For much of the ‘80s, young Sydney trio VSPY VSPY were one of the most explosive and uncompromising bands on the thriving Australian rock circuit, their catchy missives housing heartfelt stories told from a defiantly street perspective.
Having formed in an inner-city Sydney squat, where they remained even as their star ascended, their songs discussed the issues which they faced in their daily lives – gritty tales of class struggle, racism, homelessness, addiction, and domestic violence – heavy topics which were far from de rigueur in the rock scene of the day.
Unsurprisingly given the fact that the young outfit – at the outset comprising Craig Bloxom (bass/vocals), Cliff Grigg (drums), and Michael Weiley (guitar/vocals) – exhibited such a clear social conscience, they were inevitably drawn into the orbit of hometown heroes Midnight Oil, with whom they would soon share a manager and, quite often in those heady early years, a stage.
Their enduring 1986 debut album Harry’s Reasons came out on Midnight Oil’s own Powderworks imprint – before they jumped to the majors for its acclaimed follow-up A.O. Mod. TV. Vers. which came out later that same year – releases whose 40th anniversary is on the verge of being celebrated with both vinyl reissues and a national tour.
This writer’s first thrilling live encounter with the Spies (as they’re affectionately known by fans) was as a Melbourne teenager back in late-1984 when they opened for the Oils at the One For The Kids concert in Albert Park – alongside fellow Oz rockers Dear Enemy, Divinyls, and Strange Tenants – a gig that Bloxom recalls with remarkable clarity.
“I was talking about that gig just the other day!” he enthuses. “Gary Morris, the Oils’ manager, took us under his wing, and it was the best thing that ever happened to us. At that gig we went onstage and we had the orange suits on – which Gary told us to wear – and people were kind of booing and throwing things, the Oils fans could be hard to tame at times.
“And I remember saying to them, ‘If you're going to throw things, throw food!’ And all of a sudden apples and oranges and all these edible things started flying at us, and I remember seeing this green apple come flying through the air and ‘doink’, it landed and stuck on the head of Michael's guitar!
“And I remember Michael stopped playing and he reached over and he took the apple off, he stuck it in his mouth and started to eat it, and the crowd went wild. I think we kind of won the audience when Michael took a bite of the apple.
“But then we finished and I remember Dear Enemy went on, and their singer foolishly said, 'If you're going to throw things, throw money!’, and all of a sudden they were pelted with like 20 cent bits and 50 cent bits, and a lot of gear got cracked and stuff like that. The roadies were furious, and I think they had to come off a bit early.
“But at the end of their gig, the roadies went around and collected up a bucket full of change, all of those coins, and they gave me the bucket full of money. And I remember going up to Gary and going, ‘Gary, look, I got a bucket full of coins, the beers are on us! Let’s go party!” And Gary went, ‘Craig, you take that bucket up to the front to the organisers and you give it to them because this is One For The Kids and that's their money’, and I remember going, ‘Oh…’.
“But that was Gary, right? That was him to a tee. He was the most generous guy and the most insightful manager I've ever known. He facilitated that we own all of our songs. So many bands when they sign record deals, their music is owned by the record company in perpetuity. But Gary, he went, ‘No, you are going to own your songs because it's the only thing you've got’.
“So to this day, Midnight Oil and the Spies, we own all of our songs, which is how I can go about re-releasing Harry's Reasons and AO Mod. Then I'm going to take the profits from that and split it in four – because as a band we always split things four ways equally – so I'll give a quarter of that to Cliff, a quarter of that to Gary, a quarter of that's mine, and one quarter will go to Michael Weiley's mum, who is his benefactor since he died.
“But it feels great that we own all of our heritage, it’s really a wonderful thing.”
Bloxom explains that the band’s predilection to sing about the serious issues they saw on the streets was more nature than nurture.
“I've always had a heart to sing about real world circumstances, it’s just the way that I was wired,” he muses. “So I drove the bus in VSPY VSPY, but we would all always read newspapers and comment about stuff that was going on – and because we did share things equally we all had notebooks and we would all write words because I had to compile them – and we would go, ‘Well, what are we going to write this song about?’
“For example, Michael Weiley was quite upset and fascinated by Sallie-Anne Huckstepp and the corruption in New South Wales at the time, and he was driven to write a song about her [1987 single Sallie-Anne]. Then we all joined in and wrote words – and then I would compile the words because I had to sing – and we went from there.
“But back in the day, Peter Garrett used to come and see the Spies back in the early-1980s – like ’81 and ’82 – you’d see this big bald guy up the back of the room, pogoing around like a crazy man. I think he used to say to Gary, ‘You've got to come and check out these guys’.
