Hard Fast &...

Rip It Up, Issue 171, 1 October 1991, Page 16

Hard Fast &...

Forget Jimmy Barnes, forget AC/DC, the real wild men of Australian rock are on their way here, the filth gods themselves, the Hard-Ons. Formed in Sydney in 1985 when Blackie, Keish and Ray were all of 15 or so, they've left a trail of destruction in their wake ever since. These are the men who called one of their tours the 'lt's O.K. to be Mongy' tour, who profess a longing for 'westie chicks', who's first album was called Dickcheese and who produce some of the finest hard edged pop you'll ever hear anywhere in the world. On a recent stint in England bassist Ray felt some busking was in order, so with Blackie compering and explaining that "Bing Lee..' needed to return to Tibet to continue his Kung Fu studies" he tried his breathing act most succesfully : until chemical burns forced him to retire. Such tomfoolery has been contained this time around as he is being interviewed by me, and we're both trying hard to be quite serious. You guys are always touring Europe or Japan, how come you're so popular there? "We're big in Japan because we got a major record deal, they put out three of our CDs, and in Europe we've toured four times and been on major TV shows and stuff, so people know who we are. We rely on heavy touring to get us match fit for the shows. It's like cricket, some cricket players play too many one day matchs and they get burnt out for the test match, but we have to play a lot of gigs to get us match fit, to make us tight for the important gigs-" Like New Zealand, how come it's taken so long to get here?

"I don't know. It's quite ironic that we've played Europe four times and America twice but we've never been to New Zealand." It's more annoying considering your very recommended live shows. "Initially we were constantly sloppy, lots of bad gigs and a few good ones. It's like in cricket, you get a really fast bowler like Imran Khan, and early in their career they'll be really fast but sloppy most of the time, but as they mature they learn to bowl a lot more consistently with experience. It's like that with us." Uh huh. You've been developing a real pop sensibility over the last few records haven't you? "This is true. When we first started we were like a noise punk band, but we wrote all these love songs and went through a period of playing all this sixties music, and by the time our first album came out, that was influenced by a lot of Heavy Metal. It's just stages the band goes through. At the moment the songs we've got lined up are a lot more experimental heavy metal in style, so I think although the pop phase was strong on Yummy it's changing. The new stuff is more like the B side of the 'Let There Be Rock' single we did we Henry Rollins." How did that come about? "He's toured Australia twice and our manager asked if he'd like to record with us. We really liked his vocal approach. Our drummer sings and he has a more melodic style, his influences are people like Joey Ramone whereas Henry Rollins is a totally different school of singing." What about your sense of humour? It's pretty tongue in cheek. Do you ever get hassled about it? "When we first started, we did stuff like putting a picture of 3 guys in KKK outfits on a single cover, and

one was black, one was Asian and one was white, so it was actually us, and it was making fun of Nazi-ism, but we still got accused of being racist which is really dumb. In Europe the sense of humour is different to . ours down there, it's not as dry so some times it's a problem. I think now though we're well known enough for people to understand us. We've ~ never bothered trying to explain that it's all tongue in cheek though, as some things don't need explaining. It's like if a famous painter put a written thing on a painting explaining what it was, it would take something away from it." Lastly, what if a major company offered you a deal? Would you take it? "A major deal for the Hard-On's? Well, most big companies have a set way of thinking about promotion which would kill a band like the Hard-Ons who rely heavily on individual thought and a unique style of presentation, the way we play and especially our art, and we don't want restraints on what we do. We had trouble with Smell My Finger = and that's not good for the . j Hard-Ons, we have to maintain our standards. At the moment we have the best of both worlds though, as ' we're accountable to Waterfront Records who are very independent, but we're distributed by Festival who do artists like Joe Cocker and Kylie Minogue, and are like a bunch of millionaires basically. It's a good. arrangement." But seriously folks, the Hard-Ons rip totally. Yummy is a great album, and the boys will be here live and in person in early December, so check 'em out. Who knows, the fire eating may be back on the bill.

KIRK GEE