-80s Oz records by bands like the Celibate Rifles, Hitmen and New
Christs. The Lime Spiders soon began to make an impression in the center city with their
wild covers of classic 60s punk hits in openers for the Sunnyboys, Hoodoo Gurus and
Scientists. They split up again in early 1982, but later that year, Darryl suggested they
get back together to try to record a single. There was a "battle of the bands"
competition at the Sydney Trade Union club with the winner getting money to record a
single, and Darryl suggested they go for it. The competition lasted for 3 weeks and
included 64 bands...the Lime Spiders got into the competition only at the last minute, and
in the end they won the prize, knocking out a band called the Most for the honor in the
final round.
The result of the
single session was the classic double 45 they released in 1983 on Green Records, a
substantial Aussie independent of the early 80s. The package includes 4 tracks: "25th
Hour" by Mather, "Can’t Wait Long" by Jakimyszyn, "1-2-5" by
60s punk band The Haunted, and another nugget called "That’s How It Will
Be". The band approached Rob Younger to produce, and Alan Thorne engineered. The
result is the rawest and most obviously 60s influenced record the Lime Spiders have done,
and one that many people regard as their best. An interesting and little known fact is
that ex-Radio Birdman Warwick Gilbert sat in on bass for these sessions because the
band’s actual bass player, Dave Guest, didn’t feel confident enough in his
playing and suggested that they find someone more capable to record with. The keyboards on
the record were also a guest appearance, by Bruce Tatham, who later played with Decline Of
The Reptiles and also can be heard on the first Celibate Rifles album.
After the single, the
band fell apart again in what was to become a commonplace situation...Jakimyszyn
couldn’t seem to make up his mind whether to commit to the band or not and repeatedly
would step out, only to join up again a few months later. When he came back in June of
1983, the band had to be reconstructed, and this time it was with drummer Richard Lawson
and bassist Tony Bambach, who passed a tryout by playing the Dead Boys "Ain’t
Nothin’ To Do". In one of those weird quirks of the music business, Bambach and
Lawson had both played with the Most, the band that the Spiders had cashiered in the
battle of the bands in 1982. Bambach was selected over Colin Barwick, who had played in
Brisbane band The End and later played with Died Pretty.
After 6 months of
gigging the band took another break and Jakimyszyn went to play for a while with the
Celibate Rifles. He returned in March as the Lime Spiders went to the studio to record
their second single, "Slave Girl" with "Beyond The Fringe". The eighth
single released by Citadel Records, "Slave Girl" was the number one indie single
in Australia for 1984 with over 5,000 copies sold...a staggering quantity for a country
with such a small population. The single A side features a simple, brutal riff played over
and over until the listener is completely overpowered, and with Mick’s
throat-demolishing vocal on top of it, the result is about as barbaric as anyone could ask
for. The flip is more uptempo and also excellent, though certainly not the signature piece
that "Slave Girl" is.
After the single came
out, the band added guitarist Gerard Corbin, also formerly of the Most. The addition of
Corbin to complement Jakimyszyn gave the Lime Spiders one of the toughest twin guitar
sounds since Radio Birdman, and their popularity rose dramatically on the strength of the
band’s improved playing and the notoriety provided by "Slave Girl". This in
turn led to the overseas release of a 12" mini-lp that compiled all 6 of their
recorded songs under the "Slave Girl" title. This release seemed to break open
the floodgates of international underground acceptance, and articles about the band began
to appear in hip fanzines worldwide. The Lime Spiders were becoming a big name in indie
circles.
In January of 1985,
Jakimyszyn left once again to do a tour with the Hitmen, and this time the band decided to
plug on without him. As a four piece they recorded the single "Out Of Control"
with "Save My Soul" on the flip, and again it was released on Citadel. The band
switched back to the Younger/Thorne production/engineering team for this single, and the
result is the hardest and nastiest sounding song they ever recorded. "Out Of
Control" drops the 60s punk feel and goes right for the throat with a production that
sounds closer to New Christs - like Detroit metal than anything else. Fans of the band who
were attracted by the garage style of the first two singles were put off by the change,
and there were a number of so-so reviews, but for this writer’s tastes the resulting
single is the masterpiece of the Lime Spider’s collection and one of the 10 best
singles ever released in Australia.
