by Tex Perkins
In 1988 my girlfriend Andrea was living in a terraced house on Liverpool Street. These houses were tightly packed together and shared walls with the neighbours on either side. Andrea’s neighbour was Marie, a kooky old lady with a cat. Marie was basically a shut-in so would only dash to the shops occasionally when it was absolutely necessary. Despite that (or because of it) she and Andrea got along nicely.
One night Marie’s cat visited us, begging for food. We put it outside so it could return to its home, but it was persistent and immediately came back. That’s when we noticed the smell. An alarming odour with a real tang that got stronger as we leaned towards Marie’s back window. We suspected the worst, called the cops and sure enough when they broke Marie’s door in, there she was upstairs in her bedroom at least two weeks dead. I won’t go into detail but when a body is just left like that it becomes an incredible mess. Firstly it leaks bodily fluids from every orifice and eventually every pore and then . . . sorry.
What was left of Marie was taken away and we fed the cat for a while until it decided another neighbour’s dwelling was more to its liking. Andrea’s large dog Morris might’ve had something to do with that defection. Months went by and no one came to appraise or inhabit the house. Marie obviously owned the place so there was no landlord but surely she had family? If so, they never came and Marie’s mail started to jam the letter hatch.
See where this is going?
Andrea and I had a friend named Tony Carmona. A truly lovely fellow, Tony had a wicked sense of humour and was one of gayest guys I ever knew.
One night we all decided it was time to take a good look inside Marie’s place. We removed the louvres in the back porch window and climbed in, entering Marie’s private world. She was a classic hoarder; stacks of newspapers were everywhere. So much so, there was little room to move. Piles of rubbish and empty boxes took up every possible bit of space. There were framed paintings stacked in the corners in great numbers. Looking through them we realised Marie was the artist and that her body of work consisted of the same things painted over and over. There were 15 versions of kittens playing with a ball of string, 10 of the same bowl of fruit.
We decided we would clean the place up. This included sorting the junk and rubbish from the ‘valuables’ such as the paintings and furniture and whatever else we figured was personal to her. We stored all these things in one room and painted the entire interior of the house.
We did all this with the utmost degree of respect, often speaking to the spirit of Marie as we did it, talking her through the process and asking her permission as we went. During this process we came across nothing that indicated anyone had visited or been in contact with Marie for many years. Tony and I eventually moved in and we lived there happily together for a few months, always ready for the possible knock on the door. It came while I was away on tour. Tony was seen entering the front door by the police. Moral outrage ensued!
‘WHAT IF IT WAS YOUR MOTHER?’ the police said angrily. ‘HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF SOMEONE MOVED INTO YOUR DEAD MOTHER’S HOUSE?’
‘I wouldn’t let my mother die alone and forgotten,’ he replied.
We were ejected and the house remained empty for many years afterward.
Lovely Tony Carmona died a few years later, another victim of the first decade of A.I.D.S. When Andrea became pregnant I ended my squatting days and we moved into a flat in Bondi together. Our daughter Tuesday was born in October that year.
At no stage had I ever thought to myself, ‘One day I’d like to have children and be a father.’ I never got the chance to dream that dream because before I knew it, I was one. Witnessing the birth of my first child was a hurricane of mixed feelings. Joy and anticipation side by side with fear and anxiety. Andrea was so pure and strong through the pregnancy and labour. We went to a birthing centre in Paddington and they basically gave us a room and left us too it. With no drugs to help with the pain, Andrea delivered Tuesday with a totally natural birth. I think I was so in awe of her physical feat that it left me feeling inferior and almost unnecessary. Whatever physical challenges men put themselves through in the pursuit of ‘being a man’, we are just weak babies compared to what women go through during childbirth. There’d be a lot less people if men had to go through it.
And then there she was, this beautiful perfect little human. Tuesday.
We got the name from the actress Tuesday Weld and had chosen it long before she was born ... and then she was born on, you guessed it, a Tuesday.
