Silver, Rock It!

Melbourne punks The Meanies have clocked up 25 years in the game — a fine achievement by anyone’s standards — yet, while it’s been a voyage of remarkable highs, they’ve also experienced their share of lows along the journey as well. But they’re nothing if not a resilient mob, and are currently traipsing around the country celebrating their silver anniversary with their hordes of ravenous, occasionally unhinged, fans.

They started off in Melbourne in 1989, and after a few short months had settled on the line-up which would become forever remembered as the “classic” version of The Meanies — Link McLennan (aka Link Meanie) on vocals, Mark Hobbs (aka Ringo Meanie) on drums, Roderick Kempton (aka Wally Meanie) on bass and Dennis DePianto (DD Meanie) on guitar — which would serve them so well during that band’s initial tenure. Between 1989 and 1995, The Meanies cast a massive shadow over the Australian independent scene, releasing a virtual river of 7” singles, a couple of great EPs and two strong albums (1992’s Come ‘N’ See and 1994’s 10% Weird) as well as numerous compilations and miscellaneous releases. They toured relentlessly around Australia and made regular overseas trips as well, in the process playing alongside bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Beastie Boys, The Lemonheads, Bad Brains and Fugazi (to name but a few).

Sadly, however, exhaustion (and the inevitably related concerns) forced them to call a hiatus in 1995, just when it seemed like they were on the verge of taking things to a whole new level. They reunited in 1998 and have been playing together ever since, but much more sporadically and without the unrelenting creativity which seemed to define their first few years. They’ve also suffered utter tragedy — in 2008 both DePianto (who hadn’t rejoined the ranks after the split) and his replacement on guitar Tasman “Taz” Blizzard passed away tragically and suddenly within the space of six months, undoubtedly a traumatic experience for any group. But The Meanies soldiered on, adding Jordan “Jaws” Stanley (The Onyas/The Casanovas) to their ranks, forming the version of the band still active to this day. They’ve crawled more than sprinted to the line, but whatever way you spin it 25 years together — on their own terms, without ever compromising their approach —  is an incredible achievement for a rock band.

“It’s quite remarkable really,” Wally ponders of the quarter-century milestone. “It’s just kind of crept up on us and happened, and you don’t really notice the last part of it because the first six years of The Meanies was so intense, with so many gigs and so many releases and so many tours and so many t-shirts and so many film-clips — and then it just stopped, for one reason or another. And then we re-commenced two or three years later as a hobby. What started off as potentially our life turned into a hobby after six years, and it’s been that way ever since, so the last nineteen years have just floated by without us even noticing. It’s kind of fucking weird, because in those last nineteen years we’d be lucky to do ten shows a year — and that’s by choice as opposed to anything else — but in that time we’ve managed to go back to Japan and back to Europe a couple of times, so we’re pretty happy.”

Is it enjoyable still getting to rock out with the crew without the stress of The Meanies being a full-time concern?

“Are you fucking kidding me, I’d prefer the stress,” Wally thunders. “But I’m loving it — I’m still really enjoying it. Link enjoys it more now because there’s no pressure anymore, and Ringo’s got a real job and a lovely family and a house to pay off, so he enjoys it. We’re just weekend warriors now, so he just enjoys getting out and getting off the leash every now and then. And Jaws — even though he’s got a day job as well — is pretty much a full-time musician, he’s always playing with somebody.”

Starting back near the beginning, it was the idea of Bruce Milne (founder of seminal Aussie indie label Au Go Go Records) to unleash the burst of 7” singles which heralded the arrival of The Meanies on the scene, a move that earned them both instant profile and credibility.

“That’s right, we went to him originally,” Wally recalls. “This guy called Dave played bass in a band called The Throwaways, and he had this crazy idea that we should do a split-7”, and then he got the Nice Girls From Cincinnati involved as well, so it was going to be a three-track 7”, and then he did some maths and realised that it wasn’t going to cost that much more — studio time-wise and pressing-wise — to make it a 12”, and therefore we could fit three songs each on it. Then just before we took it to the local pressing plant in Melbourne ourselves, Dave said, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll drop this in to Bruce at Au Go Go and see what he reckons of it’. And Bruce flipped his wig over it and got in touch with us all and said, ‘Are you kidding? I want to put this out, blah blah blah’, and that started the very beautiful long-term relationship with Bruce Milne.

“So when Bruce suggested, ‘Look, you guys should do some more recording and we’ll put you out on the label too if you like?’, we went, ‘Absolutely!’. We ducked into this little studio in Elwood that Dave Thomas from Bored! had suggested to us and churned out 16 songs in a weekend and gave it to Bruce on the Monday – we did the whole fucking lot between Friday and Sunday, and then Bruce had the tape on the Monday, and by Monday night he was going, ‘This isn’t an album, this is a bunch of singles!’ And we were like, ‘Is that a bad thing?’, and he said, ‘No, it’s not, this is what I want to do.’ We reminded him that there were a lot of songs on there, and he said, ‘That’s alright, they’re so short that we’ll put two songs on every b-side’, and that’s how that all happened. That was the first important moment in our band history, the fact that Bruce had that idea and had a plan and it worked.