The Lime Spiders had
a couple months of gigs as a four piece and then Mick decided to take some time off and go
traveling to Europe. He had tickets all booked and was just about to leave when the band
got an offer to do a single for the movie "Young Einstein". The movie’s
producers wanted "Slave Girl", but the song’s rights were already assigned
internationally and there was no way to undo the deals. So the producers asked if the band
could come up with a song that matched the feel of "Slave Girl". The result was
"Weirdo Libido", which didn’t come out until early 1987 as Blood went off
on his vacation anyway. The movie was held up for even longer, so their lateness
didn’t much matter, and when the movie did come out, it stiffed rather badly (albeit
deservedly). As for the song, it was the first Lime Spiders single not to attain a new
height...as a copy of the feel of an earlier song, it’s hard to see how it could have
much chance of artistic success, and it rates at best pretty good. This single came out on
Virgin as the band were now signed to a major label, which provided them funds for
overseas touring and much more recording.
While on his
vacation, Blood toured around the UK and Europe and spent lots of time going to gigs,
doing fanzine reviews and guest singing with Swedish band the Pushtwangers (for a single
release) and with a Greek group called the Last Drive. His time in Europe seemed to
provide the band with a promotional boost even though the group was inactive, and when he
returned to Australia expectations for the Lime Spiders were at their highest ever. The
band then returned to the studio for their first full length lp, The Cave Comes Alive!
which was released in late 1987. The album was another jolt to people who loved the group
for their garage sound. It’s a great record, but it’s not a great garage
record...the band heads into a pop/rock sort of vein with Mick’s vocal mellowing out
quite a bit. Clearly the wholesale change of the instrumental backing since the first
single made for a major upheaval in the direction of things. But for those who listen
without preconceptions, the whole of side one of the lp is just outstanding as it moves
from one potential hit to another. The second side isn’t as strong, but overall
it’s a hell of a fine record.
This brings us pretty
much up to date; their batch of great singles are getting hard to find but can be heard on
a new compilation lp called Headcleaner that has all of those great early tracks
and loads of b-sides and other non-lp stuff. And it isn't a bunch of naff leftovers...some
of their best tracks are on this record, so if you haven't heard 'em, go for it!
The lineup now
consists of singer Mick Blood, drummer/backup singer Richard Lawson, Gerard Corben and
Mark Wilkinson on guitar, and Phil Hall on bass. Blood has been the one constant in the
band, although Lawson and Corben have now both been in the Lime Spiders long enough to
claim tenure. Wilkinson and Hall are new, and Tony Bambach, who'd played bass for several
years, is no longer with the band.
After some
preliminary remarks about who's paying for the call and who the hell I am and all that,
Richard Lawson and I got down to talking about the band:
NFH: So you're
in the middle of touring in Melbourne now?
Richard: Yeah,
that's right, all the unies and colleges.
NFH: Tell me
about the tour some...I haven't heard anything about the band since you were in the US
about a year ago.
Richard: We
got back and recorded Volatile last year, and then we started touring for that. We
couldn't get back to America because of the change of record companies and we went to
Europe instead. So when we got back from Europe, we took some time off because we lost our
bass player and rhythm guitarist. And now we're just starting up again. Basically we've
been playing since December. We've been writing songs for the next album, actually; we've
got about 20 new songs.
NFH: What was
the story with Mike Couvret joining and leaving? That seemed to be a real quick
thing...seemed like he was in one minute and out the next.
Richard: Yeah,
he was astrologically unsound.
NFH: I guess I
can understand that. So you're back to one guitar now?
Richard: No,
we've got two guitars. We've got Mark Wilkinson from a Brisbane group called the Girlies,
and Phil Hall from an Australian band called the Drop Bears.
NFH: How did
you meet up with them?
Richard: We
knew the Girlies from Brisbane...we'd seen them up there. Mick basically was on holiday up
in Brisbane and he went and saw the Girlies a few times and managed to speak to him, and
he jumped at the chance. And Phil we'd tried out on guitar when we were trying out for
guitarists when we got Michael Couvret, but he's a better bass player than he is a
guitarist.
