Icons: Beasts Of Bourbon Pt 1

As the proper first incarnation of Beasts of Bourbon reconvenes for ATP, PATRICK EMERY traces that line-up’s long and crooked path, reliving it all with Tex Perkins, Spencer P Jones, Kim Salmon, Boris Sujdovic and James Baker.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] The Beasts of Bourbon were born of happenstance and inebriated serendipity. Originally an ad hoc musical vehicle to fill a series of gigs booked by Greg Perkins – nicknamed ‘Tex’ on account of his passion for country music – the Beasts evolved from sloppy, drunken cover band to legendary Australian rock ’n’ roll outfit. The Beasts’ debut album, The Axeman’s Jazz, recorded one alcohol- and amphetamine-addled afternoon in 1983, captured the band members’ – at that stage Perkins, Spencer P Jones, Kim Salmon, Boris Sujdovic and James Baker – mutual love of swamp, country, psychobilly and rock ’n’ roll dementia. That so-called ‘classic’ line-up reconvened to record Sour Mash five years later, followed by Black Milk in 1990.

Perkins, Jones, Salmon, Sujdovic and Baker – technically not the ‘original’ line-up, but without doubt the most memorable of the band’s original period of existence – had come together originally in the then-vibrant and occasionally incestuous Sydney rock ’n’ roll scene of the 1980s. Each of the members had moved to Sydney: Perkins from Brisbane with his band Tex Perkins and the Dum Dums; New Zealand-born Jones from Melbourne to Sydney to join The Johnnys; Salmon and Sujdovic from Perth with the second incarnation of The Scientists; and Baker (who’d played with Salmon and Sujdovic in the Perth-era Scientists) to join Le Hoodoo Gurus (later The Hoodoo Gurus).

Tex Perkins: I was in a band called the Dum Dums, and we had this nice little career going in early-’80s Sydney – ’82 into ’83. Some members of the band abruptly, without any explanation, disappeared and left town and went home to Brisbane. That effectively ended the Dum Dums, but I still had a few gigs booked. I think I might have been living with Spencer at the time. Sydney at that time was a wonderful rock ’n’ roll scene to enter, because there was a lot of immigrants from other places all converging on Sydney, including people like The Scientists and The Johnnys – they were the main two bands that I was inadvertently thrown into the mix with, and became friends with. So when I had that dilemma of gigs without a band, Spencer and Boris automatically said, “Let’s do something.”

Spencer Jones: I met Kim and Boris when The Scientists and the North 2 Alaskans played a couple of shows together. I went to Sydney probably about Easter 1983. I’d lived in Sydney around 1976, 1977. I’d moved back to Sydney after The Johnnys had asked me to join the band. The day I arrived I went pretty well from the train station to the Dolphin Hotel, and there was a bunch of people including Graham and Billy from The Johnnys, and Tex was there. He’d been there a couple of months with the Dum Dums. Maybe about August they’d collapsed, and the guitarist, Marko Halstead, had moved back to Brisbane, but Tex had all these gigs booked, more gigs than he’d previously had booked in Sydney. So to fulfil those commitments the Beasts was born.

“They rang me up, said come down, there was free beer. Just play a bunch of old covers and have a good time. So I thought, cool bananas, I’m in.”

Kim Salmon: I first met Greg [Tex] when his band Tex Deadly and the Dum Dums came down from Brisbane to support The Scientists at the Trade Union Club in 1982, I think it was, around the time The Scientists put Swampland out. I seem to recall wondering how seriously Tex took what he was doing – I really enjoyed the band, but maybe he was hanging it on a joke, and I wondered how much substance there was. Not that I really give a shit about that now, but something about me in those days was a bit more earnest. So I might have said, “Are you for real, mate?” and he was intrigued. After that I used to see him up at the Trade Union Club after gigs, so he must have been down from Brisbane quite often.

James Baker: I met those guys around ’83 at the Southern Cross Hotel – which became the Strawberry Hills Hotel – in Sydney. All the rock bands moved to Sydney back in the early ’80s.

Boris Sujdovic: I couldn’t tell you when I first met Tex and Spencer. I have no recollection really! I just met ’em! I guess we were living around the same area. I knew Kim and James already, but I can’t remember if I met Spencer first, then Tex, or the other way around. There was a lot less bands those days, and we just knew each other.