"The first one (1990’s Darkside Of My Mind) came out at 500 copies, and the second one, The Reason Why (1990), went up to 750 copies — we’re not talking groundbreaking numbers but it created a massive vibe. All of the singles had Link’s artwork and were just plain old black-and-white — none of this coloured vinyl fancy schmancy shit which I’ve grown to love. Each 7” came with a cute little plastic sleeve and there was an insert in every one of them, so it was a great little package to get. And the second 7” was out and almost sold out before we did a gig to launch the first 7”, that’s how crazy it went. Bruce had thought that we would put one out every six weeks so they were mostly gone when the next one came out; well, Darkside… lasted two weeks, so we’d already pressed up the next one and we rush-released that. By the fourth single Paranoid (1991) we were up to 1000 copies, and once those were all finished we did the Never 7” (1991), which was going to be the first single off our debut album Come ‘N’ See; that was 1500 copies.

“We’d already recorded Come ‘N’ See and we were waiting for it to come out [which it did in March, 1992], and then we went and recorded the Gangrenous EP as well. So Gangrenous was actually recorded after Come ‘N’ See, but it came out before it [in September, 1991], because Link goes, ‘Don’t worry about the album for now, I prefer this!’ It’s a better procession anyway, doing singles then an EP and then an album, and it worked really well even though it might have seemed at the time that the songs from Come ‘N’ See were a step backwards, because Gangrenous was actually better, because it was written and recorded afterwards. There’s always been that progression with The Meanies songwriting-wise, getting better with experience.”

The Meanies were omnipresent on the Melbourne gig circuit back in the day, but also played a ton of all ages shows — was this a conscious move to tap into that younger scene?

“You can actually thank the boys from a band called Rootbeer for that,” Wally continues. “I remember we did a show at The Tote once and they all rocked up just before we were about to play — the Rootbeer guys and all their mates, they used to be at every single show and eventually ended up playing with us quite a lot — and I said, ‘Where have you guys been?’, and they said, ‘Oh, we had a gig at The Hull’. So I said, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’, and they said, ‘Oh, it’s just the soccer club rooms in Croydon, they have shows there once a month — you should come down and do one’. And Croydon’s where I was brought up — and the Rootbeer guys — so I said, ‘Fucken oath! That’s a great idea!’ So a month or two later we did one and it was just riotous, there was just people everywhere! I was like, ‘Jeez, these Croydon kids are onto a good thing, why wasn’t it like this when I was underage? Fucken hell!’ It just went off and we realised that there was a market for all-ages shows.

“One of the next ones we did was with Nursery Crimes — we used to open for them all the time, but this time I went, ‘Do you reckon you guys would open for us at this all-ages show?’ and they were into it, and all of a sudden fucking 700 kids turned up to The Corner. It was mental, we couldn’t work out where everyone was coming from. Then of course later the larger promoters cottoned on to all-ages shows, although they really ever only seemed to work in Melbourne. Bands like Redd Kross would do their entire run but throw in an extra show on a Saturday afternoon at The Corner for all-ages fans, and bolster the line-up with bands like Tumbleweed and The Meanies and Spiderbait. In hindsight it looks fantastic, but in those days none of us were exactly world-beaters outside of our hometowns. I did find a street poster recently where You Am I were opening for Tumbleweed and The Meanies in Sydney — they were first or second on out of five bands with The Meanies headlining. Fucking hell.”

It’s clear to see just by the calibre of bands casually mentioned in this context that it was a fairly amazing time for Australian independent music, with hordes of great bands about who were all seemingly in it for the right reasons.

“It was good to know that it was BN — 'before Nirvana',” Wally laughs, “because it wasn’t until the end of 1991 going into 1992 that the world changed and every label and its fucking dog wanted the next Nirvana and started snapping up all the indie labels because that was ‘where it was at’, and turning them into fruitcakes. Looking back I’m glad that Au Go Go didn’t [align with a major], but at the time I was really pissed off that they weren’t; ‘What are you doing wrong? Even [Sydney label] Waterfront got snapped up by Festival!’ But [Au Go Go co-owner] Greta Moon’s argument was, ‘Would you rather be #1 in the indie charts or #720 in the mainstream charts?’ It’s an interesting point — I don’t really care about charts, but I guess it’s valid. Unless you do crack through and become a commercial success you’re just looked upon as sell-outs or a bunch of retards, so I was pleased in the end that they didn’t align with a major. Although it was possibly the death of them. But it was a great period for us. You don’t realise at the time of course that you’re doing something that one day is going to mean something, but looking back it was a bit of an achievement and we had a ball doing it, and you get your detractors along the way — bands that don’t really have their shit together but think they’re better than you, looking at you and going, ‘What the fuck?’ and just despising you — but you get more people going, ‘Good on ya, you’re polishing that turd aren’t ya?’”

