Rock Chicks

by Alison Stieven-Taylor

  When Baton Rouge died a natural death, Chrissy and Jeremy Paul toyed with putting a new line-up together. Henk Johannes, a former castmate from Let My People Come, joined along with rhythm guitarist Bjarne Ohlin, McEntee and drummer Richard Harvey. It wasn’t long before Johannes, who fancied himself as lead singer, was out of the picture. The band, named Divinyls, recorded their first demo.

  While they waited for WEA to make a decision about the demo, they worked on their live act. Divinyls took up residency at the Piccadilly Hotel near Kings Cross, where they played to hardcore rock fans who threw beer cans and other projectiles on stage. Chrissy learned to give as good as she got, the verbal and physical assaults bouncing off as if she were encased in a forcefield of energy. At one of these gigs film director Ken Cameron saw Chrissy in action and cast her in his film Monkey Grip as a rock chick. Around the same time WEA signed the band. It was 1981.

  she was the rock queen and woe betide anyone who thought they were worthy of the royal attention. She was monstrously intimidating and incredibly fantastic

  The soundtrack of Monkey Grip lifted Divinyls from Sydney pub band to a national act. It featured a number of Divinyls songs, which were released as an EP. The single ‘Boys in Town’ became a hit on radio. Reviewers couldn’t find enough adjectives to describe Chrissy’s vocals. Her natural vibrato was twisted into something that sounded at times like Lena Lovich in its frantic rise and fall, laced with an aggressive, seething rock inflection. Prickly, feral, angry, volatile and demanding, her voice was an extension of her personality, leaving no doubt she was in control. She came across as a bossy bitch—and that was pretty much on the mark.

  Chrissy’s powerful personality caused rifts within the band. By the end of 1981 Jeremy Paul was gone after trying to overthrow her. Rick Grossman, a mate of McEntee’s, took his place. Chrissy had now won Divinyls wouldn’t exist without her.

  her trademark squat, which led to rumours she peed on stage, added to her image as the wild woman of rock

  As the Monkey Grip EP took off, the music industry started to take notice. Divinyls became part of the Dirty Pool stable, which included all the major acts of the time. Divinyls was booked as support to Cold Chisel, the Angels and Icehouse. In 1982 they supported Simple Minds on a national tour and Chrissy was nominated for an Australian Film Institute (AFI) award for best supporting actress for Monkey Grip.

  That first EP featured some of the best material Chrissy and McEntee wrote—‘Elsie’, ‘Only Lonely’ and ‘Boys in Town’ are all classic Divinyls material. In a natural al transition, their relationship evolved and McEntee, who was still married, d, left his wife for Chrissy.

  She was fast gaining a reputation for being wild, uncontrollable and hardnosed, a persona she channelled into her on-stage routine and one that was fuelled by the band’s escalating drug and alcohol consumption. She wore a gymfrock, suspenders and high heels, a costume invented by Chrissy and the band’s manager, Vince Lovegrove. Often she brandished a blue neon tube from the ‘Boys in Town’ video clip like a sword, swiping at the audience and band members as she raged around the stage. Frantically caught up in the music, at times she would leap on McEntee’s back mid-song—like an animal in heat. Her trademark squat, which led to rumours she peed on stage, added to her growing image as the wild woman of rock.

  she was playing diva 24/7. She was rude, crude and impatient, and revelled in her notoriety

  Long before Courtney Love, Chrissy was stage-diving into the audience, the frenzied crowd obediently passing her around before returning her to the stage unharmed. She was scary. Divinyls’ live gigs rocked like no other. Often there were brawls in the crowd and bottles and cans thrown on stage. Chrissy read them the riot act, abusing them and at the same time egging them on. She was addictive.

  they hard-toured for weeks on end ... it was rock’n’roll at its dirty best and Divinyls were one of the hottest live tickets

  The live music culture in pubs was at its zenith. Divinyls were essentially a pub band and they hard-toured for weeks on end up and down the east coast of Australia. It was rock’n’roll at its dirty best and Divinyls were one of the hottest live tickets.

