Tex

by Tex Perkins

  The Cruel Sea actually made money from record sales.

  Most bands say they never make money from their album or CD sales, and that it all comes from live work and merchandise. And don’t get me wrong; all record deals are an arse fuck, it’s just by how much. Maybe we just got lucky, ours didn’t go that deep.

  To give you an idea of how good the money was, I bought my first piece of property, a flat in Melbourne, with cash. The more The Honeymoon Is Over sold the more my savings account grew – twenty grand here, fifty grand there. Most of the money was from record sales and, as a result of that, successful tours and while we were touring, successful merch sales. I ended up with upwards of three hundred grand just sitting in my savings account. That’s when my friend and lawyer at the time, Bruno Charlesworth, told me that I should buy something solid.

  I was living in Sydney at the time but even then it was frightening what everything cost. Then I noticed that in Melbourne you could buy something good for a couple of hundred thousand. Bruno took me for a drive around one day. I saw this place in Acland Street in St Kilda and literally said, ‘I like this one’, then I went and got the money out of the bank and paid for it. There was no need to ask for a loan. I had the money so it was mine to spend.

  That place became my home base and at that point I moved to Melbourne for a couple of years. (I’ve still got it in fact.) With the collateral of that property, Kristyna and I stuck our necks out even further in 1997, buying a property in northern NSW. As I write these words, we’re still there.

  Initially this place was to be our country getaway and Melbourne would be the base, but we couldn’t really afford to run two places so we moved up lock-stock in 1998.

  That’s how you do it, kids – you don’t muck around. If you make a bit of money quickly you go out and buy something tangible. Preferably property.

  By this time Kristyna and I had a family of our own. Scarlet was born in October 1995. Kristyna was astonishing. She owned that birth, with courage and raw power. It was like watching an Olympic event – easily the most powerful physical feat I’ve ever seen.

  Parent Hood.

  I was older and a little more ready than I had been with Tuesday five years before, even becoming an expert with nappies. These were the cloth ones too, not the disposables. You had to fold it a certain way and secure it with a large safety pin without puncturing you or the baby.

  Country life was a change in pace after the madness of touring with the Beasts and Cruel Sea, and I was more willing and able to embrace domesticity. It helped that Scarlet was a remarkable human, possessing the same intelligence, beauty and take-no-shit attitude as her mother. Ask anyone, Scarlet is hardcore.

  Country life is sweet. To walk outside and eat something straight from the tree or the bush or even straight from the ground is a simple thing that brings me immense joy and satisfaction.

  For me to see my children’s faces smeared in mulberries or wild mango flesh is a wonderful thing to behold. And to collect your own water makes you keenly aware of what is taken for granted in the city. That certainly can be a pain in the arse at times but we live on the perimeter of social services so we have to deal with our own shit, literally.

  That is also a very good philosophical standpoint. DEAL WITH YOUR OWN SHIT.

  Society has become all too used to just flushing it away. Most people don’t even look down as it goes; we just flush it away to somewhere else. Where? ‘I don’t care just as long as it’s not here, just flush it on down the line, make it somebody else’s problem.’

  Our family uses a composting toilet much like one with plumbing, except you don’t use litres and litres of water to get rid of your business. You just throw in a handful of wood shavings after it. Every six months or so you open up the bottom chamber and HEY PRESTO, black odourless soil you shovel out and barrow to your garden.

  Not the veggie garden. That would be weird. I guess you could, but we don’t . . . yet.

  I love having a huge uninterrupted view of the sky, sometimes the moon and the stars feel so close you could grab them. I love being visited by owls, butcher birds and cockatoos. Even the goanna that goes through the bins is part of our circle of friends.

  But ultimately it’s the people. We have wonderful neighbours, the finest human beings I’ve ever known. Sure we live here to be around less people but without the people around us life would be a lot harder. And nowhere near as much fun. We love these people, and judging by the amount of help and support we’ve received over the years, they love us.