“So we were doing a gig at the Mosman Hotel one Thursday or Friday night, playing to about 50 people, and we were giving it our all – as we did back then, we didn't care whether there was a hundred there or a thousand, we always got up there and went for it – and Gary came backstage afterwards.
“He was a good looking man – well-built, well-dressed – and he said, ‘What are you guys doing tomorrow?’, and we went, ‘Nothing’. He went, ‘Well, come by Midnight Oil's office, and I'll get you a record deal'. And he did! He got us a record deal and took us up to Stockton Beach to record a video for the track One Of A Kind, which was off our first mini-album that he organised for us [1984’s Meet Us Inside].
“So Gary just came along, but one thing he did say when we went for that first meeting at the Midnight Oil office on Kangaroo Street in Manly, he said, ‘The one thing I liked about you guys was there weren't many people at the gig, but you still put on a good show’, so he mentioned that.
“But that's kind of always the way that we've been. When we get up there we just switch into gig mode and it’s, like, ‘Let's rock!’ So I guess we were blessed with just having that from the get-go and the hearts to sing about all the stuff that we saw going on around us.
“But it wasn’t all serious, I adored being in a band back then. It’s like you're in this group of rock’n’roll warriors and you go on the road and it's you against the fucking world, there’s a great unity.
“There's always moments where someone's being a dickhead and you’ve got to pull people into line, but the unity and the fun that you get by being part of a band is just wonderful. And when you have a good gig and do a good tour and everyone does well, it's just the best feeling. It really is.”
From the outset VSPY VSPY were renowned for their live chops, skills honed by experience on the unforgiving pub circuit. For a trio they made a big but tuneful racket and always exhibited a sense of playful camaraderie, their lack of pretension endearing them even more to the sweaty throngs of punters.
“When you get up in front of an Australian crowd, if you're not good you better be fucking entertaining because Australian crowds are hardcore,” Bloxom laughs. “If they don't like you you're in deep shit, so you've just got to make things up, and that's kind of what we did. But we were lucky to have been born in the period we were.
“We got a phone call once in 1981 – a band called Fast Cars had a gig at the Sussex Hotel, and the lead singer, Diannah [Levy], wasn't feeling well – so she called and said, ‘You guys live close-by in Glebe, would you come and play?’ And we went, ‘Yeah, sure'. But we didn't have a name, and we didn't really have any songs. We were basically an instrumental band because none of us could really sing, but we had a lot of jamming music.
“So on our way to the gig we're going, ‘What are we going to call ourselves?’ And Cliff went, ‘Let’s call ourselves Spy vs Spy [the original nomenclature prior to an extant band with a similar name becoming involved] because it's a three word name and there's three of us. We went, ‘Yeah, fuck, that'll do’. So we became VSPY VSPY in the car on the way to a gig. And we got there and we started to play and we had to sing things, and so Cliff was making weird noises and I started to sing certain words and stuff.
“Someone there must have seen us who was in the industry, and one thing we did have in the squat was a telephone, and the phone just began to ring. People would call and say, ‘Would you come and play here? Would you come and play there?’, and we went, ‘Okay, well we better rehearse and write some songs’, because we didn't play covers – we were shit at covers, man.
“By then Cliff had said, ‘Come and live in the squat with me. It's free rent, and we can rehearse downstairs’. So we went downstairs day in, day out and just began to write songs and work on them.
“And then we would go and play gigs in the evenings, and when we weren't playing, we'd go and see other bands. It was back in the time when bands and live music was just everything; it’s what we’d do.
“In Melbourne you could walk down the road and see four or five bands from one pub to the next. You could go to Adelaide and go down Hindley Street and you could go downstairs to Lark and Tinas, and there'd be a band there, and then across the road in the pub there was a band. And you’d just keep walking down the road, there were bands in every pub. It's what we all did for entertainment back then – there were no video games, there were no DJs, there was no dance music.
“It's just we were lucky to have lived through a period where live bands and music was everything. Music was everything to us – albums, all that stuff. I’ll never forget walking down Military Road and I saw a friend across the road, and he lifted up the new Dire Straits album and he was, like, ‘I got the new album! Do you want to come back to my place and listen?’ And we're shouting back, ‘Yeah! Yeah!’
“And so we went back home, and you'd get the needle and the record goes around and around, and you just got transported to a world of music. It was just everything back then, and yeah, I feel blessed that we were able to live and work through that great era. That’s how we learnt to be a band, just playing.”
The two albums that the Spies released in 1986 both fared well – the indie release Harry’s Reason rose to a more than respectable #42, while their debut for new home WEA (now Warner Music) A.O. Mod. TV. Vers. peaked at #12 – but when you factor in the attendant touring obligations that come with releasing two albums in one year it adds up to one fairly gruelling experience.