  Chrissy’s ego paralleled the band’s growing success. There was no downtime between the on-stage and the at-home woman—she was playing diva 24/7. Her volatile relationship with McEntee, growing dependency on alcohol and the never-ending pills and powder on tour continued to feed her ego. She was rude, crude and impatient, and revelled in her notoriety.

  In 1982 the band signed to Chrysalis and later that year they flew to New York to start work on their first album, Desperate. Bob Clearmountain was in the producer’s seat along with Mark Optiz, who had worked with the band on their EP. The singles from the album included a raucous cover version of the Easybeats’ hit, ‘I’ll Make You Happy’, which Chrissy made her own, ‘Science Fiction’ and a new recording of ‘Elsie’. The album reached number three on the Australian charts. It received positive reviews in the USA and Divinyls set off on a North American tour.

  That year Australian artists were taking the US by storm. Men at Work and INXS had songs in the charts and Olivia Newton-John opened Koala Blue in LA. Chrissy blew the American audience away with her wild on-stage antics.

  The band played legendary venues like CBGB in New York, the stage Debbie Harry owned in 1975. It was a powerful moment. Later that year Divinyls joined the New Zealand leg of the Dire Straits world tour before touring the US with Psychedelic Furs. The highlight of the year was the massive US Festival where they played in front of 200,000 concertgoers, along with Bowie, the Pretenders, the Clash, U2, INXS and Men At Work.

  Divinyls and Chrissy Amphlett had arrived.

  The band finished off 1983 supporting the Ramones and U2 on two separate tours in the US. The pace Chrissy was moving at was taking its toll. Her short fuse further diminished as her dependency on liquor escalated. She was now drinking every day, as well as swallowing pills, smoking dope and snorting cocaine. Chrissy was rarely sober.

  Despite the intense touring to promote Desperate and the positive reviews, the album didn’t do great business in the States. Divinyls were gaining a cult status there, but that didn’t translate into the volume of record sales Chrysalis had set as the album’s target. The band had been given a substantial advance against royalties to pay for their relocation to the US, studio time, wages and travel, all of which had to be paid back in record sales. Falling well short of the target, Divinyls returned to Australia in debt to Chrysalis for tens of thousands of dollars.

  Weighted down by the debt, they took to the road and toured Australia from coast to coast the next year. The only time they stopped was to go into the studio to put down tracks for their second album, What A Life.

  Producer Gary Langan started working with the band in Sydney, but it soon became apparent that his overtly studio-mixed British DJ sound distorted Divinyl’s vibe. Chrysalis called in its big guns to salvage the production. Mike Chapman, who had long admired Chrissy’s voice, remixed Langan’s work and recorded new songs They included a Chapman and Holly Knight song, ‘Pleasure and Pain’, which became the band’s biggest hit to date.

  The album was released almost eighteen months after they had begun. It had been an agonising process for the impatient Chrissy. Her arguments with McEntee had become vicious tirades which resulted in days, sometimes months, of frozen silence. But agony often produces great work. What a Life shot to number two in Australia and made it into the Billboard top 100, settling at seventy-five. The real success was with ‘Pleasure and Pain’ which hit the US top forty. The other singles, ‘Heart Telegraph’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’, didn’t make much noise.

  falling well short of the sales target, Divinyls returned in debt to Chrysalis for tens of thousands of dollars

  Now in even more debt despite the chart success of What a Life, Chrissy and the ban
d returned to Australia and continued to tour in an attempt to pay their bills. In 1986 they headed back to the States to pick up the Aerosmith tour. As the support band, Divinyls were pelted with all manner of flying objects. But the next tour was worse. They joined the Cult with whom they feuded from the moment they met.

  Chrissy was now consuming substances, but not shooting. The concoctions she downed would rival her idol Marianne Faithfull, but she still got up to perform. The drug and booze hangover made her more cantankerous than ever and her acid tongue was out to lash everyone, particularly McEntee.

  When the wife and son of Vince Lovegrove, the band’s manager, were diagnosed with AIDS, his priorities changed overnight. Despite her sympathy for his situation, Chrissy could see disaster written all over Divinyls’ future. She was proven right.

