A Bit Of A Dick

With song titles such as Nicholas Cage Doesn't Care If The World Thinks He's Mildly Retarded, it's evident from the outset that local miscreants Dick Nasty don't take themselves too seriously. The band – Geordie Stafford, John Mercer, Lucas Moore and Adam “Cuffy” Cuthbert – are best mates who play together as an opportunity to hang out, drink beers and make each other laugh. They also play some of the most addictive hardcore punk that Brisbane has ever witnessed, renowned for pissed-off, opinionated music that's equally verbose and biting, albeit with a playful edge. They have no favourite punching bag; everything is up for grabs.

At a time when younger bands of their ilk sparkle and fade in quick succession, Dick Nasty, alongside compatriots The Quickening, Mouthguard and the ubiquitous Turnpike, are as tight and relevant as ever. The band (sans Moore, who couldn't make the interview) admits that times have changed, but they proudly never will – new album Heaven's Filling Up took an uncharacteristically long time to surface, but it's the best thing they've ever done.

“I don't want to sound like a dick, but I'm so proud of what we have achieved; it's bullshit good,” Mercer marvels. “We don't play a lot; I used to say that we only play once a season. However almost religiously over the past thirteen years we practice once a week. Yet when it came time to record things just seemed crazy. People have been travelling, preparing to travel, Cuffy spent half a year in Perth, I was originally moving to Melbourne at the start of the year – so there was this added pressure that kicked us into gear. We did the guts of the recordings over the weekend of the Flavours of Scuzz night, with all the tracks down except for a few overdubs and other little things.

“Even that was a massive fuck around; Donnie [Miller – producer] was going to record it but got double booked, but at the last minute Cam Smith kicked another band aside to give us the time because he's a rad dude, and it turned out amazing, he's incredible. We've always tried to play above our means; we started out not being able to play anything, and that's how we learnt, by teaching and pushing, and it's ingrained. Lucas was the only one who had had lessons – from the bass player of Taxi.”

“It's how I imagine we sound like if I was watching the band,” Cuthbert continues. “The last couple albums you listen back and think that's cool, for four guys in a studio making a record. But this time we really let go, we were looser with everything and it felt really freeing. This is a live sound like I'd imagine us on our good nights.”

The new songs are faster and sharper, more breakneck than anything the four-piece have committed to tape, and the wordplay and famed song titles have also shown development, albeit steeped in anger, frustration and annoyance. Stafford stresses that finding issues to write about will never be an issue, especially where the local public transport system and television is involved.

“It's so easy to fall into generic lyrics with generic song titles; the last thing the world needs is another song called Walk Away,” he laughs. “We had started moving away from that just as we got into Mclusky and Dillinger Four, two bands that we all agree are great bands. It's fun and mainly to make the other band members laugh than anything else. I think that Birth, School, Amity Affliction, Death is the best song John has ever written lyrically, and the first verse is a direct quote from a skit out of Peep Show. There are different things that piss us off now too. We might have a song down tight but won't have lyrics, and every now and then I'll struggle for a bit, and if in doubt catch public transport. Whether it's a conversation you overhear or something you see, either way something will fuck you right off. Jesus Christ it's a shambles.”

Live Dick Nasty experiences are sparse nowadays, with a show being rarer than hen's teeth. They intimate that it's an amalgamation of choice and necessity that sees them remaining somewhat reclusive on the Brisbane music scene.

“I got a job working at a bar where I was working six nights a week, so we went from playing three shows a month to three shows a year,” Mercer explains. “We had to turn down a lot of things, and I remember getting a lot of shit at shows from people who thought we were snobs for not doing these shows. I may be romanticising it, but it felt kind of enjoyable not playing as many shows, because not only was it a special occasion for us, it was something that people could look forward to. And now seeing as we're still practicing every week we're still a tight musical unit.”

After the album's launch all will once again be quiet on the Dick Nasty front as Stafford heads overseas. The immediate future of the band may be in upheaval, but the guys are adamant about that there's no end of the road.

“I have no idea how long I'll be away; it could literally be two months, it could be a year,” Stafford concedes. “When I get back I'll cheekily see if the other guys are still interested. Things are different now; we've gotten older, people are married, people are engaged, Lucas has a daughter, people have serious jobs as opposed to chronic unemployment. People have lives, and it gets harder and harder.”

“[Dick Nasty] has always been a reason for us to get together, so that once a week you get to spend three hours having a beer and a chat, and then playing some music,” Mercer continues. “Some nights are more productive than others. We have two shows coming up, and we'll definitely have the record at one of them, hopefully both – after that, I'd rather see us playing one-off shows with friends to fuck all people, then playing tons of shows with shit bands, or heaps of shit people you don't want to play to. No one likes us more than we do, so we have to make sure that we're going to enjoy it. I'd hate to go, 'I don't want to hang out with these cunts tonight so I'm going to act like a dick at this show, or not enjoy myself'. I honestly can't see us ever ending though. We'll probably still be doing this when we're forty-five, and we might only play four more shows, but I think that's totally rad. I can never see us not doing this.”

“We are moving into the Front End Loader model which we've been aspiring to do for the last few years which is to do something every now and again and hopefully rule as hard as they do,” Stafford concludes.