Having kids at 25 might seem a logical time to start, but I was a rock’n’roller just starting to hit his stride. Late nights and sometimes many weeks away from home were not ideal conditions for parenting. When I was home in those early days of Tuesday’s life, I did my best. But I was pretty useless.
Andrea was (and is) a great mother, but we were moving in different directions and so 18 months after Tuesday came into our lives, we ended it as a couple.
But we continued as parents and remain close to this day. Gradually I started to get the hang of this ‘father’ thing. It all seemed overwhelming at the time but now I’m glad. Having children at a young age means you’re more likely to be still young enough to relate to each other as contemporaries when they grow up. Tuesday today is a remarkable human being. Another strong, intelligent, independent young woman. We share similar tastes in music. She’s an animal-loving, school-teaching, Saints supporter and I couldn’t be prouder.
Tuesday’s arrival and fatherhood forced change on me and was a catalyst for a new life. For starters I left The Gunnery and went off the dole.
By now I was going overseas a bit with bands, touring regularly and playing gigs with someone, somewhere, most weekends. After doing that awhile it dawned on me that I guess I have a career in music.
I’d never thought of my working life in those terms. Music and career hadn’t been words that ever went together in the same sentence for me before. It felt a bit weird thinking in those terms. But steadily it sank in.
MUSIC IS WHAT I DO.
THE CRUEL SEA
A lot of life is showing up.
Do that and the dividend can sometimes become being in the right place at the right time.
I mean if Mick and Keith hadn’t met each other that day at the train station at Dartford, would the Rolling Stones have ever existed? They might have eventually found each other, but who knows?
For me, if . . . the Wadleys hadn’t seen me going nuts at the Communist hall . . . and if Roger Grierson hadn’t run into me at the bar at the New York Hotel and invited us down south . . . it could’ve been years till I left Brisbane . . . and so on and so on.
Or was it inevitable?
Things might have eventually happened, but would things have happened this way? I think about these things a lot because I know now you can never really tell when you’re at a crossroads until you look back.
Back in 1987 I’d dropped around one Sunday afternoon to visit Peter Read at his Palmer Street flat. He said that he had to go somewhere and mix a band and that he’d see me later. I had nothing else to do so I said I’d go along too. He tried to discourage me from coming saying, ‘You probably wouldn’t like these guys.’ But I persisted – I’m not sure why – and tagged along anyway even though I had no idea who the band was.
We caught a bus over to the Harold Park Hotel in Glebe and got there a few minutes before the band started.
Turns out the band was called The Cruel Sea.
I stood next to Peter at the mixing desk and noticed there was a lighting console no one was using so I started pressing switches and pushing faders. In that moment I became The Cruel Sea’s lighting guy.
By the end of the first tune, I was in love. The band played guitar instrumental music. There were two guitar players, a bass player, a drummer and NO singer. They sounded like the Ventures, and indeed they played a few of their classic tunes. Occasionally they sounded like Booker T and the MGs. And occasionally they sounded like nobody else.
‘Wha
t’s this one?’ I asked Peter.
‘One of theirs,’ he replied.
I loved this band and I loved them just the way they were. Honestly, I had no thought of wanting to join them or to collaborate with them at all, believe me. They wouldn’t have had me anyway. I was still in Thug and although I loved them, I hadn’t been involved in any conventional music for a long time.
Peter and I had a few beers with the boys after the show. They had a month-long residency at the Harold Park and I vowed to return and do their lights next week. The line-up then was Jim Elliot on drums, guitar player Dan Rumour, and the Corben Brothers, Dee and Ged, on bass and guitar. Ged and Dan were both on guitars and swapping lead, and they were incredible.
Ged was also playing in another band, The Lime Spiders, at the time. They were a ’60s-style punk, garage-type outfit who were doing quite well and were a lot more commercially viable than any of the other bands around doing that ’60s throwback thing. I have fond memories of Ged – a killer guitar player and another one of the easiest dudes you’ll ever meet.