  Of course a few people in the music press assumed that I’d moved to the country to get away from the vices of the big city and to stay out of reach of the temptation of drug use (even the publisher of this book assumed as much, but he’s a dick). Their mistake was to assume there are parts of Australia that are drug free! Maybe there are, but the North Coast of New South Wales ain’t one of ’em!

  I reckon there are more people per capita up this way who are on something than anywhere else in the country. Probably the world. Trust me, it’s easier to be stoned or tripping or nodding off when there’s warm weather and lots of space around you.

  Sure there are drugs around but there’s not so much of the ‘drug problem’ you see on the news. The truth is I know far more functioning drug users up this way than I do in the city.

  Take Garry (not his real name) for instance. He’s in his sixties, a builder, and a good one. Garry’s also the most consistently high human being you’d ever meet. The man drops trips like most people sink beers. This is not a reckless youth hell-bent on irresponsible self-destruction. He knows what he likes and how much to take. He always has a wonderful time and is great company.

  That’s the real trouble with drugs. PEOPLE! The wrong people are on drugs. It’s shitty people that give drugs a bad name. YOU GIVE DRUGS ... A BAD NAME. That Bon Jovi song was spot on: Garry on the other hand is a shining example of how to do it (not that I would, good lord no, I don’t aspire to be like Garry, but I am in awe).

  Some of the people I’ve met since we’ve lived here are wilder than any rock’n’roll band I’ve known. Some of them have a ‘been in the jungle too long’ vibe, but most are tradies that have bought a bit of land away from the watchful eyes of society to do whatever they want, whenever they want.

  And that’s the real reason why I moved to the country. To able to go outside and take a piss off my veranda without putting my pants on.

  Now look, don’t get the wrong idea here. Sure we live in the country, away from the conveniences of life in the big smoke, but we’re not exactly ‘roughing it’. We’re not hippies in a tree house, we have as many mod cons as possible, believe me. Although our internet is shit, so yeah, you wouldn’t like it.

  EARTH MOTHER SHIELD MAIDENS

  Kristina and I have been together for a long time now and it’s been a roller-coaster ride.

  At times I’ve been a dickhead, a fuckwit and an arsehole. But to Kristyna’s credit she realised – in fact we both did – that we’re a unit, we’re a family and we’re in it for the long haul. And you don’t cut and run when things get shitty and weird, because they won’t stay that way forever.

  I love her with a depth that couldn’t have existed if we hadn’t gone through all the sorts of shit we have. Love involves a lot of understanding and forgiveness. If you can’t forgive . . . you can’t live.

  Kristyna is very much her own woman. She’s not hanging off me for her identity. She has her own gravity. She’s amazing – incredibly down to earth and tough. VERY TOUGH. But also very sensitive and intuitive and VERY FUNNY. Humour is a big part of our life together. We laugh a lot. And our kids laugh a lot. I actually think that is the bottom line and key to happiness in anything – not just relationships.

  Kristyna makes me laugh but I don’t think I make her laugh that often. She’s laughed AT me a fair bit over the years. She’s my toughest audience and my harshest critic. She’s very supportive but she doesn’t fan the flames of my eg
o – more that she keeps a handle on it with controlled burnings and the occasional bucket of truth. I need that.

  But particularly since we moved to the country she’s turned into this powerhouse. EVERYTHING that has happened on our property she has done. She’s thought of it, sourced the materials, talked to and organised the tradies and seen each project right through.

  She has become this amazingly capable, practical person. Anything is possible. It didn’t actually seem to develop. It was just suddenly there. It was as though something that had been dormant inside her was accessed in full flight.

  One minute she’s my rock chick girlfriend, next she’s an earth mother-shield maiden.

  She knew all about plants, animals, soil types, farming techniques, building materials, alternative medicine and a hundred other things – in fact every single aspect of this life we were entering. And in a pre-Google world. I still don’t know how she knows all she knows but she’s amazing in the way that she does. Just an incredible human being.

  Indeed, truth be told I’ve been blessed to have been surrounded by strong women all my life. My mother always ran the show in our house when I was growing up.