Salmon: I met Spencer at a gig when The Scientists supported North 2 Alaskans, so that would have been 1981 or 1982, because we weren’t really supporting by 1983. I saw Spencer around the traps after that after he’d joined The Johnnys. With Greg being in Tex Deadly and the Dum Dums, he had a penchant for cowboy hats as well, and they used to all hang out together at the Trade Union Club, and us Scientists used to hang out there as well. I remember Greg coming down to Melbourne on one trip with us.

Sujdovic: I’m not sure if Tex Deadly and the Dum Dums played in Sydney, but I guess they must have. No fucking idea!

Perkins: I think the first time we played, the Dum Dums drummer, Fruitcake, was the Beasts of Bourbon drummer. So it was a four-piece with Spencer, Boris, Fruitcake and me.

Sujdovic: I don’t remember exactly when I was approached to play in the Beasts. I assume I must have been hanging around somewhere, and Tex must have come in and said, “Half the band’s gone to Brisbane, so do you want to do a show on Tuesday?” There’s no time I remember exactly how it happened. But in my defence it was a long time ago!

Baker: The original drummer for the Beasts of Bourbon was Richard Ploog from The Church, but I think he only played one gig and then had commitments with The Church. So they rang me up, said come down, there was free beer. Just play a bunch of old covers and have a good time. So I thought, Alice Cooper, cool bananas, I’m in – no problem. That’s how I joined them.

Jones: I think the first show was me and Boris and Richard Ploog, then Richard Ploog went off on tour with The Church and so then James came in, and then Kim. I think James was in before Kim was in, but maybe only one gig.

Perkins: It quickly became an obvious lot of fun, so James wanted to get on board, and then Kim – Kim actually asked; he’s the only member who actually asked to play in the Beasts of Bourbon. I think Spencer said he couldn’t do a gig so Kim offered to do the gig, but at the last minute Spencer said he could do the gig, so it became a five-piece.

Salmon: I remember one night at the Sydney Trade Union Club, Greg was telling me he had a new band, and that the name was the Beasts of Bourbon, and to me it sounded like the same type of band as Tex Deadly and the Dum Dums. I found out a little bit later that Boris played bass for them, and that they played for beer at the Southern Cross Hotel. I remember Brett Rixon and Tony Thewlis paying out on Boris for doing it, in a joking kind of a way, and Boris saying, “Nah, you get to play all these Alice Cooper songs, New York Dolls songs, and get all the beer you can drink!”

Jones: Things happened very quickly after that. Maybe there was a gig with me, Boris and Fruitcake, the Dum Dums drummer, then there was a gig with me, Boris and Richard Ploog, then it was Boris, James, Kim and me. I think the first gig was at the Strawberry Hills. A lot happened very quickly. By September The Gun Club was touring, and The Johnnys were not just touring with The Gun Club, we were playing in the band as well.

The newly christened Beasts of Bourbon played its first show at the Strawberry Hills Hotel in 1982, with a set largely comprising covers of Alice Cooper, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Gun Club and The Stooges.

Perkins: Some of the songs that ended up on The Axeman’s Jazz were Dum Dums songs, like ‘Lonesome Bones’ and ‘Ten Wheels for Jesus’. To flesh it out we did some Creedence, Alice Cooper, Stooges, couple of Gun Club songs – that was also an attraction early on. It was a light-hearted approach to a gig; it was a lot of fun. When we did those initial gigs there was no thought of carrying it on, or that it would become anything, other than fulfilling a couple of gigs that Perko had and having a bit of fun and drinking all that beer and making all that 50 bucks.

Sujdovic: I remember where the first show was – the Strawberry Hills – and I remember who it was with. But I couldn’t tell you anything more about it.

Salmon: That first show was a bit of a shambles! Tex had his shirt off and two microphones gaffered together, and he’d sung himself hoarse, and everything was kind of too loud, strings broken, everything overplayed – it was a bit of a mess!

“I remember thinking the whole thing was becoming a bit too jokey and cabaret and walking out at one point, and having Tex persuade me to come back.”

Sujdovic: We weren’t into rehearsing a lot. Originally it was just ‘cause there was a gig on, and we were helping Tex out. We did the gig and it must’ve been pretty good, so we decided to continue. After that first gig it was more a plan to keep playing than it was to get money to drink up the road. But that first gig was nothing more than to help Tex out. I’m not sure if we played Alice Cooper and Johnny Cash on the first bill, because they would’ve been a bit more rehearsed.

Salmon: I can’t remember when James came in. Maybe our first gig wasn’t at the Southern Cross. I can’t remember a gig with Richard playing, so maybe we had a gig booked at San Miguel or some other North Shore venue, and it got cancelled. My memory on that is pretty foggy, especially given all the alcohol and the rest!