“Yeah, it was,” Bloxom admits. “When Gary came along and we started to support the Oils and other name bands, we started to develop an audience. And Gary got us in to do Meet Us Inside and we released One Of A Kind, and we did the film clip up on Stockton Beach which got played on Countdown.
“Now with Countdown, if you weren't there you just don't understand what a massive influence it had because everyone – like mums and dads, kids, everyone – we all watched Countdown. It was a massively influential show, and when we got played on Countdown, all of a sudden, we began to get more people at gigs.
“We’d released that on the Oils’ Powderworks label, and because Meet Us Inside did well punters-wise, we got the chance to make Harry’s Reasons. Gary put us into the studio in November of 1985, we went into Albert Studios where The Easybeats, Rose Tattoo, and AC/DC all made their albums – it was rock’n’roll royalty.
“We went in there and we got this producer called Les Karski, who used to be in an English band called Supercharge – they had that song You’ve Gotta Get Up And Dance. They did a tour here and when the band went back to the UK, Les just stayed.
“So we did the Meet Us Inside mini-album by ourselves, but then Les came along and he started to work with us on our song arrangements and chord patterns. He really helped us develop our songwriting structures and processes, which all fed into Harry's Reasons. He actually came up with that name! We were going, ‘What are we going to call the album?’ And Les said, ‘Call it Harry's Reasons’ and we went, ‘That'll do’. And so we recorded that in November and it came out in February of 1986.
“That was another stepping stone for us in the sense it got played on the radio, Countdown and stuff. And by about mid-year, Gary took us to Warners – which was a bigger record label back then – and as soon as we signed to them, they said, ‘We want an album now'. And so luckily – because we were a working band constantly writing songs – we went in and we recorded A.O. Mod. TV. Vers. and that came out in November of ’86.
“So we were a hard working band just through the circumstances of getting involved with Gary, Midnight Oil's manager, getting played on Countdown, getting crowds to our gigs – we were just busy. And we look back now and go ‘How did we fucking do it?’ I don't know, we just did!
“They were the best of times back then, and I’m really grateful that I'm getting the opportunity one more time to go out and play those songs. And what we're going to do with this tour, too, is play a lot of the stuff that we haven't played – well I haven't played – in 40 years.
“We’re going to do C.E.S. Limbo and Voice Of The People from the Meet Us Inside mini-album, and we’re going to do Pockets Of Pride [from A.O. Mod. TV. Vers.] and Have No Fear [from 1989 fourth album Trash The Planet] – all kinds of songs that I haven't sung in years and years.”
In the absence of his former bandmates Weiley and Grigg, Bloxom will be the only original member involved in the impending reunion, but he’s brought in some heavy hitters to help carry the burden.
The VSPY VSPY legacy has become quite complicated in the years since their formal split in 1994 – all three members have resurrected versions of the band at different junctures – but for this run Bloxom is being joined by former The Angels guitarist Bob Spencer, erstwhile Rose Tattoo drummer Justin Ngariki, and guitarist/vocalist Paul Green (who for many years sung in Michael Weiley’s version of the Spies).
It’s a formidable new line-up and, as Bloxom explains, it all came about via a series of happy accidents.
“This whole tour has come about because a friend of mine's son, Jimmy Kleiner, who was a bass player, became a promoter and is now an agent for Select Music,” the singer tells. “I've known him since he was six, and he said, ‘Uncle Blox, you should do a tour to celebrate 40 years of Harry's Reasons and AO Mod because I'm an agent now and I'll book the tour for you’. And I went, ‘Jimmy, I'm too old, I'm too tired, I can't sing the songs anymore. I can't do it’.
“About the same time last year, I rekindled a relationship with Paul Green, who was the only guy who ever contacted me before he joined Michael's Spies and said, ‘Craig, I love VSPY VSPY – you were the first band I ever saw – and I've been asked to join Michael Weiley's version of the band, but I want your blessing and if you say no, I'm not going to do it’.
“And I said, 'Paul, that's lovely. I absolutely admire your integrity, please go sing my songs with Michael Weiley’. And he did, and he really lit a fire underneath Michael Weiley's Spies, he sang in that band for ten years.
“And about a year ago, I was down at Paul’s – Paul had said, ‘What are you doing? Come and write some songs’ and I’d told him I don't want to do that anymore but finally relented – and when I was there working on some songs I said, ‘Oh, look, Jimmy Kleiner wants to do this tour, but I can't do it’, and Paul went, ‘Are you fucking insane? I'll sing the songs! Come on, I used to do it with Michael!’