NFH: What was
the story behind the record company switch in the US?
Richard: I
think Virgin were just going through a bit of funk and stuff like that in America; they're
too excited with their Stevie Winwood and Kool and the Gang and all that.
NFH: But isn't
there an arrangement where Virgin records are sold through Caroline?
Richard: Yeah,
but Caroline is just an independent branch of Virgin. We're trying to get signed up to
some other company actually, but they wouldn't really have us because of the situation
with Virgin in Australia because Virgin in Australia own our rights. So at the end of this
album we should be able to sign up with maybe somebody bigger, hopefully.
NFH: Does it
kind of hurt you with Caroline since they're pretty small?
Richard: No,
not really. They seem to be doing a good job over there. We'll be coming over hopefully in
April and so we might be able to get a better deal happening around that time. We did have
Enigma and people like that interested, but they didn't want to go into it because someone
in Australia already owned our rights.
NFH: Caroline
seems to have done all right...I've seen the video from the new lp on MTV, and I didn't
see any of the others from before Volatile.
Richard: There
are two..."Just One Solution" was on MTV a bit when we were over there. And we
did one interview with the Cutting Edge, and also some stuff on "120 Minutes".
NFH: Rob
Younger said he was really disappointed that the Lime Spiders early singles couldn't be
used for Citadel's Take Everything, Leave Nothing compilation. How come that turned
out that way?
Richard:
That's because we'd signed our back catalogue to Virgin at that time, and they wanted to
put it out, all our early stuff. They've got the rights to that in Australia, so it never
saw the light of day with Citadel, but it's all on an album in Australia which is called Headcleaner.
It came out as a cassette last year, and it's just come out as an album. Hopefully we'll
be able to line up releases for that so they see the light of day fairly soon in America.
But it wasn't on Citadel because we'd been offered a fair bit of money from Virgin.
NFH: Where'd
the idea for the Headcleaner cassette package come from? (It's a strange, pop-open
case that takes a degree in mechanical engineering to get the cassette out of.)
Richard: It
just came up in a meeting with Virgin, just sort of off the top of our heads...the first
idea that came into people's heads. It's a Hong Kong invention...one of those record
company things.
NFH: The Lime
Spiders seem to pay pretty close attention to music around that world. So where are things
most happening in your opinion? What bands do you like?
Richard: Well,
having been overseas, we've got a good idea what's actually happening. In England we
really like the Godfathers, and there wasn't really much else there. There's a few bands,
but they all seem more involved with their image than their music. Then in America we're
REM and Smithereens fans. Then there's all the bands we've always stated that we liked in
interviews, our influences and stuff. And also we just had Iggy out in Australia, which
was fantastic...we supported him when he was over here, and we've all got right into the Instinct
album at the moment. And we're all into heaps of different stuff ourselves. I'd be going
on forever if I was to tell you about who we're really into. But those bands that I
mentioned before are what I'm really into as far as live goes.
NFH: Are you
into many of the Swedish rock bands? We've seen the single with the Pushtwangers and
Mick...
Richard: Yeah,
Pushtwangers. We actually linked up with them while we were in Sweden and took the
guitarist around with us to Bergen and stuff like that. And there's a few other bands in
Sweden which I can't remember the name of.
NFH: It seems
like a few years ago much of the independent Aussie scene was more conventional rock and
roll, like the Spiders, Celibate Rifles or New Christs, but there's more variety now. What
do you think about the evolution of noise bands like Lubricated Goat, King Snake Roost or
Thug?
Richard: Well,
that's in the thrash sort of scene, that sort of started with the Scientists and the
Birthday Party in Australia. A sort of dirgy sort of thing, like going to hell and all
that. We don't really pay much attention to that because it's not really uplifting at all;
it just sort of breaks down everything. We like the spirit of it, but we don't get off on
the music very much. The image and the attitude is great. Lubricated Goat recently played
a TV show in Sydney, and they appeared naked on it. And they got on the front page of the
papers.