Sujdovic: Kim came along after a couple of gigs. Back then the line-up changed pretty rapidly. Basically it was Tex, Spencer and me, with a drummer called Fruit Cake for the first gig. I don’t remember anyone else being in it then. Kim and James joined after two or three gigs, and that line-up stayed stable for quite a few years.

Salmon: I didn’t think either way about it, until one day I was picking up my pay from Roger Grierson, who was running a booking agency and also managing The Johnnys. Spencer came in, and he was telling me about this gig that he couldn’t do, and that maybe I could do it, and that was the Beasts of Bourbon. He gave it the same spin as Boris gave it – Alice Cooper and New York Dolls songs, and drink all the beer you want. I knew that they did a bit of Johnny Cash, a bit of Creedence, bit of psychobilly, country, Stooges and Dolls. A very Sydney, early-’80s blend of disparate influences – very much of the time.

I called up Greg to ask him about it, got enthused about it and went around to his place and he played me some tapes of some stuff, the Creedence songs he wanted to play. And then it came close to the gig, and we had Richard Ploog playing, and Spencer ended up being able to do the show – which I think was at the Southern Cross – so we had two guitarists, and I remember thinking the whole thing was becoming a bit too jokey and cabaret and – walking out at one point, and having Tex persuade me to come back and do it. I took it a bit seriously at the time!

Sujdovic: I’ve got more vivid memories of the later gigs and the European tours than the earlier ones. I’d be lying if I said I remembered a lot about the early gigs!

Salmon: We did [Alice Cooper’s] ‘I’m Eighteen’, [CCR’s] ‘Bad Moon Rising’, ‘Ten Wheels for Jesus’, [CCR’s] ‘Graveyard Train’, ‘Save Me a Place’ – that song we’d written after Tex told me to do a knockoff of a Captain Beefheart song, which is pretty well what I did. We didn’t have ‘Psycho’ at that stage – Tex had the idea that I played lots of slide, ‘cause I played it on Happy Hour and Rev Head.

In 1983 Perkins, Salmon, Jones, Sujdovic and Baker went into Billy Field’s Paradise Studio to record what would become The Axeman’s Jazz. With the equally legendary Tony Cohen assuming production duties, the recording session would earn a place in Australian rock ’n’ roll mythology.

Salmon: I didn’t really think much about the Beasts at that stage – I just thought about The Scientists. I notice that people like Roger Grierson got really excited about it, and he paid for us to record The Axeman’s Jazz.

Perkins: At that stage, it was predominantly a ‘play your favourite rock songs on stage/party band’. Roger Grierson was expecting the album to be like that, rather than an 80% original record. His expectations of how it was going to be, and how it would go down, were different to ours.

Jones: For about two or three weeks I lived on Crown Street, upstairs from where Tex lived with the Dum Dums guys, and then they took off so I lived there for a few weeks. There was a big sheet hanging over the balcony saying “Welcome to hell.” The Johnnys were pretty busy at that time, so I was off on tour and when I came back we’d been kicked out. I lived on [Laughing Outlaw founder] Stuart Coupe’s couch for a while. I had a copy of the ‘Psycho’ single by Eddie Noack. I know that while I was living there, there was a copy of a newspaper on the floor that a headline saying “Marty Robbins dies at 52,” so we wrote that song right there.

‘Love and Death’ happened when we were at Stuart Coupe’s. He came home and we were in his room, and he was furious. There was all these singles all over the bed, all over the floor – we were like two naughty kids who’d been sprung. I borrowed this book of Raymond Chandler one-liners called Chandlerisms. ‘Love and Death’ is this whole bit taken from that – or maybe it was a tip of the hat rather than naked exploitation!

Salmon: It was recorded in Paradise Studios in Potts Point, somewhere down near Darlinghurst. It was owned by Billy Fields, who had that hit single ‘Bad Habits’, and that other horrible song ‘You Weren’t in Love With Me’.

Baker: We took a lot of beer in there and other substances and had a party. It was done in about six hours. Maybe it was a surprise the recording turned out OK. It was a strange, debauched day! But it came out good!

Perkins: It might’ve been a midday to 6pm on a Sunday session. I remember getting there and all being paid $100, and immediately Tony Cohen left and we didn’t see him for two hours. So what was going to be a tight six-hour session became a four-hour session.

Salmon: It was a whole day of boozing on, let’s face it. I was pretty wasted by the end of it.

