Memory Lane

Even if you weren't alive in the early 1990s or have never heard of Punters Club, listening to Frente sounds like eavesdropping on another era: When acoustic pop sold in droves and international influences were filtered through a local scene instead of downloaded directly. The innocence, musicality and vibrancy of the Melbourne quartet still impresses as they prepare to celebrate the 21st anniversary of their million-selling debut Marvin The Album. 

Looking back, Frente's signature songs Accidently Kelly Street and Ordinary Angels could be seen as ripostes to the overtly masculine Aussie rock of the era. Sitting at a Bourke Street café, guitarist Simon Austin battles to be heard over the sound of a passing tram: “It definitely wasn't a conscious reaction to anything, but it was different.”

“We weren't capable of playing anything else,” adds singer Angie Hart, beginning a habit of completing Austin's sentences.

“When we started rehearsing in earnest,” says Austin, “we would actually arrange a song. We'd take a day or a week to arrange it. I put these guys through hell!”

With ARIA Awards in the bag, Ordinary Angels still charting, Accidently Kelly Street riding high and Marvin The Album on its way to selling over 1.2 million copies worldwide, Frente were riding high. When ABC's The Late Show joined in the fun with the bullseye pisstake Accidentally Was Released, their local reputation never fully recovered. “I had a real moment of feeling stabbed,” says Austin. “Then I thought, 'You know what? It's an Australian thing.' I know all those guys and they mean it lovingly. To a certain extent, as an Australian, you just have to suck it up. And it's good. People don't allow you to get too full of yourself, or full of yourself at all, or even half full of yourself,” he laughs.

Several months after the success of Accidently Kelly Street, Hart posed naked (but for some carefully arranged necklaces) on the cover of now-defunct music magazine Juice – an image burned into the minds of many teenagers. While the cover doesn't bother her, she admits the accompanying interview is “a massive cringe”. “I wasn't a particularly modest person so it wasn't a big deal to get my kit off, but I look back now and think, 'Oh yeah, I was a 21-year-old female artist who was fed up and looking for a 'fuck you'. It was a great opportunity to talk about what's going on in MY life!'”

Is it something she'd do again? “I doubt I'd be asked!” she laughs. “Probably not in that context. At this point in my career, I'd like to do anything that furthers people's awareness of themselves and makes them feel something about who they were. If I have any foibles I could put forth and have people identify with, I'd be more happy with that.”

Temporarily relocating to London at the behest of their label, British audiences turned out in their thousands as promotional difficulties scuppered the band's chances of a big breakthrough. In the US the band's pithy take on New Order's Bizarre Love Triangle cracked the Top 50 and Frente's opening slot for Alanis Morrissette's first major North American tour brought a whole new audience.

“At a certain point those tours get very, very surreal,” marvels Austin. “That Alanis tour, there were some very strange science fiction moments of people walking [Angie] on stage, it was all very religious. You'd look out into an audience of 30,000 people and there's 29,900 girls with straight hair and 100 boyfriends standing there like this [impersonates bored tough guy]. It was bizarre.”

 Conversely, the opportunity to connect with their audience was behind the reunion. “We all got on the phone to each other around the same time and it was just – now! It's time,” Austin reflects. “We're making it as polished as it can be, but mistakes are going to occur. It's going to be great. We're going to trip over each other, but that's Frente.”