Webcuts Music

I think one thing that has probably been forgotten in the mists of time was that you were one hell of a live band, both funny and amazing to watch, something that I felt didn’t translate well on Gram, which to me sounded like an Australian band making an American college radio record. Did you manage at all to take Gram to the Americans?

Messenger: Thanks for saying that, because the shows are something that I have no perspective on. I know sometimes it felt great, but unfortunately we could also be very moody and perhaps be a bit too honest about it: if a gig was not going the way we liked, we wouldn’t have the sense to be “showbiz” about it; we’d say, “Well, we suck tonight, don’t we folks?” I remember we did a few suburban shows with the Hummingbirds and the Falling Joys, and I was amazed to see that the Falling Joys seemed to have rehearsed their stage patter, that they told the same jokes and introduced the songs exactly the same way every night. I mentioned this to Simon Holmes from The Hummingbirds and he said, “Well, that’s what a professional band has to do.” We were much more hit-and miss, and stupidly felt that kind of thing to be too un-indie rock.

You’re probably spot on about us trying (and obviously failing) to make an American college radio album. In our defense, that wasn’t done as attempt to crack US college radio (although that would have been nice), but simply because first and foremost we were music fans, and probably just wanted to sound like our favourite records; hence the choice of producers. Maybe that was the ultimate problem: we were just playing at being a band, trying to emulate our heroes, rather than actually being a band (although we wouldn’t have been the first, and we certainly weren’t the last).

As for America itself, we accumulated a lovely big folder of rejection letters from many, many fine US labels.

Connolly: The problem with our live shows may have been consistency, particularly in terms of entertainment – some nights we would just be sullen. We were never one of those bands who were “even if there is ten people in the room you give your all” We were more like “if there are only ten people here we will punish them for turning up”. There were some gigs that were highly amusing. After a 5-week tour with Hunters & Collectors we played a show of our own at the Grosvenor in Perth. Cory had everyone in stitches and I distinctly remember being doubled over with laughter for half the show. I have met so many Perth music people who have raved to me about that show – they must have thought we were like that all the time!

Being this series is called ‘The Secret History of Australian Music’ is there anything as yet unknown about the recording of Gram or the band that you’d like to surrender?

Messenger: One thing that sticks out is that Slade and Kolderie (who, quite frankly, only took the job to get a free trip to Australia, so bless ‘em for doing a great job anyway) were constantly on the phone to the UK because they’d just produced the debut album by this new band that we’d never heard of. During one phone call, Slade shouted across to Kolderie, “Jesus! Apparently EMI want to put out “Creep” as the first single! That’s crazy!” I find it morbidly amusing that they squeezed our album in between producing Pablo Honey and Hole’s Live Through This.

Connolly: In terms of secret history, one thing I remember was that S & K had just come from the UK where they had recorded a band from Oxford with like, 5 guitarists. Yes, there was a time when we were head to head with Radiohead. And who could forget the tour where a young band called You Am I supported us – Mark Tunaley leaving the stage with a “top that” became a mainstay of our stage preparation repertoire.

Does a reunion tour beckon for the near future, or a possible reissue of Gram and the Eps?

Messenger: As David St. Hubbins once said, “We shan’t work together again.” Supposedly we were asked to reform at the beginning of this year to support Buffalo Tom, but I’m still not convinced it wasn’t a practical joke. I personally haven’t played since our final show in January 1997, so I’m not sure I would even know what to do. Pete doesn’t play anymore either, apparently. As far as I know Wayne and Leo are still at it, which means they might have reputations they wouldn’t want to sully.

Connolly: We had an offer of a show this year but Cory was busy – someday we will, when some corporation offers us 6 figures to play at their motivational retreat. You couldn’t get anything that would motivate people in their jobs more than seeing us play I wouldn’t think.

I have thought we should do a ‘best of’ since all our CD’s are out of print and it would make a really good record.

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