Icons: Beasts Of Bourbon Pt 2

PATRICK EMERY continues his oral history of the classic ‘Axeman’s Jazz’ line-up of Beasts of Bourbon, picking up with its 1987 reconvening and the making of ‘Sour Mash’ and ‘Black Milk’. Part one here.

In 1987 The Scientists returned to Australia at the end of the band’s tenure in Europe. Kim Salmon returned to his hometown of Perth, while Boris Sujdovic returned to Sydney. Tex Perkins, meanwhile, had had his own expedition to Europe before being sent packing by UK immigration authorities. Back in Australia, Perkins spent a short period in Adelaide before returning to Sydney, where he experimented with outrageous outfits such as Thug.

Meanwhile, Spencer P Jones was busy with The Johnnys while Salmon and Sujdovic had spent a few years living and touring in Europe with The Scientists. In 1987 The Scientists limped home to Australia, undertaking a farewell tour before Salmon threw his creative efforts into Kim Salmon and the Surrealists. James Baker had followed his departure from The Hoodoo Gurus with a brief and highly amusing solo career under the James Baker Experience (featuring both Perkins and former Scientist, Hoodoo Guru, Johnny and soon-to-be former Dubrovnik, Roddy Radalj). With all the members of the Axeman’s Jazz line-up back in the country, and Perkins looking to transcend the “colour and noise” of his Black Eye bands, the time was right for the Beasts of Bourbon to re-emerge.

Perkins: We threw The Axeman’s Jazz together – that was probably the only time in that original era that the band focused on doing original material. Before that it was fun, covers, piss-up sort of thing. That album sat around for a while, and during that time Boris and Kim were in Europe. So when that album finally came out, it wasn’t that line-up that toured to promote that record – there was Brad and Stu Spasm, and it was back into that party and piss-up thing. So it was never a true representation of the very small period of time when the band threw together – I wouldn’t use the word ‘write’ songs.

Jones: Tex had still been doing stuff outside the Beasts of Bourbon like Salamander Jim and Thug. John Foy had really got Red Eye up and running by that point, so we re-released The Axeman’s Jazz on Red Eye. He was really helpful to the band existing, like setting up our first European tour, stuff that he didn’t really need to do, and stuff that indie record labels won’t do now!

Later on, when we went to America, John was really trying to get us a major label deal and it wasn’t out of the question to ask for $150,000 advance from Sub Pop, because America’s a big place! But if we’d signed for nothing … then about six months later everything blew up and every band on there was signed for a million bucks. So we blew that one! But I admired John for going in hard, and there wasn’t a lot of competition – Guns ’n’ Roses weren’t scary, and you had all these big hair bands, and these disappointing college circuit bands.

“Instead of being some garage band doing covers, we were now contenders, with three songwriters.”

Perkins: Because the Beasts had become a purely mercenary vehicle, I dismissed the Beasts, because it wasn’t easy to take it seriously. When Kim came back to Australia, we were doing the Black Eye stuff, and Kim presented the first Surrealists record to John Foy, which had a kind of connection to the Black Eye scene, but just as much connection to The Scientists and the Beasts. I didn’t consciously see it that way at the time, but it did show a way back into conventional music for me, after being purely noise pranksters with Thug and all that. The Surrealists showed me that you could do both!

Jones: When Kim and Boris came back to Australia, things changed. That was a really creative point, I thought, because in the intervening period there’d been a lot of artistic growth. So instead of being some garage band doing covers, we were now contenders, with three songwriters.

Sujdovic: It would’ve been about a year or so after I got back from London. I got back a bit earlier than Kim, so it was just after Kim got back. We just got back together – I don’t know how exactly it happened.

Baker: I think it was Tex that had the idea to get the boys back together. I can’t remember if it was Kim, Spencer or Tex who rang me up.