NFH: Like
"The Filth And The Fury" with the Sex Pistols...
Richard: Yeah,
it certainly had the same sort of effect.
NFH: Do you
think the Australian scene is pretty healthy right now, or do you think it's dying down?
Richard: I
think it's starting to die down a bit actually. I think we just had a few good years, from
1980 to 1987 or 88 or whatever. But the scene is dying down a bit because there are not
enough venues to play anymore. Bands in Australia tend to go around in circles; they can't
get out of Australia so they end up breaking up a bit. But the bigger bands like us and
other bands that can get overseas, they're the ones that are going to survive. But there's
just a downturn in the industry, really.
NFH: Damien
Lovelock said in B-Side that he feels that the Celibate Rifles weren't even big enough to
break out and tour Australia, and he made it sound like the Lime Spiders were the only
band in the last several years that wasn't blatantly commercial who had made it to that
level.
Richard: Yeah,
we've always had a fairly strong work attitude in our band. We've always wanted to try to
do the best we could and get overseas and being signed to a major record company was the
biggest help we could get, whereas the Celibates aren't actually signed to a major
company. We were able to get things like tour support and help to get overseas both times,
and other bands who aren't signed to majors just can't. The Celibates have a fairly
relaxed attitude to what they do, and it's not really the sort of thing that we do; we
tend to take our music and our career in music fairly seriously. Those guys have all got
jobs, whereas we sort of do it day to day. It's our career; it's what we make our money
out of. If you're making the money out of it then you really have to start getting into
it.
NFH: But
there's kind of a hump you have to get over before you can really say "I can afford
to spend all my time on the band and not work". And it seems like crossing that
threshold is really hard.
Richard: Well,
we've certainly crossed it. There's only been two periods in the last two years, for about
two months each, where we haven't been able to pay ourselves, and that's because we've
been off the road. You have to go out on the road and slog it out to keep going. And as I
said, that barrier is the major record company.
NFH: Do you
compare your progress to some of the other bands around, like the Tribesmen, or Died
Pretty?
Richard: Oh,
yeah, definitely. Bands are always comparing themselves to each other. The Screaming
Tribesmen are really hard workers. They were just over in America and they're not even
signed to a major record company. They got some money probably out of Rykodisc to help
them on their tour. But they've got a good attitude to how they work. They're good
players.
NFH: So what
about the material for the new record?
Richard: Yeah,
we've just been in rehearsal studios, and we've come up with about 20 new songs, and we're
hopefully going to go and demo them next week. When we come over to America in April,
hopefully we'll be going to speak to a few record companies about it in New York?
NFH: How do
you decide which songs out of the 20 will make it on the album?
Richard: We've
got no idea, really. There's a few songs that are really strong, but there's no real idea
yet as to what form the album will take, although there's a few full on songs that are
ready. Like there's three that would easily be as full on as Volatile, "Can't
Hear You Anymore" or "The Captor". It's still going to be basically the
same sort of mix as Volatile but probably a bit more cohesive a la The Cave
Comes Alive; more of a theme to it. And the songs are a bit stronger I think, as well.
(There's a lot of racket in the background as others start to get up...) We had a rather
big night last night. We were at a pizza bar till about 4:00 in the morning.
NFH: I liked
your tour diary in the Bob...it seemed pretty honest.
Richard: Yeah,
I tend to probably get a bit too honest. I hope I didn't offend too many people. I think I
offended some of our groupies in Los Angeles; they wrote some letters to some of the other
guys in the band and said "Who IS this guy? I've never been so insulted in my
life."
NFH: I'm
always interested to hear the viewpoint of travelers from outside the US who come here,
because people here are so wrapped up in themselves and they don't pay much attention to
either the outside world or what the outside world thinks of them.
Richard: I did
notice that in America, but having been in America and worked around there, and then
comparing it with Europe...Europe's so fragmented in that there's like 50 million people
in each country, but in America there's like 300 million and they're all united in their
vision, so it tends to have a bit more of an effect on you when you're going through the
country. When you go through Europe, there's so many different cultures. It really had
quite a big effect on me.
