March Of The Pigs

“It was quite overwhelming, but in some ways I wasn’t surprised,” Stafford reflects on Pig City’s initial success. “Brisbane seemed to be in the middle of a love affair with itself, and [the book] seemed to be saying exactly what Brisbane wanted to hear about itself. I bragged that it was the story of how Brisbane had grown up, which is something that embarrasses me deeply now. In hindsight, I think of Brisbane as a city with growing pains now rather than a city that’s actually grown up.

“And I couldn’t have believed in my wildest dreams that there would be a concert in 2007 wherein the three principle members of The Saints would reunite. That’s something I still shake my head [about]. I was very proud of that – not that I’m assuming that the bands were endorsing the book as such – but the fact that it was a catalyst for something like that was fairly monumental.”

Obviously the Brisbane political landscape has changed significantly since Pig City, and Stafford attests that things have changed on the music front as well.

“This is an astonishingly fertile period in Brisbane music – it’s more exciting than I’ve ever seen it anytime in the past,” he enthuses. “I started writing for Time Off in the early-‘90s and Brisbane music was starting to boom then; Custard were starting to gain traction, Powderfinger were coming through, Regurgitator were up and running and Screamfeeder had been around a few years too. They were the big four that were starting to make waves interstate, and it was an exciting time for Brisbane music. Plus the city itself was booming and finally shaking off the shackles of the Bjelke-Petersen years.

“Back then, however, record companies were still investing in young talent, and major labels were actively investigating what was going on in Brisbane – that doesn’t happen now which is both a good and a bad thing. Things now are more DIY – more punk than they ever were in a way – and people are making records for exactly the right reasons. They don’t have anyone looking over their shoulder, and you can afford to make a cool record in your house, which wasn’t possible back then unless you were some kind of evil genius.”