Salmon: I came back from England in about 1987. I was doing an interview on triple j, which was down in King’s Cross at that point, because The Scientists were reconvening. I was living in Perth, but we did a couple of shows at the Trade Union Club and I was walking out of the studio and [saw] this gangly silhouette with arms flailing. It could only be one person – Tex. He’d heard me on the radio and wanted to track me down. He took me back to his place, which was the Gunnery, a big building that’d been owned by the navy at some point, and was being squatted in by a whole community of anarchists and artists. He took me up to his abode and there was a dinner party! As Spencer said recently, he wined and dined me! He had a proposition for me, which was to get the old band back together.

Perkins: I am a diplomat in these situations, but I’m not that calculating! Kim seems to do all sorts of things unwillingly [Laughs].

Salmon: That was redefining period. Tex sent me a tape of all these songs he was into, some jazz stuff he listening to like Donald Byrd, some Hendrix – it was a really unusual amalgam of stuff on this tape. And there was some songs that he’d done with Spencer, like ‘The Hate Inside’, one from one of his bands on Black Eye that never made it onto the album, something called ‘The Shaven Haircut’. ‘Hard For You’ was a Butcher’s Shop song. He could certainly put a good mixtape together. That got me quite enthused about the project – though I used to hate that term, ‘project’. So it was definitely in a different place to where that band had started.

Perkins: I started communicating with Kim about doing another record even before he moved back over to Sydney. He was living in Perth, so it was an old-fashioned cassette tape and letter correspondence going for a while before he moved back to Sydney, and the rest of the Beasts were living in Sydney as well.

Sujdovic: I was conscious the sound had changed by [1988’s] Sour Mash. The Axeman’s Jazz had been recorded quite a while earlier. We’d just gone in there and done it … there wasn’t much thought put into it. Back then if someone offered you studio time, you’d just take it. That happened in Europe with The Scientists when we did [1985’s] Demolition Derby. [1990’s] Black Milk and Sour Mash had a bit more of a plan, a bit more rehearsal, and five years on, obviously everyone had progressed a bit. The real punk days had started to fade away. So I guess we were a bit more organised. You could definitely feel a different vibe.

“We kind of hated the music business in Australia. We realised we could just exist in Europe.”

Salmon: I remember staying at Tex’s place the next time I came over, and I remember smoking loads of pot and listening to loads of Howlin’ Wolf with him, and getting back into Howlin’ Wolf, which I’d got into briefly when I was in England with The Scientists. I went back and made some tapes of my own stuff, and sent it back over to him. There were songs on there that he particularly liked, and one of them was ‘Playground’. They were just things that I had, but they weren’t necessarily for the Beasts of Bourbon. I had a lot of songs lying around at the time.

Baker: It did feel more of a real band the second time around. It was much more serious. The first time it was more of a jam in a studio with a few beers with your buddies. The second time we rehearsed, we toured in Australia and in played Europe. It was a genuine rock ’n’ roll band.

Salmon: I used to write stuff, and not usually worry about the concept of the band that would play it. I used to be down on that idea at the time, though it’s completely different now. ‘Playground’ could just as easily have been a Scientists or Surrealists song. ‘Flathead’ was just an idea I wanted to experiment with, and the Beasts were the guys I was hanging around with at the time when I was doing it. Sour Mash is a good name for that album – it is a strange mix of things. I think that was the strong plan of those first three albums – there really wasn’t a plan, and the band didn’t really have any limits.

Jones: As well as the weirdness, like ‘Playground’, we kept the country thing. Tex was really obsessed with Johnny Cash when I met him, so it wasn’t surprising that he got into this sort of stuff. We could’ve been quite a different sort of a band, but we kept elements of blues and country in the music, as well as garage and avant-garde aspects. Dave Graney said we lost our artsy-fartsy edge when Kim left!

Salmon: If anything, Tex influenced me to be diverse. The Scientists definitely had a lot more work going into it, but the Beasts were a lot more un-self-conscious. Because of that whole party aspect it was just about having fun, and those first three albums have that real “don’t give a shit” vibe going on. It made it sound a bit more like anarchy because there weren’t any rules – we can do what the fuck we want.

