The Porkers: Walk The Pork.

The Porkers play the Great Northern Hotel in Byron Bay on Friday and the Waterloo Hotel on Saturday.

The Porkers are coming back to Brisbane once again to play a whole bunch of skanking shows. I query front man Pete Porker. “Yes, yes we are we're coming back', he replies bemused.

I heard you're bringing almost every member that has ever been in The Porkers with you?

“Not quite, not quite don't believe the hype. What we're doing is... first of all we're losing a couple of members after these shows they're moving on to other things. We're having the annual re-shuffle of Porkers members and we thought we'd send them of in a big way. We've got a Channel V spot as well as a Pepsi live spot happening. We've got some of our ex-members back to make it a bigger band and hopefully we'll be able to take those members on the road. We are yet to confirm who of them we'll fit in the van though.”

Is there a possibility of Porkman coming then?

“No, last spotted sighting he was selling fruit and vegetables in Ireland.”

So he'd be drinking a lot of Guinness then?

“Yeah I imagine so and not selling a lot of fruit and vegetables.”

What else have you guys been doing?

“We're always around. We've been flogging our latest album called Time Will Tell and the latest single off it is a remix of the track Waiting For Us which was done by New Zealand's Salmonella Dub and Triple J has been giving it a good flogging for us and that's about it.”

So the Porkers are going to go big time?

“You said that,” Pete laughs. “You never know! We aren't going to go big time we are big time.”

Are you still doing all your Sound System stuff?

“Yeah, it's still sucking up my cash. It's going okay we're still putting out the Porkers stuff. Last year we put out a Specials tribute album which is going reasonably well world wide and the other release I've just put out is Ska Skank Down Under Volume 2 which is the best of Australia and New Zealand ska from 1990 to 2000.”

You seem really happy Pete, is everything going well?

“No not really but I'm trying to be positive,” he giggles. “I'm really looking forward to this tour it should be a lot of fun. I'm happy the song is on the radio, everything's all right. Did I seem unhappy last time you talked to me?”

Is it my imagination or do you guys now play all your songs at light speed?

“Are you saying faster than the recording or just faster in general? It depends on how the drummer is feeling, he just goes. It has been a well known documented Porkers fact that there is rehearsal speed, recording speed and concert speed.”

What speed do you prefer?

“Good quality speed... oh dear.”

This conversation seems to be degenerating... ha ha!

“Yes, yes it is', agrees Pete. What speed do I prefer? It depends on the gig the vibe of everything. Breakneck speed suits the mood but then I suppose when your dealing with a complicated, syncopated rhythm such as ska it's better to back of and feel the groove rather than play it flat out. On some days though we're just not the band to do that.”