Bourne To Rock

Round the corner after climbing a flight of stairs up to a sun-filled room at Warner HQ, and half of Airbourne – frontman Joel O'Keeffe and his drummer brother Ryan – are relaxing on a couch. They're wearing all black (of course) and the length of their unruly locks reflects a true dedication to rock. Both are extremely at ease and happy to shuffle apart and create space between them so we can all share the settee. An advance listen of their new album unveils some genius lyrics: “A mouthful of garter is merely a starter.” They both laugh. “We were joking about that part of the song,” Joel recalls in his broad Aussie accent, “about the mouthful of 'garder' [sic] part – or, [puts on a posh British accent] 'A mouthful of garter…' and then I'd come out of the vocal booth and they'd be like, 'Dude, you sound like you've got a Transatlantic accent. You sound like you're half American, half Pommy. Why are we going all Billy Idol?'”

“Yeah, he was too Australian,” Ryan agrees, “he was doing, 'A mouthful of garder,' and Brian [Howes, producer]'s like [makes cutting motion], 'Dude, you can't sing that. It doesn't make any sense.” 

As is usually the case with Airbourne, you know just what you're getting just by reading over the song titles. And the riff in No One Fits Me (Better Than You) will turn your face to mush. “Well No One Fits Me…, we came up with that in the car,” Ryan says. So do they get a lot of surprise speeding fines in the mail? “Oh, [fines for running] red lights and things and we get lots of parking fines,” Joel laughs. “We can't be fucked dealing with the whole, like, pay 30 bucks an hour, Melbourne-style parking – it's fucking shit. We just go, 'Fuck, I'm just gonna park over here'.” Ryan cuts in, “Loading zone. Bang!” The Joel continues: “One second later we'll come out with a pie and a Coke and go, 'Oh, fuck, 85 bucks again!' 'Cause we parked in front of a driveway.”

Joel considers AC/DC's TNT (“I just think that's a real cornerstone in Australian rock'n'roll”) and Dogs Are Talking by The Angels as a couple of his favourite riffs. “You can't forget the old Unskinny Bop one, that's a good riff,” Ryan contributes before his brother sings it and allows, “Yeah, it's a sneaky one, that one.” There's certainly a lot of attitude behind said Poison riff and this is something Joel goes on to suggest is “what drives the song”. “Usually the riff comes first and then that generally creates what the theme of the song is,” he elaborates. “A song like No One Fits Me…, you're not gonna go and start saying, 'Stand up for rock'n'roll' – it just wouldn't make sense. It has a sort of sexual vibe to the riff [demonstrates]. It's got [demonstrates further] that groove thing going on. So you get in there and you start thinking things like, 'Oh fuck, I could hear this at a strip club, you'd hear this just in a dirty rock'n'roll bar.' You start thinking, 'People at home, if they had it on, like, what would be goin' on?' You know, maybe dudes doing lines on the table. [Pauses] It's funny, a guy came in here today and, before the interview started, he goes, 'There's some razor blade marks on here. Someone's been doing coke up here, have they?'”

Ryan points to the glass tabletop. “Yeah, see there's razor blade marks there? Interesting way to start the conversation but, cool [laughs].” So perhaps the measure of a good riff is whether or not you can chop up coke to it? “Yeah,” Ryan enthuses while his brother laughs. 

Airbourne are often booked to play the same festivals as Slash, and Ryan remembers when they met the riff virtuoso. “We first met him in Holland. That was that festival where Mikkey Dee, the drummer of Motörhead, tried to give us his penthouse.” Joel takes over, “He was like, 'I've gotta hit the road, do you want my penthouse?' He had the keys to the penthouse.“ Ryan interrupts, disbelievingly: “He was literally trying to give it to him!” And then Joel continues, “And we're like, 'Shame we've gotta hit the road too,' hahaha.”

But back to Slash. “Oh, yeah!” Joel obliges. “And then I met him at Soundwave again, caught up with him sidestage. I just came out and watched Iron Maiden and [Slash's] gig and, 'cause I was able to get backstage for the Iron Maiden stuff, I ran into [Slash] and he was like, 'Oh come back to the bandroom,' and I went back to their bandroom and we were just talkin' about stuff, you know. We talked about some Guns N' Roses songs, he just was – I dunno the conversation turned to Guns N' Roses songs and how they were written. I can't remember which song it was, if it was My Michelle or the other one: We were just talking about how it was the last song written for that [Appetite For Destruction] and how it was thrown together really quickly or something but it turned out to be a really great song.”

Joel is renowned for climbing colossal scaffolding towers, guitar strapped on for the inevitable shredding solo from great heights. Surely there's been some near-stacks. “Climbing up the top of those things, the metal that's been out in the sun all afternoon can be really hot, so you can't even hold onto the damn thing by the time you get to the top,” Joel imparts. “Once the adrenaline has burnt off and the pain starts, you're like, 'FUCK! What do I do?' I've usually got wristbands on, so I literally pull one out with my teeth and put it over the top of my hand and just hold it.”

How this spectacular act of bravery escapes OH&S scrutiny defies logic. “Well, I get the feeling [when] we go out again, I'm not gonna be surprised if they ban me, you know: shut me down for it. Because in the past it's been, 'Don't do it,' and then we've gone and done it. Now for me, three or four years straight and on the last few shows, they were kinda like, 'We're gonna fine you 40,000 pounds if you do it,' and then even when I went to look to do it like, 'Oh, fuck it! I'll see if I can get away with it,' there was 12 security guards standing right around the pole, guarding, like [crosses arms and adopts a scowl], 'Don't you fuckin' come near us!' They're like this [punches fist]. They're like, 'I'll wrap that guitar around your head,' you know, and then it's sorta like, 'Okay, fuck, you win'…  That's the other thing, like, the show with us is, it's always been, 'You never know what you're gonna get'. You know what? There's always a tower at front of house.”