"I thought, ‘Fucking hell, this could work’. And so he sat me down and played the Meet Us Inside album – because Paul's a vinyl head, he’s got walls of albums and they're all alphabetical, he's one of those cunts – and he made me sit down and listen to it. I had totally written off the Meet Us Inside album because it was so difficult recording it for numerous reasons – it was a traumatic experience – and I wrote off the album as not being good.
“But Paul sat me down and said, ‘Some of these songs are great to listen to’, and I actually started to cry because I realised that I'd been wrong. For 40 years I'd told myself that this shit's no good, and then I listened to it and Paul was saying, ‘Listen to the bridge in this song and how you introduce the chorus right at the end with a pre-chorus, but then you go off and do these other things’.
“And we'd made this album by ourselves without a producer, so I went back and I revisited this stuff, and it was difficult because I realised that these songs are alright, they're okay. But the hardest thing was for me to realise that I'd been fucking wrong for so long. You sort of get a slap up the face and think, ‘God, I've been a dick!’
“But Paul went, ‘I'll sing’, so I rang Jimmy and said, ‘Jimmy, I think we can do this tour’. He went, ‘Hallelujah Jesus, away we go!’ and he started to book the tour.
“And then we went, 'Well, who are we going to get on guitar?” Then a friend of mine, Peter Raudaschl, who has started the Australian Rock n Roll Museum – he’s collecting things from all of us and writing stuff – he happened to call and mention, ‘Oh, I had a great interview with Bob Spencer yesterday’, and I went, ‘Bob Spencer!’ Because I got to know Bob when the Spies did The Angels’ Howling tour, which was arguably their greatest moment.
“He always marched to the sound of his own drum, Bob – he always played for Bob – and he was totally unique, just like Michael Weiley was. Michael had his own sound. And I thought, ‘Wouldn't it be great to get Bob in the band? How would I do that?’ I know Bob likes systems and organisation – he wants all the ducks in a row – so I wrote up a rough schedule and sent it to him, and he was in!
“So we got Bob Spencer onboard! I mean, who else could you possibly want to interpret Michael Weiley's guitar playing – Bob's Australian rock’n’roll fucking royalty, that guy! Everything he touches is just beautiful.
“So we've got Bob onboard and it was like, ‘Who are we going to get on drums?’ And then Bob said, ‘I know a guy, his name's Ngariki and I played with him in Rose Tattoo – give him a call. " And so I gave him a call and ‘boom’, it all just happened. It all just happened, and it's sounding great.
“We get in a room, there's fucking some power there when you get all of us going. Ngariki’s just a beast on drums, Paul and I are doing layered vocals like they were on the albums and Paul's playing rhythm and Bob's just off in Bob land – he closes his eyes and just goes off – and when he does, I just look at the rest of the guys and go, ‘Keep going, just let Bob fucking go!’
“So there's going to be an element of that with these gigs where it's not going to just go totally to plan every night, because there is a great spirit in the rehearsal room with the interpretation of the songs, but it’s been so incredibly fun playing them again.
“I just feel blessed, and it’s just wonderful how it's come about through friendships, you know? The best things in life appear to come through friendships, they really do."
One other weird thing happened in the years since VSPY VSPY slipped off the public radar in Australia – they accidentally got big in Brazil. As in real big.
“This guy named Ricardo Chantilly got some VSPY VSPY bootleg cassettes in Bali on a surfing safari, and took the cassettes back to his radio station in Rio de Janeiro and started playing us,” Bloxom laughs. "He kept writing us letters back when you had to use pen and paper, saying ‘Please come to Brazil, you are huge here! Please come!’
“Finally we went, with little in the way of expectations, and when we got there I'll never forget the first gig. We had security – which is weird for a start – then we get to this gig and I just got the vibe that there's a lot of people behind this curtain. So I walked up and pulled the curtain aside and looked through and holy fuck, there's about 10,000 or 15,000 people there! Shut the curtain! It was like, holy shit, we were just huge there.
“It's just like one of those things how through friendships and relationships, one thing leads to another. It was crazy, and we still go back. I've done 14 tours of Brazil, and I think Michael did more. We have tons of Brazilian fans! Brazilians are a lot like Australians, they love surf culture but they love Australian bands for some reason, God bless them.
“I will never forget that gig. It was all because of Ricardo Chantilly – we were the first band that he ever toured, and now he's a famous band manager and promoter in Brazil, incredibly wealthy. He's made millions of dollars, but he started with us.”
VSPY VSPY – Harry’s + A.O. 40th Anniversary Tour
Friday, October 9th – Amplifier, Perth, WA
Saturday, October 10th – Ed Castle, Adelaide, SA
Friday, October 16th – The Juniors, Kingsford, Sydney, NSW
Friday, October 23rd – Roma Street Parklands, Brisbane, QLD
Monday, November 2nd – Corner Hotel, Melbourne, VIC
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
