For Peter From James: Snakeheads Release Their First And Final Album, 'Belconnen Highs'

Skakeheads released their first and final album today, Belconnen Highs, giving a whole new meaning to ‘labour of love’. 

It’s a story you would expect to see in an indie film or a novel with a gut-punch ending. Two young scrappy musicians forming a band young, enjoying early success, separating, and then coming together some 24 years later to just jam and later to make a record.

We are, of course, talking about James Roden and Pete Lusty, known previously as John Reed Club and completed with the membership of Cameron Emerson-Elliott and Richard Weinman. Formed when they were fresh out of high school, the group released an EP and a 7” single under that name but ultimately broke up to seek new musical ventures. 

Roden stayed plugged into the music scene forming The City Lights, and Lusty proved to be a gifted manager representing some of the biggest names in Australian music (Jet, The Vines) and then co-founding one of Australia's longest running and most respected independent labels, Ivy League Records (Youth Group, Cloud Control, The Mess Hall, Josh Pyke, Alpine, The Rubens, Teskey Brothers).

In 2016, the lads picked up where they left off (literally in Lusty’s case, donning the same Gibson Les Paul he used in high school) with a standing Monday night jam session. 

Before long, the idea took root to actually make a record together. Sadly, fate's pendulum swing was heavier than the mighty rediscovered ambition of the once teenagers. In 2019, Lusty received news that he was ill, eventually passing in 2020 from High-grade Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

Lusty left behind a truly impressive legacy, and a body of work with Roden that was unfinished and unrealised, and Roden spoke to The Music about making music with Lusty, writing songs together for years, and finishing what began during those Monday night sessions.

“I felt unbelievably lucky that I had someone who knew what music I liked to bounce ideas off and to get ideas from," Roden says. "And for him to say, ‘That's really good, let's finish that’. I think it's really no wonder lots of good bands have two or three songwriters in them, because you can bounce ideas. So that was an unbelievably fun period after a bit of a dark period, where I didn't have much purpose.

“Some people play cricket on the weekends, some people play soccer. You know, it felt like a really fun secret hobby. There was always sort of pressure, self-inflicted or otherwise, but there was no pressure on either of us. So we spent a very long time working on it without pressure.

“We went into the studio in 2019, which was probably sped up a bit," he adds. "It would have taken a couple of years. But then, yes, out of the blue, the tragedy of poor old Pete getting a very aggressive cancer and then it's been a different sort of blur."

Lusty’s death came one week before the world was plunged into COVID-19 and the lockdowns that ensued, creating more distance from the finish line for Roden, wanting to finish what they had started and give his friend’s last project the ending it deserved.

This is where Roden’s efforts were assisted by a friend and producer, Wayne Connolly, who had started to join these Monday night sessions to make their growing list of songs tighter. 

Together, the two muddied their way through understanding Lusty’s file management system, SoundCloud passwords and navigating his scrupulous organisation of what would be Snakehead's first and final album.

“Fortunately, he had the demos," Roden recalls. "I had his SoundCloud password, and took it over and was able to trawl through all the various demos and work out, 'What does version 6.3 mean? What does 187 BPM mean for version 6?' 

"All the codes that he had, and I could work out what was the last, most agreed upon version that we've got to, and fortunately, they included lyrics for the most part, though not always."

Perhaps symbolic, Belconnen Highs is the first release from Cassell Records, a new Sydney-based independent record label founded by Andy Cassell, just as John Reed Club’s single was the first release for Ivy League Records – co-founded by Cassell with Lusty and Andy Kelly – decades prior.

The record itself is a love letter to the era when the two started playing music, when rock and punk were king. Top Of The Pops was an early release and is teeming with that pent-up, angsty energy, with the lyrics championing the narrative of an underdog. 

When Lusty and Roden first found their feet together as musicians, they were growing up in Canberra in the late '70s, and they found inspiration from the punk bands singing about Margaret Thatcher and things they didn’t yet grasp or relate to – but it was that sound that took root.

“I can actually hear the same line in about three songs used two or three times in jokes for ourselves, like singing about Top Of The Pops, which was a British TV show very popular in Britain but also even to us kids in Australia of that age, because that's where all our favorite bands used to play on, which was their their Countdown,” said Roden.

Joining our conversation was Cassell, himself a long-term friend, partner and colleague of Lusty. Cassell and fellow musical heavyweight peers were not surprised that Lusty and Roden began creating music together all those years ago.

“This was his release, and just actually purely enjoying what I guess we all got into the music industry to begin with," he explains. "He just had a passion for music. When he first started his band and James' band, the John Reed Club, it was the first band where we just literally had no idea what we were doing out of university and trying to be in bands, play local gigs, play the Sandringham Hotel. 

"His band was the first band that actually got signed to a major label, which was a massive deal in those days; probably more massive in our own minds than it actually was."

Belconnen Highs is a tribute to Lusty as a musician and leader in Australian music, and to he and Roden’s lifelong friendship. Roden's love for his friend and craft is seen through every stage of this production, with the choice to release their album on vinyl feeling right for the occasion.

“That's part of the beauty of why we've done vinyl, why it's wonderful," says Roden. "It's coming out on Cassell Records on vinyl, because there's something significant about that as well. 

"It's got lots of photos of Pete and all these various bands he's been in, but it's also something physical you can hold, which is wonderful that there's a vinyl revival."

Today, punters can get their hands on the vinyl record that started in earnest in 2019, but really began longer ago when two young men believed they would be jamming and making music forever.

Snakeheads’ Belconnen Highs is out today on Cassell Records via Impressed.