Probably The Meanies' most memorable experience was getting to play a handful of shows on Nirvana’s infamous 1992 tour of Australia, just as they were beginning to blow up from a relatively small indie outfit into the massive behemoth that we remember today.

“We just played four shows with them — a lazy four. They were the most important ones though,” Wally chuckles. “We did Adelaide and the Phoenician Club in Sydney and a couple in Melbourne, I think. Or maybe the fourth one was the Big Day Out, I can’t remember it was 20 years ago. We met most of them — it’s pretty hard not to cross paths with them when you’re playing so many shows with them. Dave Grohl was an absolute gem and I’ve met him numerous times since. Krist Novoselic was lovely — I’ve only crossed his path once since, unfortunately — and Kurt [Cobain] was crook, so I personally hardly saw him at all. I think the most I got out of him was a grunt ‘Hello’ backstage at the Thebarton Theatre in Adelaide. He was unwell, and we were driving everywhere so we’d rock up just before our soundcheck which was the end of theirs, so most of the time he wasn’t even around.

"It was amazing — the breaking point [for Nirvana] had started a few months earlier of course, and everyone was worried that a larger promoter was going to come in over the top and steal the band and take it to bigger venues, but to their credit they went, ‘Nah, fuck that. This is what we agreed to and this is what we’re doing’. I think they added a few shows at the end, and I don’t even think they got to Perth because Kurt was too crook, so it was a tour filled with drama. I remember Courtney [Love] was there too — I remember seeing her side of stage at a couple of shows — but I didn’t really converse with her either.

“I didn’t care back then, it was early ’92 and I had yet to develop my schmoozing networking ways. We were just a support band, and it didn’t occur to me to go and hang out and make friends with these famous people. Nirvana were a bit elusive. We’d toured with The Lemonheads a year earlier and had just hung out with them the whole time — it was a great trip and [Evan] Dando was ball to hang out with. Then later in ’92 we toured with The Beastie Boys and they were just totally aloof and quite arrogant at the time. I met them all years later and they were lovely, but at the time of that Check Your Head tour they were just like, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ towards us, wondering why this snotty power-pop punk band was on the bill probably, while they were doing their schmoozy shit. But there were all sorts of stories that came out of that Nirvana trip from friends of ours doing lights and stuff like that, but back then I was just wrapped up in Meanie-land anyway, doing our thing and having a good old times.”

And obviously the massive of run of shows they got to play supporting Pearl Jam in 1994 was a highlight, following what must be one of the most profitable games of ten-pin bowling in rock’n’roll history.

“The Pearl Jam ones stand out I guess, just because of how they happened and because they were the biggest shows we ever did, I suppose,” Wally offers. “There was a certain tour manager at the time who shall remain nameless because I’ve since made my peace with him, but at the time he was a total cunt — I don’t know why. Just an old-school tour manger who went out of his way to make the support band feel like they were shit and give them a really hard time. It didn’t help that I fought back, and it didn’t help his case that we were good friends with the band already and they didn’t go for that shit, so he ended up with egg on his face. That was very much part of the reason why that band went with a different promoter the next time they came out. There were ups and downs in that one, but the fact that [Eddie] Vedder saw us in a dive bar in Seattle in ’93 and really dug it and said, ‘When my band comes to Australia do you reckon you guys would like to play with us?’ and of course we said, ‘Yes!’ Little did he realise that that wouldn’t be the end of it, because as soon as they did get announced for a tour I followed that up and he was true to his word and we got the tour.”

This all transpired in The Meanies were over Seattle recording 10% Weird and hanging out with rock royalty like The Supersuckers (as well as some more well-known Seattle musos).

“Yeah, we did a bunch of shows over there while we were recording and The Supersuckers was the first show we did — we supported them in a venue called the Off Ramp in Seattle — and I’d seen them once or twice here and met them, so it was good to have that connection and we hung out with them a bit,” Wally reminisces. “Bruce was good mates obviously with the Mudhoney guys because he put their records out over here, so they were hanging out with us as well. Hence why Vedder and his wife was there, because he was great mates with the Mudhoney guys, especially Matt Lukin. So that’s how it all happened I suppose — it was before I knew what networking was about, which is probably the best kind of networking that there is. When Vedder asked me about that tour, I didn’t even know who he was; I had to go and ask Pav [then-tour promoter, now Modular label head Steve Pavlovic]. I said, ‘I just said “yes” to a tour — I thought it was the best thing to do because I don’t know who the guy is. Who is that guy I was just playing ten-pin bowling with?’ and Pav goes, ‘Are you fucking kidding me? That’s Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam!’ And I was like, ‘Fuck!’ I went and told Link and he goes, ‘Fuck off, we’re not playing with those cunts, they’re shithouse!’ And I didn’t like ‘em much either, but Bruce Milne was with us in Seattle and he was just laughing like a school girl, going, ‘As if that’s going to happen! They play enormo-domes, as if you’ll get the support!’ So I was, like, ‘Right, really? That sounds like a challenge, ginger ninja, I’m going to make sure that this happens!’ Thankfully it did.