Jones: I remember there being these two mountains of cans on either side of James’ drum kit.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Sujdovic: I remember fuck all about the recording of The Axeman’s Jazz. I remember walking out of the studio. Oh, I remember when we played ‘Psycho’ – we rehearsed a couple of times and I always used to fuck it up a lot because there’s a few key changes, and we weren’t always in the right state of mind to deal with that. The only time I’ve ever played it without fucking it up was when we recorded it. And even after that, when we played it live I fucked it up! So I was quite proud of myself because I didn’t fuck up four notes.

Baker: Tony Cohen is a great rock ’n’ roll producer. The next day I had to record with Alan Thorne to do [Hoodoo Gurus’] Stoneage Romeos, who wasn’t a rock ’n’ roll producer. It was like going from Keith Richards to Cliff Richard!

Salmon: Tony Cohen recorded it, though some of the production was just the way it was put together. Roger said we should do it live, rather than overdubbing, and I think that was a good call. Tony recorded it and mixed it as it went down.

Baker: Kid Congo Powers was supposed to come along, but he had to leave.

Jones: Kid Congo was going to play on the record, but he got this notice from the Immigration Department saying his visa had run out, and he’d have to leave on the Saturday, and we recorded on the Sunday. That’s why Kid Congo has the first ‘thank you’, because we were listening to songs and working out what songs we’d cover.

Salmon: Tex asked Kid for some words, so we could put his name on the record – the line he offered was “Goodnight Irene,” which appears at the end of ‘Love and Death’.

Perkins: I remember Spencer turning up – I think the last night of the Gun Club tour had been the night before or the night before that and he’d continued celebrations, and he turned up to the studio and he was still drunk. He was very messy, which I think annoyed Kim, but probably helped with a few songs. By 6 o’clock he was rooted, so he was playing lying down. I think ‘Lonesome Bones’ was the last song we did. VB and speed, I think, was the order of the day.

Jones: There are photos of me asleep under the mixing desk. The thing is that Kid’s flight was really early, and we had to take him out to the airport at 4.30 in the morning, and I think Tex got a few hours sleep but I didn’t. I went back to Surry Hills and woke Graham Hood up! So it wasn’t so much drinking – though there was a bit of that. When Tony Cohen was mixing it, there wasn’t enough room for everyone on the couch so I just climbed under the mixing desk and listened down there, and then I just fell asleep because I was really tired. Someone organised for photos to be taken, and so there was a photo of me asleep, waking up and then with the other guys.

Salmon: I remember us all waiting for him to be located for hours and him doing the complaining when he was brought in. It is rock ’n’ roll after all! But it makes a great story, so I hope he doesn’t think I’m having a go at him because I'm not!

Baker: I don’t remember Kim almost being hit by a car! I had a gig that night with the Hoodoo Gurus. I remember Spencer fell asleep under the piano. We were going to have a shot at ‘Proud Mary’, the Creedence song, and we couldn’t do it, so there’s only nine songs on the album.

Salmon: As for Tex stopping me from walking in front of a car, what’s he going to do? “Let him perish!” [Laughs] Of course he wasn’t going to do that. I’m glad he was sober, or at least more sober than me. I’d have done the same if I was in the same state.

Jones: We did another photo shoot a few days later outside a funeral parlour in Crown Street, and that was next door to a gay bondage place, and we heard they had a dungeon torture chamber in the basement. We just went in there and asked if we could take some photos in there and he said sure and led us down to this really scary room with handcuffs on the wall, an old stretching rack. So Tex lay down on that and we stood either side, so that’s the photo on the back cover.

Salmon: I don’t think it was a miracle that we managed to record an album that day, because we were all used to playing in that state. The Scientists had a reputation for being booze hounds, as did The Johnnys. So that’s what we did – we were in our 20s, and at that stage you can put away a lot of beer.

Baker: I always loved the Beasts of Bourbon – I loved the whole sloppy, get-fucked rock ’n’ roll attitude. I had no idea if anyone would like it. But I knew we did a good record with The Axeman’s Jazz that one afternoon.

Salmon: I would have done a handful of gigs with the Beasts in that first era. I didn’t tour with the band, just played a handful of shows around Sydney and got recorded. My favourite memories – the ones I didn’t drink away in that recording session – are probably the first ones, like the shows at the Strawberry Hills.

In 1983 Salmon and Sujdovic prepared to move to Europe with The Scientists. Salmon flew over before the rest of The Scientists to secure accommodation for the band. To help raise funds for their airfares to Europe, Sujdovic and fellow Scientists members Tony Thewlis and Brett Rixon convinced Perkins to come to Perth to play some gigs under the Beasts of Bourbon moniker.

