There Was A Time

It's a strange time for Sydney punk legends the Hard-Ons. On one hand they're in the studio working feverishly to finish their new album – their 11th studio effort – but at the same time they're about to undertake a massive tour in celebration of the 30-year anniversary of their first official show, looking back to a time when they were brash young punks from Punchbowl with a ton of attitude and the musical chops to match.

To make things even more random they're meshing two line-ups for the milestone: founding drummer/vocalist Keish de Silva – who left the ranks in 2001 – is returning to the fold, joining his old sparring partners Peter 'Blackie' Black (guitar/vocals) and Ray Ahn (bass), as well as current skinsman Murray Ruse. Together the four will be revisiting the band's first tenure between 1984-1993 (they took a six-year break at that juncture), although there were apparently some initial reservations about the reunion.

“For the 30 years celebration I got talked into doing the tour with Keish,” Blackie explains, “and now that I'm talked into it I think that it's a really nice idea, but my thing was, like, 'Oh let's do fucking shitloads of recording!' so we're not just doing the new album we're also releasing four split seven-inches with friends of ours from across the world. I just thought, 'Look, we've finally got another drummer and it's working really well, the new stuff's really pumping, I just want to go out and play this shit!' And Ray was like, “I know, I do too – and we will – but it's been 30 years and we've got the best fans, you know they'd love it if we do a 'pick the setlist' tour and just did stuff from the Keish era'.

“At first I thought that it wasn't going to be very musically exciting, but for the Record Store Day gig that we did [at Tym Guitars in Brisbane] a couple of weeks ago we not only did [re-released first single] Girl In The Sweater but we also did the B-side I Heard Her Call My Name, which we haven't played in literally over 20 years, and fuck it was a blast! Suddenly I thought, 'You know what? I'm going to have fun on this tour!' All we've got to do is dig back in and play stuff we haven't played in eons, so it's going to be shitloads of fun. Like Ray says, 'C'mon, from time to time we deserve to pat ourselves on the back!'

“If you're a band that does it for this long then you're a band who does it because you fucking love it to death. For me music is everything – I just fucking love music, it's too good. After all this time the sheer joy and majestic-ness of music has never left us. We're still here feeding off it!”

The Hard-Ons sound changed substantially over the years – does this reflect the fact that they love heaps of different music?

“Yeah, fully,” Blackie emphasises. “Totally. The first reason we broke up was because we felt restricted. The last record we did [before the split – 1993's Too Far Gone] the feedback from it was so strange, and we were like, 'Far out, really? It's probably best that we break up then.' Then when we got back together similar stuff was being fed to us, people suggesting that, 'This is your sound.' I went through a bit of a crisis about the band, so I had a pretty good hard look at it and thought, 'Look, there is a certain perimeter within the Hard-Ons and it's silly to leave that zone,' and I had to make sure that I could be happy with that musically. In all honesty I thought, 'Yeah, I can,' and it almost became like a musical challenge for me to be happy with myself within that perimeter.

“I think I'm pretty lucky that we've got pretty broad scope anyway, even from the first record we've basically done pop, punk and metal – the three genres that we all grew up with and love a lot. Even on the new record we still really do push it within those boundaries. I would hope that we'd change [over time], because I think that whether an audience wants you to or not if you just stay the same then it's crap, and I don't want to be boring.”

Blackie is proud about what Hard-Ons have achieved over the journey – chiefly respect, influence and reverence from all over the globe – and that they've done so without compromising their distinctive vision.

“Totally,” he offers. “Someone asked me the other day, 'Don't you wish that you guys were successful?' and I thought, 'Well, I could always use more money because I hate the fact that I've got to drive a fucking taxi,' and I'd kill to be able to do music full-time – it's unfortunate that in this country you just can't – but in terms of success I think the example I used was, 'Well The Strokes were successful, and they were fucking shit!' So no, success isn't something that we strive for, we just strive to be good. We just want to be a great band and whatever happens after that happens – you either get lucky sometimes and you're in the limelight, and at other times no one knows who you are or even remembers that you're still together and all that sort of shit, but the most important aspect for us is just to be a really good band.”