A HARD ACT TO SWALLOW

Rip It Up, Issue 249, 1 May 1998, Page 10

A HARD ACT TO SWALLOW

Australian rock band the Mavis’s are named after a cat that used to regularly stroll into their

rehearsal room, shit in the has drum, then curl up and go to sleep. “One day someone decided to call us the Mavis’s for a joke, and here we are,” says lead singer, L , Matt Thomas. “In South Africa ’Mavis' means fag or pansy.” homos is seated at the boardroom table in the 1 I * Melbourne office of the Mavis's record label, 1. Mushroom. Plastered around the walls are flashy poster displays announcing the arrival of the band's second album, Pink Pills. Thomas says this reality is a long way from the band's underground beginnings. "We didn't know what a record deal was when we started." ’: k ~ The Mavis's formed in 1987, in the conservative country town of Ballarat. To be a young punk band, "playing in a climate of old guys doing covers meant being considered a freakshow," says Thomas. Two years of constant persecution in their hometown was enough, and the Mavis's shifted to Melbourne, where they appeared on several compilation albums before graduating to their own independent single and EP releases. Shortly thereafter, Thomas and his bandmates nonchalantly signed to Mushroom. "It was a natural step, it wasn't like a big deal, nothing really changed. It was a bank loan basically, we had money to record with." The Mavis's debut album, Venus Returning, didn't set the world alight, but it sparked enough interest in Oz for

Mushroom to request the band make another. The Mavis's trekked to , a remote studio near Byron Bay in northern New South Wales to record Pink Pills, and having been together a decade, the band came close to splitting up, reveals Thomas.

"We were stuck in the middle of nowhere in this rainforest environment which was really beautiful, and we suddenly had to deal with everything close up. It was very intense. There was lots of tension, it got to tears and big fights and the band almost fell apart, but we got there in the end." . Pink Pills is a jumble sale of an album. Over 12 tracks, the

Mavis's try their hand at pop, rock, soft metal, sea shanties, ballads and dub. No style is executed . particularly convincingly, and the band come across as unsure and unfocused. ' , •'‘ 1 ’ ' f'

"Some people have got that idea," says Thomas, "but never our fans, a couple of reviews have had a crack. Our response is, 'we know what we're doing.' 1 guess it's all our early influences coming out, when we were into the Buzzcocks and the Clash, and later the dubby stuff like On-U Sound."

Thomas adds that plenty of folk out there must dig the schizophrenic sound of the Mavis's, as Pink Pills entered the Australian album charts at number 12 — he just doesn't know who they are. "1 couldn't believe the album charted that high, it was quite bizarre. ] can't imagine who the people are who would swallow what we do."

It's a safe bet that any red-blooded, XXXX-drinking, Cold Chisel maniac isn't a member of the Mavis's fan club, as Thomas and the gang are partial to a touch of eyeliner and a stroke of lip gloss.

"The way we portray ourselves," he explains, "it's anti-Oz rock, but it's supposed to be slightly humorous and narcissistic. 1 think a lot of people have found us a bit confusing for a long time, but we just want to stand out. The make up and the whole glam bit, it looks a bit cute and a bit perverted, and we like to camp it up, it gives an extra depth to who we are."

Dalliances with Revlon aside, in solidarity with your typical B(F)amsey fan, Thomas harbours a deep hatred for music that goes 'doof doof doof.'

"1 can't stand techno, it's all crap. When ] think of . dance music ] think of Donna Summer. 1 dunno, maybe I'm some kind of 70s disco queen."

In the foreseeable future, however, the Mavis's ain't gonna play Sun City.

John Russell