Perkins: That was the total mercenary years when various people would, to get a couple of grand – namely, the remaining Scientists, who needed money to get to England – use the Beasts as a convenient vehicle to pay for a plane ticket. That was the band’s most mercenary period. We allowed the Beasts’ name to be used for their purposes!

Sujdovic: I remember the week leading up to that gig in Perth. Tex, Brett, Tony and I were hanging around in Perth with nothing to do. We were just wandering the streets, and I remember that Space Invaders game had just come out. So we played that all night, and we got so good at that we beat the bank, if you know what I mean. I’d play the top, then once you’d get tired Tex would take over, then Brett would take over. It took us a week, but eventually we went right to the top. That was a big thing – fuck the gig! We were quite proud of ourselves.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Baker: I had to go and tour with The Hoodoo Gurus, so Brett played that one. Spencer didn’t play either – he was doing Johnnys stuff.

Jones: I think The Scientists were on their way to Europe, and we did this one gig in Perth. That’s on the flip side of the ‘Psycho’ single. That was with Tony Thewlis, Boris, James and I, because Kim had already left. There was a lot of gigs that we did that Kim didn’t know because he was over in London. It was all just cashing in on The Axeman’s Jazz – it was all for Tex’s benefit because everyone else was busy doing their own thing.

Salmon: There was that band that did a bunch of shows and recorded The Axeman’s Jazz, and then in Perth someone wanted it to happen, and I remember Tex going over and doing a show with the other members of The Scientists – they were already in Perth, on the way to London. The promoter got that band together, and they worked up a set that was similar but veered away from the cowpunk side of things. It was like The Scientists without me! And halfway through The Johnnys came to town, and Spencer joined up with them.

With Salmon and Sujdovic out of the country, the Beasts continued on, with a rotating line-up that variously included Graham Hood from The Johnnys, Stu Spasm from Lubricated Goat and Brad Shepherd from The Hoodoo Gurus.

“James basically got sacked from The Hoodoo Gurus. At that point Brad got sacked from the Beasts of Bourbon, because we loved James.”

Jones: We did a couple of gigs with Brad Shepherd on guitar and Stu Spasm on bass instead of Boris. James organised this one-off gig in Melbourne at the Ballroom. That was Stu Spasm on guitar, me on guitar, Graham Hood on bass. We flew down and played one gig, and then flew straight back. We made a lot of money on that gig! There were other weird things, like when the Legendary Stardust Cowboy came out, and that was me and James and Lachlan McLeod, and Tex on bass.

Baker: Kim and Boris moved to London and Spencer, Tex and myself got Brad Shepherd for a while, then Stu Spasm. Brad did about half a dozen shows with us all up, then Stu joined and Graham Hood on bass. That was just for the odd tour.

Jones: I remember doing a great show at the Frank Sinatra room at the Chevron, and another one around 1984. I have a set list from the Ballroom, and about 50% is Stooges and Alice Cooper. It’d be interesting to have a recording of that.

James Baker’s unceremonious sacking from the Gurus in 1984 was followed immediately by Shepherd’s departure from the Beasts.

Jones: James basically got sacked from The Hoodoo Gurus. At that point Brad got sacked from the Beasts of Bourbon, because we loved James.

Salmon: I know nothing about Brad’s departure. I was in England by that time. I know that once we’d left Tex got into other stuff, and he was hanging out those guys from Adelaide like Lachlan McLeod and Stu Spasm.

Perkins: Brad leaving coincided with James being sacked from the Hoodoo Gurus. That happened and we never saw Brad again. I think Spencer claims to have told Brad to his face that he wasn’t in the band anymore. There was bad blood about how James was dismissed from the Hoodoo Gurus. Brad and James were quite close, and then one afternoon their manager, Stuart Coupe, was sent around, and told James he was out of the band. It was kind of understood that by doing that, Brad was leaving the Beasts.

Jones: When we first went to Europe in 1989 we were playing gigs with Mudhoney and the End of Silence line-up of The Rollins Band. That was really good, and had an effect on all of us. When we back a couple of tours later with Brian and Tony, these people who were really friendly to us the first time said, “Your new drummer is very heavy metal – we like the other guy!” Technically Tony is probably a better drummer, but James is this larger-than-life personality, the guy that belongs behind the drum kit, commands your attention when he’s on stage even when he’s not doing anything. And he is cool!

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PART TWO: Making Sour Mash and Black Milk, touring Europe and reuniting this year for ATP Melbourne.