Sound As Ever

Everyone should have that one band. The one you play to a potential new partner to see if you're musically compatible. And the one you play after they're gone. The one you whoop and charge your glass to when they come on the pub jukebox. The one you sing along loudly to with the car window open, as you tap out the rhythm on the steering wheel as you drive over that “…Glebe Point Bridge”.

For many, that band is You Am I. Two decades since the release of their debut album, they are revered, not just for their mere survival, but the fact that they are still a vital, working, just plain goddamn wonderful rock'n'roll unit. Over the years, the three individuals of the band have become four but, as they cram into the room, they somehow fit together like that jigsaw you never quite got around to finishing.

Bassist Andy Kent now wears the manager's hat as well. There's always that feeling you're getting tested a bit as you talk to him, but then Kent gets more cheerful in his blunt honesty as he goes. Russell Hopkinson is the affable one. He's got the stories, the collection of vinyl from bands you've never heard of and the in-jokes. Even though he's now been in the band for over a decade, Davey Lane still has a touch of the new guy who lucked-in about him. He gives more cheek now (“Yeah, I played their records to death when I was, what, about ten…”), he's more the younger brother who's come home with the hot girlfriend.

And then there's Tim Rogers: Gangly rockstar incarnate. And yet, taking the piss out of the pose at the same time. One moment velvet-jacketed theatrical luvvie, then passionate defender of the faith. Hard-drinking man, then almost misty-eyed getting sentimental about the band, the music and his family. You know, kinda like a You Am I album.

They're probably the best – and maybe the worst – at working out just why they've retained such affection, from an audience and between each other. “We're like the smalltown boy made good,” offers Rogers to start. “Got a chance to make a lot of mistakes – often in public – and to do some good things, but a lot of not-so-good things that we learnt from. And somehow got through.” He adds a typically self-deprecating kicker: “Maybe more like 'smalltown numbskull makes good, in spite of himself'.“ There's a crooked grin.

The national tour that will see them play their second and third albums – the equally towering Hi Fi Way and Hourly, Daily – seems part celebration, part congratulation and part reminiscence of a time past. And maybe just because they can. Mr Kent provides the practical explanation: “Any number of festivals had come forward and asked us to do something like this for whatever reason, whatever album. But it was never quite right. Now we think we're at a point where we're enjoying each other's company so much, and the 20-year thing, and we can do it properly ourselves rather than selling it to someone else.”

They've put some thought into these album-in-full shows. But not too much. “It's going to be You Am I slick, not Opera House slick,” laughs Hopkinson. “It's not for chin scratchers. We want to see people dance, and/or stand back and hug the person they're with.”

“It tends to be the case that when You Am I try to overcook something, we absolutely overcook something – so we'll rein ourselves in,” adds Rogers. “Our knowledge and experience have come together here. We're all products of it. Rusty's work with record labels, Andy managing the band and the financial stuff, Davey and my relationship maturing…” he smirks. “We just couldn't have done this whole thing ten years ago; it would have just had to go through so many other middlemen.”

Hopkinson takes up the thought: “We're, er, 'self-contained' now, maybe. That cottage-industry thing is kind of what a band has to be these days. And it's basically just an excuse to hang out with each other.”

This handling the whole enterprise in-house is recalling a simpler time for the band, before 'success' screwed with You Am I a bit. “Thinking back over, some times were good, and some times weren't,” Rogers explains. “I am happy and grateful that people still want to hear these records. And the mythology of them.

“These records are special to us, it was kind of the last time we could run our own race,” he goes on. “The next couple of years involved with American record companies and such, people were always trying to second-guess what we were doing – doing demos, people talking about 'song construction' and bullshit. Before that it was just the three of us, and we're back to that now.”

Kent: “Once you hit that point of getting successful, some people just expect to get more and more successful. And when it doesn't happen, they can't get their head around it. We've gone up, gone down, up, levelled out. There's a lot bands who were our peers who got that bit bigger and then had the fall, and don't even exist anymore because they didn't know how to cope with it.”

The outsiders' view of You Am I would probably count their successes differently. The band having shared stages with just about every band of renown from The Rolling Stones and The Who, through to The Strokes and Oasis, is not what defines with them. The singer is polite even as he corrects you: “It's not about the supporting, meeting those people – yeah, it's nice and all – but, fuck that! To me it's about putting out the best rock'n'roll we can, and having wonderful experiences between us.”

Or, as Rusty puts it: “That's for the civilians to be impressed by. Playing at (London's) 100 Club – that's the music-nerd heaven to us. I'm there going, '(Sex Pistols' drummer) Paul Cook sat and played on this spot. The Pretty Things came here.' Our greatest achievement? Our friendship. Or maybe our ability to retain hair?”

Rogers chips back in: “At the heart of it all, would be knowing we'd end up back at someone's house, or someone's hotel room, just blagging on, gettin' loaded. It's 70,000 Saturday nights with your mates. Those are the best moments of my life,” he pronounces. And you believe him. “Success to me is getting a good sandwich, going home to my partner in St Kilda. I'm looking forward to making the next You Am I record – that we can be together and do that, that's as great as it can get.”