HOUSES in commotion

Rip It Up, Issue 76, 1 November 1983, Page 4

HOUSES in commotion

Mark Everton

The most important thing you can do is to play powerful music live.. I'd imagine we get more pleasure playing music than most studio bands. There's not much pleasure in going into a studio and making music for sale on the radio.''

Mark Seymour, the intensely expansive lead singer with Hunters and Collectors, speaks for a band from Melbourne, Australia. "Our band, the way it functions and its

history, is a symbol of Australia. We would reflect the darker side of our culture. The songs are dark, paranoic, malevolent, absurd, funny, but the 'sound' is a combination of a series of events and personalities." Combination is a good word for Hunters and Collectors.

"We're more than just a band, in the sense of being a discrete unit existing separate from the world. Our eight members come from completely different backgrounds. And now, like our bass player and percussionist would never go to the same parties. But we come together professionally and it's a real community. It's obvious the people have gone to a big effort to make it work. We are an ensemble, orchestrated together. We all may have totally different attitudes and approaches to the music but that's OK as long as the end product works." Contradiction is another useful word. "The basic idea underlying the songs is a strange kind of insanity that goes with travelling round a country like Australia to play music to

people who're only half interested. We try to stimulate their imagination the whole time and picking up on the feeling of travelling so far has always been a major influence. We usually drive wherever we go. On the other hand there's a whole range of other mechanisms involved in how we came together and how the music was written, that has nothing to do with that."

Confusion. "The band is built around the bass and drum sound, an extremely big bottom-end sound. As the band's evolved that's become more and more refined. Now we're more part of our PA. I think there's more soul influence in it now than funk, just purely in terms of textures. It's heavier than the last time we were here, really bottom-end ... it's like ... ah ... I don't know ... it's hard to say ..." A combination of contradiction and confusion. Well 1 might have expected that. I’ve got all their records.

During an interview on Campus Radio, Mark Seymour claims one of the most important cultural things to happen in Australia took place this year when an outback trucker drove his huge rig into a crowded bar at Alice Springs. "That was really strange, really psychotic and the fact it got so much media is an indication of what the public imagination is like in Australia. It's the same with that dingo business." The band end both nights in Auckland with a new song about lonely life in outback towns. It opens with a bush poem called 'Jaws of Life'. Seymour says he'd like to dedicate the next album to the bar room victims, but doubts whether they could get away with it. Hunters and Collectors are Australian, unique and indigenous. Surely they stand to become enshined during the on-going wave of rampant nationalism across the Tasman? Drummer Doug Falconer is here.

"No. We don't have the 'formula'. We're not seen as an Australian band in the way Chisel or the Oil are. We don't get played on the radio except the student stations, the alternative FMs. But the way we started in Melbourne was that the industry had to be confronted on every level. We don't operate on the principle that it's simply a question of making money." Are other bands trying to match your sound? "Definitely not. After the first year we could see some bands using devices we had. But we haven't made if in England and now what we do musically doesn't have much kudos with musicians at home. The success of The Birthday

Party has had a really big influence; their style has instantly become credible. But we've got more credibility with straight people than with artists. We attract workers, students, suburban unemployed; the audience is more diverse than trendy." Mark Seymour: "We respond really badly to an audience not interested in having a good time. We've got to know something is there. We've had some incredibly bad gigs recently in Australia. We walked off the stage the other week and the audience was silent." He is shocked. I am shocked. So are 1500 people who in total jam-packed the Gluepot for two electrifying nights running. The hundreds turned away are still pissed off. Hunters and Collectors leave Auckland for the United States for a first look round. They aim to make the trip an improvement on their English experience. "We had some good dates in London," says Mark. "You know, with Australia being flavour of the month like. But it's a depressing country. People can't afford to go to gigs and those who can, can't afford to drink. At first we got optimistic reviews and people thought we were rather cute and quaint and odd. But when they realised we meant business and were trying to do something constructive musically, they decided we were a bit eccentric and proceeded to ignore us. It was a good experience though, it's toughened us up, seeing how the music industry operates internationally, the way musicians are manipulated. "In England now all the music is created by the producer in the studio. Live music is an anachronism, bands will only tour if they know they'll make money. Record companies lend you money expecting you'll pay them back with a number one record. To my way of thinking that's exactly the opposite of how music should come about, how things should happen." A sobered Hunters and Collectors left England and drove to West Germany, to the studio of Conny Plank a top-name producer behind work from Eno, Ultravox, Kraftwerk and many heavy metal acts. According to Mark Seymour he's an anarchist. "We got approached by Conny who'd heard our record and decided we'd probably be pretty good live. He really likes heavy bass. He's a creative producer in that he listens to the whole band and mixes the sound as a complete thing. Conny wanted to record us as live as possible. The production on the album is great, it's the songs that make it less accessible than say Payload. I think history will distill the meaning of the album but The Firemen's Curse is not the definitive record we were hoping to make. We'll have to do it all again." Challenging. Circumspect. Uncompromising. This band does match its music. Doug Falconer: "It's a matter of making every physical move you make in the studio relevant to your overall conception of what the record should be. It's very easy to lose track of that in the studio, it's such a dumb environment, no real reason for existence. When we made Firemen's Curse we were questioning our raison d'etre and that put a mood into the whole album. There's lots of tensions, it's confused. I think as a whole it doesn't create a complete idea of what Hunters and Collectors are. That is yet to happen." After the States the band will return to West Germany and work again with Conny Plank on putting down that definitive record. Typically they say it will be a statement about Australia, a complete statement. Hunters and Collectors go for broke, go for the throat, keep chipping away at that collective chaos they choose to identify with. They remain a committed live band. A barrage of big, solicTsound. Underneath the members reflect the diversity, providing their own reasons for propelling the band further forward.

Doug Falconer: "It's an absurd situation. We know the drive is there. But we couldn't put our finger on it or where it comes from. We're as much victims of it as anyone else." Complete?