  At the end of 1987 bassist Rick Grossman checked himself into rehab to rid himself of a long-term addiction to heroin, something he had kept secret from the band for nearly seven years. With Grossman’s departure, only Chrissy and McEntee were left of the original band.

  When the album Temperamental was released around the middle of 1988 Chrissy had put the schoolgirl back in the closet and taken out a sexy vamp in a clinging black dress, feathers and fishnets. The smudged lipstick, fringe and black doe eyes were still there, but the neon pole had been replaced with seductive hand and body gyrations.

  the smudged lipstick, fringe and black doe eyes were still in place, but the neon pole had been replaced with seductive hand and body gyrations

  Temperamental’s singles were pure Divinyls—‘Hey Little Boy’, ‘Back to the Wall’ and Chrissy’s ‘Punxsie’. The album received positive reviews, but sales were once again too low for Chrysalis’s liking.

  Three strikes and you’re out. After the sales failure of Temperamental, Divinyls and Chrysalis parted company. It coincided with management changes. In twelve months, they went through three managers, including Madonna’s Freddy DeMann, who got them signed to Virgin.

  The record company hustled their new charges into the studio to put down 1991’s Divinyls. Virgin put their faith behind the band, calling on the services of seasoned musicians: Randy Jackson on bass, the Heartbreakers’ Benmont Tench on keyboards and African-American drummer Charley Drayton.

  The first single from the album, ‘I Touch Myself ’, became the band’s greatest hit, reaching three in the US and one in Australia. Written by Chrissy with Billy Steinberg, Tom Kelly and McEntee, it was blatantly pornographic in its depiction of masturbation. It raised interest and ire—and was Divinyls’ only British hit.

  The band continued to tour, one pub gig after another, in their bid to pay off the Chrysalis debt. In 1992, while she watched her album bomb, Chrissy sang the Rascals hit ‘I Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore’ for the soundtrack of Buffy Vampire Slayer.

  More trouble was headed their way. Freddy DeMann dropped them suddenly in 1993 in favour of running Madonna’s new label Maverick. Chrissy was devastated, her depression exacerbated by Virgin dropping them too. She drank her sorrows over and over, often vomiting before she went on stage. She lived on uppers and downers washed down with liberal glasses of vodka, bourbon and gin, topped off with a generous sprinkling of ecstasy.

  Chrissy sparked up when Charley Drayton agreed to join the band on tour. As her friendship with Drayton intensified, her relationship with McEntee faltered. When they did split, McEntee agreed to continue their professional relationship. Not long after, Chrissy and Drayton became a couple.

  With no label behind them, in 1994 they went to Nashville and recorded ‘I’m Jealous’, written by Chrissy with Steinberg and Kelly. The single appeared on the band’s next album—for their new label BMG. Underworld was recorded in early 1995.

  Underworld was only released in Australia and the band hit the road to promote the record. With Joan Jett and the Blackhearts as their support act, the band—Chrissy and McEntee—financed their own tour. Ticket sales fell short and it threw the pair further into debt. It was a black time. Chrissy plunged into the bottle. The album was a dismal failure too. By the end of 1996, after sixteen years, Divinyls folded.

  Chrissy went cold turkey and stopped drinking. Following the twelve-step program, she holed up on her farm in New South Wales. Once she felt strong enough she joined Drayton in New York. In 1998 she took on the role of Judy Garland in the Australian production of the Peter Allen musical The Boy from Oz. Since her marriage she has been relatively quiet. Now living in New York, she has performed only a handful of times over the last decade. She played with Drayton at the September 11 benefit concert in New York in 2002. Four years later she was back on the stage in The Boy from Oz, with Hugh Jackman.

  When Chrissy took the stage in February 2010 at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne, she moved with the gait of someone suffering from multiple sclerosis. She has spoken about the disease and how every day is different. On this night she came on stage with a walking stick, but the moment she opened her mouth she was the rock queen from the Divinyls standing defiant once again before her adoring subjects.

  KIM DEAL

  The Real Thing

  Born in Dayton, Ohio, on 10 June 1961, Kim is the younger of identical twins. Her doppelgänger Kelley was born eleven minutes earlier. They lived with their parents and younger brother in the suburb of Huber Heights, known as America’s largest community of brick homes. At thirteen Kim started playing guitar and writing songs. Inspired, she began recording in her basement and playing her tapes for friends. As her songwriting matured, the ‘sweet, smarmy’ lyrics became deeper and more insightful. Kim declared her songs would be from the heart and loaded with meaning.