In 1988 the Beasts of Bourbon entered the studio with producer Phil Punch to record Sour Mash. While songs like ‘The Hate Inside’ retained the black humour of The Axeman’s Jazz, Sour Mash conveyed a quantum leap in songwriting ability and musical prowess. Salmon brought ‘Elvis Impersonator Blues’ from the tail-end of his Scientists-cum-early-Surrealists period, while Perkins revived ‘Hard For You’, previously part of his set with The Butcher Shop, one of the many bands with which he’d dabbled in the intervening years.

Salmon: Suddenly it wasn’t cabaret anymore – it had turned into a very hard rock/blues band, [an] industrially tinged rock band. But there was still humour there, very dark humour, like ‘The Hate Inside’. For me I had stuff lying around, and I’d just bring it in. I was working on the Surrealists, and I couldn’t use it all there. I think ‘Elvis Impersonator Blues’ I might’ve done in The Scientists at some stage.

Baker: The songwriting had changed. A lot of the songs on Sour Mash were ditties, there were some jazzy things. It wasn’t so much of a change of direction, but it was definitely different to The Axeman’s Jazz.

Sujdovic: It was less chaotic, though I don’t remember recording The Axeman’s Jazz. I remember recording bits and pieces of those second two recording sessions. To me Sour Mash and Black Milk are better albums than The Axeman’s Jazz.

Salmon: Phil [Punch] was suggested to me to fix up my production of [The Surrealists’ 1987 album] Hit Me With the Surreal Feel, and he did a great job so we tried him for Sour Mash.

Jones: Phil was really passionate about the blues, and he gave me some really great blues records – Lighnin’ Sam Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt – great records that influenced me a great deal.

Salmon: Phil, when he got the right idea, was great but could sometimes have a different idea to the band and take things to the wrong place. Tony Cohen is a genius at what he does – end of story!

Baker: Phil was cool – he got it right away. I loved working with Phil. He understood us.

Jones: On ‘Flathead (the Fugitive)’ we were trying to make this spy music, and we thought it’d be great to have broken glass at the end. Phil was right into it, and we go out into the street at one o’clock in the morning, and he’s got a mike and we’ve got a crate of empty bottles, and we’re smashing all these bottles. I think there’s a passing police station seeing these youths smashing glass, and they stop, and then out comes Phil with a brush and pan, says, “Hello officer, we’re just making a record here.” He just slipped into the role of the straight guy.

Salmon: I remember doing that. It’s always fun yelling out obscenities and smashing bottles!

Baker: I don’t remember that happening! I certainly wasn’t involved.

In 1989 the Beasts of Bourbon undertook its first overseas tour. With The Axeman’s Jazz having already achieved notoriety in the European underground scene, the band was assured of local interest.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Jones: We weren’t totally jaded at that point – our diet was more beer than chemicals. I think we’d hardened by the time we got to [1991’s] The Low Road. It wasn’t just Brian [Hooper] and Tony [Pola] joining, it was stuff we were experiencing in Europe, and we kind of hated the music business in Australia. We realised we could just exist in Europe, so we had the annual trip to Europe, preceded by a Sydney and Melbourne show, or maybe a Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide show, but that was for the sole purpose of getting the money to fly to Europe.

Salmon: It had suddenly turned into something that was making a lot of money – I had to live, and it was a good earner for me. It was fun, although touring is heavy going. Doing an eight-week tour is a gruelling prospect – it really does you in.

“With ‘Black Milk’, looking back I’d get rid of a lot of stuff. It’d probably make an excellent 10-song record, rather than a 15-song record.”

Sujdovic: I’m not sure if it was just after Black Milk, or just before. There were quite a few Australian bands playing in Europe, and people were asking why the Beasts of Bourbon weren’t playing there. The Axeman’s Jazz was quite popular over there. People were waiting quite a few years for us to come over. It was mayhem when we went! Sometimes we were booked into venues that held 300, and there were 800 people. Some nights you could hardly get to the stage to play. And in Europe everyone smoked, and there was no ventilation.

Baker: The European tour was great – they loved us, and they were really into rock ’n’ roll, all through the major countries of Europe. It made me realise the rest of the world was way into rock ’n’ roll like we are.

