Golden Age

When Ben Ely is not making music, he's mostly making art about music, or art about video games. When Inpress tracks him down he is holed up at home creating a series of paintings about '70s punk rock for the Semi-Permanent exhibition in Brisbane, so is quite enjoying the reprieve of media interviews for Regurgitator's upcoming tour. “This year I've been staying home and working alone a lot, painting for the show, so it's kind of nice having a day where I can actually talk to some people!” says the super-amiable Ely. 

The exhibition involves a group of visual artists making art with an audio component, with a DJ cutting up the audio. “I'm doing a late-'70s punk rock kind of thing with a bunch of '70s punk bands with kind of punk paintings,” says Ely, whose recent art-making soundtrack, despite his love of punk rock, has been mostly cheesy '80s vinyl, mostly “because it's cheap!”

Ely's other bands are more punk in sound than Regurgitator, but in essence, Regurgitator have always been a punk band, in attitude if not sonically. “I feel like our band, Quan [Yeomans] and I are kind of like these middle-aged juveniles,” laughs Ely, truly the nicest man in rock. “It's like we're in grade one, making up stupid songs. We can't believe that people still come and see us play and stuff. It's pretty nice. We both feel very lucky.”

Over the 19 years the band have been together (Peter Kostic is the current drummer), they've constantly challenged themselves and their audience with stylistic changes on every album, and somehow always reconciled irony and satire with a strong sense of conviction. Ely and Yeomans, both now in their (early) 40s, find themselves making music in a band that they've been in almost half their lives. With characteristic humour, the group's latest promo pictures show them made up to look like old, wrinkled men. How much is age an issue? Surely every successful rock musician in their 40s has wondered if they're the right age for the job?

“Quan and I had this conversation; we played at this festival with Hilltop Hoods and The Living End and Cat Empire and Quan's like, 'Do you really think we should keep playing in this band?' I just said, 'Well, as long as you feel like you've got the energy for it and you can do it with a really strong sense of conviction, that you're going to do it and really believe in it and really love it and have the physical energy to be able to do it, I think it's fine'.”

A Nomeansno gig proved to a young Ben Ely that age doesn't matter in music. “They were like old guys and they just rocked the hell out and they were so amazing. It doesn't really matter I guess how old you are, it's how much energy, physical energy you have for it. I think if you do have the energy and spirit for it I think it's completely fine. But obviously if you're kind of tired and you don't get on with the people in the band and you're not really into the music, that's probably a bit boring.“

Regurgitator have never been boring. Their debut record Tu-Plang earned the band a significant following with its exciting mash-up of styles, but it was Unit that brought them mainstream success. The 1997 album, which featured the singles Black Bugs, Polyester Girl and Everyday Formula, won the 1998 ARIA Award for Best Album, and is the record Yeomans still considers the band's best work. It was recently voted the tenth best Australian album of all time on the triple j Hottest 100 Australian Album poll. Tu-Plang came in at number 44. That goes some way to explaining the band's next move. Regurgitator have joined the classic-album-tour trend, touring the country playing Tu-Plang and Unit back to back.

“Humans are very nostalgic, aren't they?” says Ely by way of explanation. “It's funny doing it because I feel like our new album [Super Happy Fun Times Friends] is a lot better than those albums. I wouldn't say that about every album we've done, but I think this new album we've done is my favourite. So in some ways it kind of feels a bit silly to do it but in some ways it's kind of fun too I guess.”

This nostalgia for classic records is a sign of these times in which albums are becoming extinct. Acknowledging that most people listen to individual tracks digitally rather than full albums these days, Yeomans has said that physical albums are “kind of a dead concept now” and that Regurgitator are likely to only release digitally from now on.

The band first did the Unit/Tu-Plang show for last year's Falls Festival. “Then we had all these other people in other states going, 'Can you please do it here', and we felt obligated to them to do shows around the country,” says Ely. The band also had to re-learn how to play songs they hadn't performed in years. “It was kind of fun doing it from start to finish, it felt a little bit more performance-y than a rock show.”

In characteristic Regurgitator style, the band will be “putting together a bit of a show for it,” says Ely, which will include costume changes for each album and projections for each song. In support will be Chinese band Hedghog and Indonesian act Senyawa. “We usually like to get interesting support bands and usually support bands that aren't standard rock bands tend to break up the night and make it a little bit more easy on the ears and a little bit more interesting,” says Ely. Hedghog are a guitar punk-pop band from Beijing and Senyawa are “a really amazing Indonesian avant-garde folk duo sort of thing. They're kind of like Indonesian folk music crossed with The Boredoms or John Zorn or something like that. I saw them play at the Overground festival last year and was blown away and I just thought that the other guys in our band would be really into it too so we asked them to come out. “

The lifestyle of a touring musician contrasts firmly with that of a visual artist, and like most musicians Ely tends to experience the post-tour slump. “I think lots of musicians have talked about it, every time a musician comes home from being on tour… it's so exciting and there's a lot of adrenalin kicking around your system and then you get home and it's a bit of a crash.”

Regurgitator will be playing the following shows:

Saturday 20 October - The Spotted Cow, Toowoomba QLD
Sunday 21 October - Brisbane Zombie Walk, Brisbane QLD
Thursday 11 October - The Hi-Fi, Melbourne VIC
Friday 12 October - The Hi-Fi, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 13 October - Brisbane Hotel, Hobart TAS
Sunday 14 October - Brisbane Hotel, Hobart TAS