Why Breaking Up Was The Best & Worst Thing They Could Have Done

The Meanies were Big Day Out regulars through the early ‘90s, spearheading the indie rock scene in this country and touring with – and influencing – such acts as the Nirvana, The Lemonheads, Beastie Boys and Pearl Jam.

It’s a fine pedigree, but apart from an EP or two and a few sporadic shows here and there, The Meanies camp has been far too quiet for far too long. But why now for a new album?

“Why not?” Link Meanie audibly shrugs. “We've been talking about doing a new album for the last 15 years and just being the hopeless c*nts we are, we never really got around to it. We were just taking it pretty casually since 2000, really. Just playing a handful of shows every year and we all had other bands that were taking up most of our time.

“We just got to that point where it just felt right. The 25th anniversary probably played a big part in that, getting all our records re-released and just raising the excitement level a little bit. Wally's (Meanie, bass) been pushing me to record a bunch of old demos - a lot of them I did in the early ‘90s - for a long time. I'm glad he did because it would've been a shame to waste a lot of those songs, they're really quite good. I’m very happy with how the album's gone.

“It's never been in a better place with The Meanies. Love the guys and we play better than we ever did and have a little more self-control with not getting too drunk before we play. Just paralytic as opposed to a ‘getting dragged off the stage three songs in’ sort of level.”

Pressure, stress and unhealthy decisions fuelled the original breakup of the band. Does Link have any regrets taking that step back in the late ‘90s?

“The only reason I regret it is purely on a monetary level,” he confesses. “We were at a point when we broke up, where we were just starting to go up to that next level and we quit and then a lot of these other bands that were supporting us and playing with us went on and took advantage of that. Not cynically, but they just kept going. It would be nice to have a little more security in my life, but on an artistic level I don't regret it at all. I was pretty off my head, going a bit crazy at the time and I just couldn't handle it. It wasn't an option to keep going at that stage.

“Would we have killed ourselves if we’d carried on? Well I think there's a good chance of that,” admits Link, confirming come of the crazy stories of hedonistic abandon that circulate around the band’s history like flies on a corpse. “Not that we... we didn't think of it in terms of going to a mainstream level, we just thought of it in terms of reaching a wider audience on the same label that we were on, if you know what I mean. We would've stayed with Au-Go-Go Records and just kept doing it.

The 2006 The Meanies: A Seminal Australian Punk Tale DVD included a documentary titled Sorry ‘Bout The Violence, and a Meanies gig 20 years ago was no place for the faint-hearted. Much of the violence though, occurred onstage, with Meanie often subscribing to the Iggy Pop School Of Self Harm, not to mention collateral injuries sustained from falling or being wrestled off the stage. Are Meanies gigs a little tamer now?

“A little tamer onstage?” Meanie repeats incredulously. “No, no, not at all. No. I've got the pain to vouch for it. No, I just think it's just the delivery and just being a little more professional about it. As I said, not getting too wasted before a show is the main difference. I still love knocking them back and I still love partying. I love getting out on the road more than I ever did. The intensity is 100 per cent.”

Originally published in X-Press Magazine