The Cruel Sea, 1989. From left to right: Danny Rumour, me, James Cruickshank, Jim Elliot (top) and Ken Gormley.
The idea of adding me as a singer came up inevitably during that time but I’d always say, ‘I’m flattered but I want you to stay the way you are.’
There was probably 18 months where I resisted the urge to contribute in any way (apart from the lights). Then finally one night I was watching them at a house party and I started hearing words. Something changed that night. I started imagining the music differently and I now imagined a voice in there. Not necessarily MY voice, but Danny’s guitar phrasing on this night now sounded like words to me. That’s how we wrote ‘Down Below’.
Dow dow doh
Down be low.
It wasn’t so much my writing words for their sounds, it was more interpreting and dictating what I was hearing. I realised again just how good they were. And that if I didn’t get on board someone else would.
So I reneged and ended up getting up with the band on their next gig, which happened to be at a party on a ferry in Sydney Harbour. Those one or two songs quickly became three or four songs and then more. Finally I found myself doing whole sets with them. They’d do three sets – one instrumental, one with vocals and then another one of instrumentals.
The band changed line-ups a few times over the next year and everyone was sad to see the Corbens go. But it finally settled on Jim, Dan, Ken Gormley and James Cruickshank. And me. Eventually we got to the point where we were writing songs together.
Then someone said, ‘Let’s make a record.’
DOWN BELOW
THE CRUEL SEA / 1989
A two-day session with Phil Punch, here we see the first fruits of my collaboration with Danny Rumour and The Cruel Sea. I’ve explained earlier how I wrote the lyrics to some of these songs by literally interpreting the phrasing of Danny’s guitar playing. It’s not bad, but the only songs I still love are ‘Dead Wood’ and ‘Margarita’. Jimmy Little did a better version of ‘Down Below’ a few years later, one that sounded less like an instrumental with words attached and more like a real song. Despite being about the marriage of my singing with Danny’s music and the growing chemistry between us, the best stuff on this record is the instrumentals.
RECORD LABEL: Red Eye
CORE BAND MEMBERS: Tex Perkins (vocals), Danny Rumour (guitar), Jim Elliot (drums), Ken Gormley (bass).
BLACK MILK
THE BEASTS OF BOURBON / 1990
Another mixed bag that took three days to record and mix; this would be our last with Phil Punch. Being overly ambitious we crammed WAY too many songs into this session, leaving the album feeling rushed and unfocused. And too much attention was given to the wrong songs. It’s got some good ones but these are not the best versions. For instance, the version of ‘Hope You Find Your Way To Heaven’ recorded in Vienna (and finally released on From The Belly of the Beasts) shits all over the one found here. But having said that, I must admit there were always more songs from this album in our set list over the years than from any other.
RECORD LABEL: Red Eye
CORE BAND MEMBERS: Tex Perkins (vocals), Spencer P. Jones (guitar), Kim Salmon (guitar), Boris Sujdovic (bass), James Baker (drums).
YOU CALL THAT A QUESTION?
I have a reputation as an interview villain.
I’ve heard that people are intimidated about coming to interview me. Good. Be afraid, be very afraid.
I’m joking. For the most part I think I’m pretty affable and friendly – but there have been moments . . . and I’m guessing those moments have been talked about and word has spread to the point where these days some people think I’m going to bite their head off or upturn a table.
I suspect this all goes back to the first bunch of interviews I ever did for Polydor when The Beasts Of Bourbon released the Black Milk album in 1990.
It was one of those situations where they put you in an empty boardroom early in the day and 20 journos come through and they get 20 minutes each. Some of them you’ve known for a while and they know what they’re talking about and you get on well and it’s painless for all involved; interesting and fun even. Then there’s the other ones.
Me giving Tony Mott that look. Tony Mott using that lens.