  Tuesday’s mum Andrea is another amazing big-hearted woman with a great sense of humour. She’s always been and remains an important part of our family. Despite being ‘exes’ we’ve made it work and a lot of the credit for that goes to her. She loves and is loved by our other four kids. She’s their ‘other mother’.

  Andrea and Kristyna are good friends. They value each other and they get that we are all working as a team. Lots of people find this hard to believe and over the years the gossipers have run away with all sorts of stories. We just laugh. Believe me, I don’t take any of this for granted. I’m so grateful my kids have powerful role models like these women.

  For many years that’s the way it was: me and Kristyna and the two girls, Tuesday and Scarlet, with the two mums (who all got along well thankfully). Until 2003 . . .

  That’s when, once again, I heard the words ‘I’m late’.

  Ede Mae was born in March 2004, and this time I was ready. I knew how to do this thing called fatherhood now, and I actually took the time to enjoy it. We had a good system where Kristyna would deal with the baby’s needs during the night and I would take over in the morning while she slept in as long as she needed. That’s the good thing about rock’n’roll dads – we may be away sometimes, but when we’re there, we’re completely there. If I had a nine-to-five job, we couldn’t have done it like this.

  By now I assumed my lot in life was to be the father of daughters, and I was more than happy with that. But when the family gathered together for Kristyna’s ultrasound in early 2010 and the tech said, ‘Looks like it’s a boy’, my jaw hit the floor.

  Louie was born in October 2010, and I have to say, that little man has changed my life. I realised that bringing up little girls is like raising angels – beautiful, adorable creatures that you love and protect and look upon with wonder. But ultimately they’re like a different species. With Louie I feel an empathy I could never do with the girls, as much as I love them. I’d never felt love for anything or anybody like I had for that boy. Every scratch, every bruise, every laugh and every tear I feel with him, because I’ve been there myself.

  My world was perfect, my heart full.

  What more could there be? How about one more?

  ‘Oh okay, why the hell not?’ Roy was born in March 2013 and the nice ordered world we’d known tipped over into chaos. Well, not really chaos but let me tell you it was a handful. We’d inadvertently been very clever (none of our pregnancies have been planned) spacing the births of our kids by at least five years so each had time entirely devoted to them.

  Never before had I had two of them in nappies at the same time (good God, there was shit everywhere) and a good night’s sleep now became a rare and precious thing. But, oh how I love them. My own father never really hugged me and I don’t know how he didn’t. I hug my kids all the time. Louie knows the value of a good hug, and hugs me right back. Roy struggles and giggles, but he’ll learn.

  I love many things about parenting, but one thing that’s been affirming and reassuring as a musician has been seeing the primal effect of rock’n’roll on my children. I’ll never forget the day I was driving with my daughters Scarlet and Tuesday and Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’ came on the car stereo. ‘Dad . . . what is THIS?’ Tuesday inquired breathlessly.

  She was ten years old at the time, and I could see that this classic but very basic rock riff had hooked her within seconds.

  Louie and Roy love loud rhythmic music. I recently played Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet on the home stereo and they exploded into all kinds physical movement.

  They love The Sonics, Link Wray, Cypress Hill, Black Sabbath, the Ramones and their favourite Monkees song is ‘Steppin’ Stone’. Roy is three and really has no frame of reference of how one is supposed to act while listening to rock music, it’s pure instinct. Big beats and heavy riffs move my kids just like they do me.

  LITTLE ANIMALS

  THE BEASTS OF BOURBON / 2007

  In late 2005 the band was playing in Europe and Spencer played us a song called ‘Thanks’ in someone’s tiny hotel room after the show one night. Although none of the other songs would sound anything like it, hearing this song made us want to make another album. For some reason we made ‘Thanks’ the cornerstone of the next record. I guess it’s true that an irresponsible dark humour bookends the album.

  ‘Used to give my money to the motherfuckin’ poor

  But I don’t care about nothin’ anymore’ is the opening line.

  We went ahead and recorded this album BEFORE we signed with the legendary Alberts record label so delivered it as is (or as was). It took three days to record and is a credit to all involved but I reckon that’s it for this band. Time to move on.