“And it was pretty amazing too. We’d played at the Big Day Out in both ’93 and ’94 to quite a few thousand people, but we’d never done anything on that scale before. The first show was in Perth at an 8,000 capacity arena, and the next one was at Memorial Drive in Adelaide and that was 10,000-plus, and on both occasions the crowd were just going nuts, and we were, like, ‘This is alright! I wonder if people know us already or whether the Pearl Jam fans have taste? Or maybe they’re just easily pleased?’ Then there were a couple of Entertainment Centres in Sydney and then Eastern Creek Raceway with 45,000 cunts in the fucking crowd — tell me that wasn’t nerve-wracking! Especially when Eddie dragged me and Link out onstage to help him sing fucking [Neil Young’s] Keep On Rocking In The Free World in the encore — I was so glad I was pissed! Then in Melbourne at the Myer Music Bowl and fence got pulled down and the place got rushed, I don’t know how many people got in — I don’t think anyone will ever be able to calculate it — but you hear reports that 30,000 stormed the fences which is a lot to add to the 13,000 capacity that is the Bowl. I can’t remember it being that squishy down the front, but every second person you meet claims to have been there — one of those classic that just gets bigger and bigger. Then at whatever Rod Laver Arena used to be called back then — Flinders Park, maybe? — that was a seated event but people started ripping up the seats and passing them back over each other’s heads so there was this massive pile of seats at the back of the room, it was fucking hilarious. People were jumping over divides and the security guards were going crazy, and those metal barriers at the bottom of the side sections snapped off the concrete because they had so much force being applied.

“There were so many great memories from that tour, though. Vedder got Taz to take him surfing, so Taz had fond memories of him and Vedder and maybe Vedder’s brother and some of his mates playing pool at the Barwon Club in Geelong on the way back from the surf and no one bothering him. Because anyone looking over and thinking, ‘Oh, that guy looks like Eddie Vedder,’ would never have thought for one second that they would ever have Eddie Vedder in the front bar of the Barwon Club Hotel in Geelong! The publican knew, so he was pretty rapt! And before most shows — even though he’d sometimes put a disguise on — he’d come and watch The Meanies from side of stage, which was kind of nice. And one more than one occasion he’d come out onstage with us — I remember at the Myer Music Bowl during our last song, which was always Keep A Balance, which was Eddie’s favourite — he came out in the middle of the stage and lay down in a banana lounge with his sunglasses on, reading a book. In the middle of the stage, while we were playing! Sometimes even before the set he’d come out and introduce us, saying, ‘This is a treat for all the people who arrived early! Spread the word!’ So word would get out to come early and see The Meanies, which was a lovely thing to do. And he’d get Link to come out and sing backing vocals and they’d do the Hunters’ song Throw Your Arms Around Me. They were so great to us.”

Aside from all of these victories at home, The Meanies also built up a pretty solid fanbase in Europe, especially in Oz rock-loving Spain.

“Yeah, we were developing one, and it got to the point where we could probably tour there comfortably and not lose money, but we decided to stop,” Wally sighs. “Which was a pretty fucking stupid idea. But it was in Europe where we played our only show with Fugazi, in Italy in this town called Spilimbergo [in June, 1995]. It was fantastic. We were really nervous when we got there, because we survived on merch sales and they don’t sell merch. And we love to have a fucking drink, and they don’t drink. And we’re sharing a dressing room — a rather large dressing room admittedly, but we were still sharing it. So we were all sheepishly in there after soundcheck, like, ‘Hey guys!’ and Brendan [Canty] the drummer was really, really friendly and Ian [MacKaye, frontman] was lovely — the other two weren’t there — so I waited for a quiet moment and went, ‘Hey guys, we’ve been a bit concerned how to bring this up, but you guys don’t sell merch and you don’t drink, but we’re pissheads and we survive on merch sales. How’s that going to work tonight?’ And they were, like, ‘Knock yourselves out! We don’t begrudge anyone else selling merch or having a cheeky beer. We don’t, but you go ahead and set your stand up’, and I don’t think we’ve ever sold so much merch at a single gig ever before or ever since! I don’t know whether we impressed the fuck out of this full house at this Italian venue — this 1,500-capacity room — or whether they just wanted to have something to take home to remember Fugazi by.”