The Church: 'I've Never Seen A Person Write A Good Song On Cocaine.'

"Let them eat Smarties!" bellows The Church frontman Steve Kilbey after walking on-stage, reaching into a glass bowl of the colourful candies and tossing a fistful of them out towards the quietly reverent crowd gathered to hear the renowned Aussie rockers deliver today's keynote BIGSOUND interview, and as it turns out, we're given much more deliciousness than a handful of hard-coated chocolate.

Three members of The Church are here today — the unfailingly magnetic Kilbey, stalwart drummer Tim Powles, and new(ish) conscript and ex-Powderfinger stringsmith Ian Haug — and with a little goading from their interviewer, Kilbey elaborates on an old analogy he proffered up during a time of tumult for the band, when he compared them to a freshly woken coma patient. Now, he says — while admitting that the hospital metaphor was never particularly "very rock'n'roll", "we had a big blood transfusion when Ian joined … we're up and running and healthier than ever".

Bear in mind that this is a band that has survived everything from being banned on 300 European radio stations — "that was a fork in the road," Kilbey deadpans — to being kicked off a tour with Duran Duran. No — sorry. Not kicked off.

"We didn't get thrown off the [1980s] Duran Duran tour," Kilbey clarifies. "We left.

I left. And the others had to leave because I left."

It's a sense of volatility that has defined the band's career, with Kilbey summing up the past three-and-a-half decades with a quote from his forthcoming book (out November 1!): "The Church is like Europe at the beginning of World War One — constantly plotting against itself."

"The only reason we're here, 35 years later, is because we've made great music," he summarises.

The conflict arguably reached its lowest point during Kilbey's descent to functional addiction to heroin, at which point he "pissed the whole band off", becoming "like a big handicap" to their forward trajectory. But, at the same time, he acknowledges the role drug use has played in his creative journey, listing off an A-Z of illicit substances that he felt, each time he was introduced to a new one, broadened his musical horizons considerably.

Well, except one — "I've never seen a person write a good song on cocaine," Kilbey says. "For me, cocaine didn't work out as a creative drug at all."

Those days are behind him, now, as are the days when former member Willson-Piper started "straddling the unstraddleable", in Kilbey's and, to an extent, Powle's eyes — attempting a dual role as member and manager. It emerges (if that's the word — it's not surprising, really) that Kilbey has always been staunchly opposed to getting too involved in the activities he feels diverts attention from what really matters for a band — making music. He's not interested in T-shirts or sales numbers or key performance indicators — that's all "irrelevant" to the point — he just wants to play tunes.

"I'm 60 on Saturday; I'm not arguing [any more]," he says. "I'm not talking figures; I'm just playing guitar and singing."

In the wake of Haug's November introduction to the band, work was undertaken for the band's forthcoming 25th(!!) studio full-length, and while Powles perhaps had some trepidation — "this album … was new with Ian; we didn't even know if it was going to work," he says — Kilbey was convinced from the moment Haug's name was mentioned as a possible replacement for former member and manager Marty Willson-Piper.

"I knew Ian was going to work in every way," he says confidently.

With talk turning to the inevitable — unjustified — criticism levelled towards Haug when he joined the band, he offers an old piece of advice he received in his youth. "My father used to say, 'What anyone thinks of you is none of your business'," he says. "I try to live by that."

It's a good mantra to live by when it comes to detractors, but with supporters it's a different story — The Church also spend a bit of time canvassing the role played in their success by various patrons they have acquired over the years, one of whom Kilbey attempted to fleece out of some money for drugs, and they acknowledge that as beneficial and freeing a relationship as that can be, there is still nonetheless an expectation of performance placed upon them by their background funders.

It's a situation that is increasingly common across the music industry, Powles says, pointing to CEOs and other highly paid executives around the world who see a band they love is ailing and step up to sling some sustaining cash their way — and it ties into the shifting attitudes towards music as a career, he says.

"Music's becoming almost like a hobbyist career," he explains, "and parents are the first investors."

Indeed, The Church have existed in a constantly transformative environment since first arriving all those years ago — and while Kilbey's 1991 self would be likely be proud of the man he is in 2014, he admits that young, fiery 1975 Steve would probably be "disappointed" he's hung around to make it to 60 — but he'd probably be the only one.