  RECORD LABEL: Albert Music

  CORE BAND MEMBERS: Tex Perkins (vocals), Spencer P. Jones (guitar), Charlie Owen (guitar), Brian Hooper (bass), Tony Pola (drums).

  ANIMAL FARM

  Animals.

  Shall we talk about animals? Now, I’m no Dr Dolittle, but I have now had lots of experience with animals since living on the property. Where would you like to start? How about with those majestic creatures known as horses?

  Oh yes, we’ve had horses. Not that long after we move here, the neighbours on the next property told us they were moving out. They had three horses and said, ‘We can’t take care of these horses, would you take care of them?’ We said ‘sure’, not realising that TAKING CARE of these horses actually meant burying them. They were already pretty old, and one by one over the next few months, they started dropping dead. Burying a horse is a big deal, and has to be done properly or the dead horse will rise from the grave. Literally the corpse swells up like a balloon and if it’s not deep enough the ground gradually swells and up she comes.

  The last horse was a sweetheart named Jasmine. We got a stallion in to spend some time with her and as a result we got Jasper. Jasmine didn’t live for much longer after that so for a long time we just had Jasper, who was a wonderful horse. The sweetest-natured creature I’ve been lucky enough to ever encounter. A very mellow fellow was our Jasper, but prone to mishaps and injuries. As a result of that we spent a lot of time caring for Jasper’s various injuries. I guess I had intended to one day ride him, just because that’s what people do, but I never did and I’m glad I didn’t turn him into no Beast Of Burden. He was the only horse I ever loved. And then Jasper died. Members of our beautiful community came to comfort him as he passed, struggling for each breath.

  One sure thing about owning animals is they will die. You will outlive them. You will see their death. With the horses it was this fucking Crofton weed – it’s a very tasty weed and that’s the problem. They like it and go for it and then after a year or so, the get fibrosis of the lungs and they die gasping for breath. It’s horrible and that’s the way that Jasper went
. It’s a weed that we’ve tried to eradicate from all the properties up our way but it eventually comes back. It’s insidious.

  How do you learn about animals? In our case, as you go. We had a heifer die giving birth, but the calf survived. My daughters Tuesday and Ede and a friend of ours, Lilly, hand-reared and bottle-fed Pebbles for months. Lilly would visit us just to come spend time with Pebbles, mothering that cow to a fanatical degree. Now she’s full grown she acts just like any other cow – Pebbles not Lilly – but is far more personable than the other cows. That’s the key to animal survival: make yourself vulnerable and loveable, and your humans mightn’t eat you ... for a while. No, I’m joking. We would never eat Pebbles, really, trust me.

  There’s a donkey waiting to see you in the lounge room.

  We had this one bull we called Houdini because he could break out of anything. And mysteriously. We’d get up and he’d be gone and we’d go ‘How the hell did he get out of THAT?’ There would be no breaks in the fence; he hadn’t charged at it. Had he jumped over? Houdini (also known as Black N White and BBQ) would often be found chewing away on grass on the side of the road. People would always complain, saying he was a possible traffic hazard (just slow down, dickhead). Eventually we had to send him off to market. That’s not to say he’s on someone’s plate now. He may have been bought by someone for breeding purposes. He might be in a paddock somewhere with lush green grass and a dozens of heifers to chase around . . . Well, it’s possible.

  Yes, all those animals have been a handful along the way. But the donkeys. The donkeys are different. The donkeys have the a temperament that is just gorgeous. They’re the most personable, curious, gentle, happy animals. And they look forward to interaction with you.

  Horses are such big animals and if you’re the slightest bit intimidated they feel it and they love it. ‘Bit scared are you? – GOOD, I LIKE THAT.’ Horses can be intimidating and cows are suspicious and aloof but donkeys are where it’s at. When we tell people we have donkeys they will often ask, ‘What do you do with them?’ As if all animals must have a purpose and a use. What do we do with them? We love them. They make us happy.