The party's waking up
around me, and everyone is still pissed. We went drinking last night with the guitarist in
the New Christs. He's playing in a band down in Melbourne at the moment which is called
Catfish. I don't know if you've ever heard of Cold Chisel, quite a big Australian band,
and their keyboard player and songwriter is in this band. So we were raving on with him
about various things in New Christs and Cold Chisel and what not.
NFH: Have New
Christs put their album out yet?
Richard: No
they've just recorded it. He was telling us they've got 9 songs, and they went a bit
longer than they expected, because they started to jam out a fair bit on the album. It
sounds like it should be a good album. Rob's producing it at the moment, just doing the
mixing and stuff like that in the studio. They spent a lot of time on their last two
singles, and they both sounded really good, so I think this album should be quite good.
NFH: How did
you ever manage to get paired with the Silencers when you played here?
Richard: We
were wondering about that too. That was just a marriage of convenience, you know. They had
two bands which they had to get some work for and they just put them together. The
Silencers weren't on Virgin; they just happened to be in California at the same time as we
were. It didn't really work that well. I think it affected them more than it affected us.
When we get put with a soft band then we tend to show them up a bit. Like last night we
played with Ed Kuepper and the Yard Goes On Forever, and they played before us, and the
crowd was sort of standing and nodding off; falling asleep. And then we came on and they
just went berserk. We've quite a big gig that we're doing tonight at one of the unies down
in Melbourne with us and Ed Kuepper and the Ups and Downs and James Griffin, which should
be quite good.
NFH: How many
shows do you play in an area like Melbourne when you do a tour?
Richard:
Usually five in a week. We came into Melbourne over Christmas, and we're into February
now. You can go around to all the major cities in Australia probably about three, maybe
four times a year, and that's about all, so you're only touring for about a month or a
month and a half at any stretch, unless you go overseas, which is what I was coming back
to before about bands just going round and round in circles in Australia. Unless they have
some mainstream success, then there's really not much reason to go on with it.
NFH: Do you
feel like people overseas are paying a lot more attention to Australian bands now?
Richard: Yeah,
definitely. There's been sort of a succession now, with Little River Band, they were an
early one, but we won't compare them with us. And then later we've had AC/DC and now last
year at one stage there was seven Australian bands that had singles on the Billboard top
100. I think it's a matter that Australian bands now are being recognized as world class.
NFH: Well I
was thinking more in terms of the independents, like the bands on Waterfront, Aberrant,
Citadel and Greasy Pop...
Richard: Well,
it's our attitude to rock over here...there's more passion and more commitment. We have
things hard here, so you tend to have to work harder to get above the heap. And also just
the fact that we're influenced by England and American music, so we've got this sort of
English style of the sixties and the beat groups, that are quite a big influence in
Australia, like the Who and the Yardbirds and the Pretty Things. And then there's quite a
big American influence as far as the psychedelic punk bands went, and also the heavy metal
bands of both England and America. So it's sort of like a melting pot. And I think that's
why we tend to come out a bit ahead, because we're so insulated and we tend to develop on
our own, but with help from listening to all these American and English records. So now
we're giving our own back to America! Our own sort of interpretation of what American
bands have been influencing. Like the influence that Iggy and the Stooges and the MC5 in
Sydney alone has had is just...unless you've lived here you wouldn't have seen it, but
it's been over ten years and people still walk around in Stooges, Radio Birdman and MC5
T-shirts. They've had such a big influence on music in Sydney.
NFH: I've
never been anywhere that had as many clubs and bands as I saw in Sydney when I was
there...would you say it's the most active place for music you've ever been?
Richard: Yeah,
that'd be about right, I think. Even in Los Angeles there's only about 3 clubs where you
could go to see bands, whereas in Sydney on any given night there's about ten little pubs
where a good band will be playing, and then there's three bigger clubs where the bigger,
better bands will be playing. So there's definitely a lot of scope in Sydney and quite a
healthy scene. While as I said it's just starting to die down a little bit now, we've
always had a big influx from Adelaide and Brisbane as far as good bands go. Like there's a
Brisbane guy in our band now, and another band will have people from Brisbane, Adelaide
and Perth in it.
