The Cookie Has Spoken

Ben Ely feels like he's in a covers band. For the last month, Ely has been hard at work relearning Regurgitator songs from the distant past. “Hopefully we'll be a good covers band. Like a P&O cruise liner of a band rather than like a suburban beer barn cover band. Hopefully we'll do okay renditions of the songs, not terrible ones,” he says with a hearty chuckle. “I'm really spruiking the show, aren't I?”

Anyone evenly vaguely familiar with this genre-jumping, innovative rock outfit should know that self-deprecating humour and a huge dose of humility is just the Regurgitator way. But rest assured, when the band land in Sydney to play groundbreaking albums Tu-Plang and Unit, it's going to be high on the list of 2012 highlights.

When this anarchic Brisbane band released their debut album Tu-Plang in 1996, Australia was ready. Alternative music fans were shaking off the grunge years and opting for music that was less… well, grungey; music that had a sense of humour. Triple j was embracing a new breed of Australian bands; acts like Spiderbait and Powderfinger were starting to make their mark. And then came Tu-Plang, this outrageous genre mash-up of hip hop, rock, odd electro and just about everything in between. With titles such as I Sucked A Lot Of Cock To Get Where I Am, Young Bodies Heal Quickly and Pop Porn, Regurgitator wore their offbeat humour proudly on their sleeves.

Tu-Plang got to number three on the ARIA chart, went Platinum and won the band two ARIAs; Best Alternative Release and Best Debut. But that was only a warm-up. The band's follow-up, Unit, heavy on the synths and ratcheting up the shiny, off-kilter pop from their debut, didn't get quite as high on the chart, only making it tonumber four, but was pushed along by the success of singles Everyday Formula, Black Bugs, Polyester Girl and ! (The Song Formerly Known As). Unit would go on to win five ARIA awards and go three times Platinum, becoming one of the biggest Australian albums of the '90s.

Though Ely will forever be proud of the music he's made in Regurgitator with bandmates guitarist Quan Yeomans, original drummer Martin Lee and now Pete Kostic, the massive success of the band's first two albums is somewhat of a mystery to him.

“I listen to those records now and they just seem naïve and crudely recorded,” Ely explains. “I kind of like that they are so popular because we did them so cheaply. We were still kind of learning how to record. It's pretty cute that people still even like those records. They were coming from such a naïve place. Maybe that's the appeal to it, their lo-fi nature.”

And it's not just fans who were listening to triple j in the mid-'90s that have embraced Regurgitator. There's a new generation of fans out there now, who grew up listening to the band because they were a favourite of their parents. It's an endorsement of how experimental and fresh the band was back when the albums came out that they still sound experimental and fresh even now.

“The last tour of Australia we did with SuperHappyFunTimeFriends. There were a lot of people coming up to us after the show saying, 'Oh wow, I finally get to see you guys. It's great. I've been listening to you since I was four and now I've finally turned 18'. Oh my god, I'm really old, but that's really sweet.”

Though Ely doesn't really think about why the young fans are coming to Regurgitator shows, he is happy to talk about why he's a fan.

“I don't wonder what other people think. That's something I've learnt: you can't really think for other people. Just for me personally I like Quan's music because it's exciting. There's a lot of energy and spirit in it. That's what I like about it and maybe that's what other people like about it too. I think there's this playfulness and experimenting, doing whatever we feel like. Whenever in the past we've stuck to specific styles we just get bored really quickly.”

Working their way through the albums in rehearsals has been an interesting experience for Ely. “It's hard for me. It's like a time machine. It just brings back all these thoughts and feelings of where I was. Not only where I was but how I felt at the time in that age and having this kind of naïve excitement at how it was all going.

“I think we were genuinely happy and excited that we were in a band that was doing shows with people there. Because all of us had played in a lot of bands before Regurgitator and I guess there was a sense of gratitude, as there is now, that we have the band that is this kind of golden goose for us, I guess.”

Playing both albums in full does give Ely a chance to bust out a few of songs that would never normally get a run live. “We played the Unit show at Falls Festival at New Year's Eve, and it was a lot of fun playing It's Just Another Beautiful Story, the last song off the Unit album, because it's quite orchestral and intricate musically, which is what we don't usually do. We usually do big, dumb pop songs. That was really fun getting in there and learning all the parts,” Ely explains. “Sometimes the interpretation is going to be a little more minimal. We've hired a keyboardist to come on tour with us to do some of the trickier arrangements and things, so it will be possible to do pretty much the whole show and make all the songs pretty good replicas of what they were.”

And though it's been a tough slog making a living out of the Australian music scene, Ely, who is also a visual artist, wouldn't have things any other way.

“It's not easy if you love what you do. It's definitely been stressful and hard and sleep-deprivating. It's been pretty tough. But because you love what you do, it's been fine. I've had such a good time and I'm continuing to have such a great time with my life. I wouldn't take it back. If I died tonight I would be happy. It's been such a great experience.”