  Fanatical about making music, on birthdays and at Christmas Kim asked for equipment for her studio. She got her early musical education from her father, a physicist at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base who loved soul music and the blues. Kim recalled seeing Ray Charles with her father who was moved to tears.

  While Kelley was getting stoned and being anti-social, Kim was making music in her makeshift studio. She was an honours student and cheerleader. By fifteen she too was getting stoned. And playing imported records with her friend Pat Rohr. Rohr introduced Kim to such bands as Blue Oyster Cult, Stray Cats, James Blood Ulmer and Captain Sensible. She also listened to rock—ACDC and Led Zeppelin were two favourites. By the time she was seventeen, in 1978, she had written ‘hundreds’ of songs.

  They’d met at a Breeders gig in New York, Cobain a fan, Kim oblivious to who he was

  Kelley started to show an interest in making music with Kim as their teens came to a close. A guitarist and also a singer, Kelley joined Kim in her studio and the pair began working on songs that would influence their first playlist. In Dayton the only roles for girls in bands were as Pat Benatar clones or tambourine players. There wasn’t a man in town prepared to play with the twins. Kim and Kelley began their live performance careers as a folk-rock duo, the first incarnation of the Breeders, playing a hotel bar. And opening for Steppenwolf in a bikers’ hangout, playing covers of Elvis Costello, Hank Williams and Kim’s own compositions.

  Kim attended university but never completed a degree. In 1983 she married pop-rock musician John Murphy of the Boston band Mente. When they met, Kim was performing as a country singer at the Ramada Inn in Dayton. Her sultry mid-western air and creative spirit captured Murphy’s heart.

  The newlyweds moved to Boston and Kim answered an ad for a bass player and vocalist for a band whose influences included folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary and punk band Hüsker Dü. The only applicant, Kim didn’t really want to play bass—her dream had been to be a rock guitarist—but she was itching to do something musically and she took the gig as a member of the embryonic Pixies. As the line-up settled down, Charles Thompson (aka Black Francis aka Frank Black) was on lead vocals, Joey Santiago guitar, Kim bass and David Lovering drums.

  While Mrs John Mur
phy, as she referred to herself, settled down in Boston, Kelley chose life in Los Angeles rather than filling the drummer slot in her sister’s band. As Kim’s star rose, Kelley worked an IT job in LA and sank further into substance abuse.

  The band got an early break when they scored the supporting act on the Throwing Muses tour. The Pixies music was described by journalists as shrieking, primal, visceral, grinding guitar hell. Melody Maker went further in 1986 saying, ‘the Pixies are the disfigurement and degradation of language’.

  In 1987 the Pixies made a demo tape that was released by British indie label 4AD. The eight-track recording, put out as the album Come On Pilgrim, topped the British indie charts. This was followed by the landmark Surfer Rosa, which had the music press salivating and fans clamoring. It got rave reviews and was called a ‘brilliant step sideways’ from the Pixies’ earlier madness. Later Kurt Cobain opined that Kim should have been allowed to write more material for the band because ‘Gigantic’, co-written by Kim and Thompson, he said, ‘is the best Pixies song’.

  Although others were ecstatic about the album, Kim was not. Making the record had been an ordeal because of producer Steve Albini’s rudeness and overbearing manner. But Kim doesn’t hold grudges and later Albini would be enlisted by the Breeders, Kim’s other super indie rock band.

  In three short years the Pixies had gone from performing at the Rat in Boston to being college-radio kings and drawing fifty thousand screaming fans at the 1990 Reading Festival in Britain. And Kim had gone from being Mrs John Murphy back to Kim Deal after her 1988 divorce.

  In 1989 Doolittle, the band’s first album for major label Elektra, charted at number 98 on the Billboard 200 and gave the Pixies two top five singles. Gil Norton (Echo and the Bunnymen) came on board as producer and his pop-culture edge gave the album its commercial flavour.