NFH: Sydney
seems like the big magnet for all the bands...everybody wants to get to play Sydney...
Richard: Yeah,
it's the big apple as far as Australia goes. Like we're down in Melbourne now, and
Melbourne's almost as big as Sydney, but Melbourne is in its own little world as far as
rock goes. They tend to look up to Sydney in terms of rock; it's more of a dance/funk sort
of scene down here.
NFH: I was
interested in the version of "Sparks" you did on the flip of
"Jessica"...
Richard: Well
we did a session of old covers; old Who songs and things like that...the Blue Cheer
version of "Summertime Blues" and a few Velvet Underground songs and a few
Motorhead songs. And "Sparks" was just something that we wanted to do all the
time. It took us a long time to get together because there's so much guitar and drum
interplay...we only finally started to get it together around the time of that recording
actually, which was just before we headed over to America on our first tour. So it ended
coming into the Spiders set just as a bit of an encore. It's the only instrumental we've
ever done, which is quite interesting.
NFH: Is that
the sort of stuff you played in Adolphus? (Adolphus is the band that had Richard, Gerard
Corben and Tony Bambach in it while Mick Blood was traveling in Europe.)
Richard: We
played heavy metal, some Velvet Underground, and that's where we got the idea to do
"I Heard You Call My Name" which is on the b-side of "My Favourite
Room", and some Motorhead songs; sort of more heavy metal-lish basically than the
Spiders, less of a psychedelic tinge to it than the Spiders have. Just a bit more full on
really. That's when I was doing the vocals, so it was quite funny. My voice would be
breaking and things like that, so we'd end up just jamming out. A lot of people compared
us to the Cream actually, when we were doing that sort of stuff.
NFH: There was
just three of you in that band?
Richard: Yeah,
just three of us. It was great fun because we could just concentrate on the music and have
a good time. And we could just play what we wanted.
NFH:
"Sparks" is just one of the all time great drum work-out songs, I think. Keith
Moon has so many good drum bits to learn from.
Richard: Oh,
yeah. I'm totally wrecked after doing that song. A certain drummer in Australia that's
influenced me; Rob Hirst from Midnight Oil. Their early albums you should try to get a
hold of. Their first and second albums are simply titled Midnight Oil and Head
Injuries, and the drumming on those albums is just unbelievable. I've spoken to him,
and he's just a Keith Moon freak, and so am I...Keith Moon and John Bonham. You get the
madness of Keith Moon and just the hard hitting precision of John Bonham.
NFH: I thought
Hirst was a lot of fun to watch when I saw Midnight Oil here...
Richard: He
was even better ten years ago. You can't imagine...he was just manic then. But I'm a
little bit more interested in song writing at the moment. I managed to get a song or two
on the last album, and I've got about three or four songs contributed towards these demos.
That's what my main goal is, to end up being a songwriter, basically. There's just not
much scope after a while for a drummer. And I do the main backup vocals, which I've always
done with this band.
NFH: Is that
hard for you to do while you're playing?
Richard: Oh,
no, not really, it comes naturally for me. I've always enjoyed singing, and it was just
natural for me. It's just the breathing I think, having lots of breath. I've always been
full of hot wind, so it doesn't matter.
NFH: So what
solid plans are there?
Richard: Well,
we've started to get a tour together for April/May starting off on the west coast in San
Francisco and Los Angeles, so hopefully that should be able to come off (as it turns
out, it got to the point of shows being advertised, but the tour was canceled - Steve).
But as I've said, we're in between record companies at the moment, so it's hard to get
tour support. We're going to be searching for a deal in America. We're recording our demos
now, and it depends on what happens over the next few months as to what record company
we'll go to, and then we'll record the album in the winter, our winter, like June/July,
hopefully with an American producer. We're chucking around a few American names at the
moment like Bill Laswell, who did Instinct and PIL the album, and Ed
Stasium...I think you know what Ed Stasium has done, and Vic Maile, who did the Godfathers
in England, we're trying to get on to some of those guys. And we've even tried to speak to
Iggy Pop and see whether he wanted to produce us. That would be quite interesting.