A lot of journos ask, ‘Do you mind if I tape this interview?’ And I’m thinking, ‘No, I’d rather you misquoted me, misunderstood me and misrepresented me.’ But I usually say, ‘Not at all, go ahead. I am.’
On this particular day I’ve been doing fine, I’m in a pretty good mood and everything’s going well. I must say that towards the end of these sorts of days you can get a little more ratty. You’ve been talking about yourself all day and a lot of the time you’ve been saying the same things over and over.
So anyway, it’s getting towards the end of the day and this woman comes in and she doesn’t even say hello. Doesn’t so much as look at me. She opens up her notebook and without looking up asks, ‘What’s the difference between this album and the last one?’
Something snapped in me, actually something broke; the facade I’d been holding up collapsed.
I just looked at her and said, ‘Hey, let’s not do this. You obviously don’t have any interest or enthusiasm for this and to be perfectly honest I can’t muster any enthusiasm for going through this with you, so let’s just give it a miss shall we?’ I didn’t yell. I didn’t throw anything. I just presented a logical alternative.
She was shocked. I mean, I wasn’t angry, it was simply a case of ‘come on, let’s not bother’. Then, again without speaking she got up and went and found the PR person and explained how rude and difficult I was and then off she went. Did she ever write anything? I have no idea. This wasn’t typical of my approach to interviews – but of course word got around.
The next one that caused a bit of trouble was a young journalist in Melbourne. Her first question was ‘What’s it like being Australia’s Elvis Presley?’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
‘Really? Is that your question? For fuck’s sake, I don’t even understand how you arrive at the point where that becomes a question that you would entertain asking. Do you think that? Does anyone think that? For fuck’s sake . . .’
Yes, I was flabbergasted. And then there were tears. Oh dear.
Since then, whenever she gets a chance she slags me off, more often than not to people who know me and tell me.
Fair enough. I hope it helps.
So the consequences of a bad interview can go on for years.
The result of these early interview encounters was that publicists would say to journalists before any interview was scheduled: ‘You’d better know your stuff. If you don’t really know your shit, he’s going to tear you to pieces.’
Primed like this, the journalists were frequently terrified and expecting Lou Reed’s demon offspring to walk in. More often than not, if the journalist or broadcaster hasn’t met me before, I sense that they’re e
xpecting me to be hard work so they’re ready for a fight. Then they’re surprised when they’re unscathed at the end of it.
I’m not saying that I’m completely undeserving of my reputation but out of the thousands of interviews I’ve done there’s very few that haven’t gone well. Over the years I’ve honed different strategies to cope with the interview process. Doing them high, doing them straight, doing lots on the same day, doing just a few, doing them face-to-face, doing them over the phone. My favourite is just filling out a questionnaire.
It feels like writers see us as their adversaries, and we see them as ours. I accept them as part of what I do, but talking about myself can be excruciating. It’s like helping someone do an autopsy on yourself.
So yes, I’ve been a prick, a jerk and an arsehole.
But I’ve also been interviewed by a lot of pricks, jerks and arseholes.
Look, to tell you the truth, I dread them. Any ‘attitude’ coming from me isn’t arrogance, it’s fear and defence.
KRISTYNA
Around the time I was earning my reputation as the worst interviewee for the Australian music press, The Beasts Of Bourbon toured Europe.
In Berlin for a gig, the press agency there needed someone to interview us. My reputation hadn’t preceded me, so they sent an Australian girl living in Berlin at the time who was working for them. She was actually a photographer but they thought the mere fact she was Australian made her the best person for the interview.
So I’m sitting backstage at our Berlin show. In walked Kristyna.
She had moved from Brisbane to Berlin a few months prior. Kristyna had gone to East Berlin on a ‘day visa’ to visit a friend and buy some photographic equipment (these were the days of film and paper, etc). The press agency had convinced her to stay longer by saying the Wall was about to come down any day now and it would be great to be there when it happened. But ‘any day now’ turned into weeks and weeks. It was grim in the East and Kristyna had had enough.