In 1990 the Beasts returned to the studio, again working with Phil Punch. The resulting album, Black Milk, would cement the Beasts’ reputation as a hard-living, eclectic, potent rock ’n’ roll force. The band’s rollicking cover of Hound Dog Taylor’s ‘Let’s Get Funky’ pushed the Beasts ever so slightly closer to popular attention; the singles ‘Words From A Woman to Her Man’ and ‘Cool Fire’ (both written by Kim Salmon) displayed the Beasts’ sensitive side.

Jones: Everyone seemed to bring more variety to Black Milk. Tex had written a song called ‘I’m Sorry I Let You Down Again’, and I’d written a song called ‘You Let Me Down Again’, and these songs had nothing to do with each other, though they were both about the women in our lives at the time – or that’s what I thought he wrote it about. There seemed to be less jamming, and more formed tunes. We had warning that we were going to do be doing an album in about a month’s time, so everyone turned up with material and we were just teaching it to each other in the studio. So when we’d got it, we’d just press record and go.

Baker: We were way more confident by the time we did Black Milk. That was recorded after we got back from Europe. The band was a lot more confident in what we played, and there’s a lot more variation on that record.

Jones: Phil Punch loved that we were doing ‘Let’s Get Funky’ – he was into Hound Dog Taylor. I think Phil made those records easy to make, just because that’s kind of guy he was. We didn’t expect this straight-looking guy to be so evil, deceptively evil, beneath his outward experience. He really knew his stuff. Doing ‘Hard Work Drivin’ Man’ was just Muddy Waters to him. His stamp was on those records. He probably doesn’t really get any credit for the influence he had on the Beasts’ dirty roots aspect, but he’s definitely part of that, for sure.

Salmon: I was staying at Tex’s place around that time while he stayed at his girlfriend’s. I was smoking a lot of his pot, which wasn’t really my thing, but seemed to help songs like ‘Words From a Woman to Her Man’ and ‘Cool Fire’ happen for me. I remember writing ‘Blue Stranger’ and ‘I’ve Let You Down Again’ with Tex, and I reckon we informed each other’s songwriting method in the process.

Perkins: I think there was still this “don’t take this too seriously” element to the band. With Black Milk there was this sense of “let’s do jazz, let’s do bebop, let’s do zydeco” – we weren’t trying to present ourselves a serious, developed band. I think that was our weakness and our strength. We did a lot of stuff off the cuff. At the time it was always a good idea, but with an album like Black Milk, looking back I’d get rid of a lot of stuff. It’d probably make an excellent 10-song record, rather than a 15-song record. But that’s probably the case with all the Beasts records – there are about four or five great things on it, and there all these dodgy experiences and creative artistic dead ends. But that’s part of it – I don’t think we should be bogged down making the Beasts of Bourbon an important band in rock ’n’ roll history. We were more of a legendary band than an important band – it’s more of what happened around the band than the actual music.

Jones: Louis Tillett was there as well. I remember him coming down. He had these bolt cutters, and he wanted to cut the strings on the grand piano and record it, and I was up for that until I found out how much strings for a grand piano would cost – something like $120 per bass string. It would’ve cost a fortune! But we got some great piano from Louis.

Shortly after Black Milk was completed, Baker and Sujdovic – by this time playing in The Dubrovniks, and enjoying considerable success in Europe – decided to concentrate on The Dubrovniks.

Baker: The last gig I remember from that second period was the Paddington Town Hall in Sydney, or maybe it was the Old Greek Theatre in Melbourne. I can’t remember which was the last from that era.

Sujdovic: When I got back from London, the Beasts and The Dubrovniks started in conjunction with each other. Instead of playing with The Scientists and the Beasts of Bourbon, I was playing with The Dubrovniks and the Beasts of Bourbon. The Dubrovniks started getting pretty popular in Europe, started getting out of hand. I could have spent half my life touring Europe because the Beasts toured over there, then The Dubrovniks started. James and I thought it was too much. The first couple of weeks are fun, and then the fun wears off. So I decided to just play with The Dubrovniks – that was really the only reason we left the Beasts.

Jones: I think we did do some gigs after Black Milk with that line-up, and I think that was when Mick Danias said they had to choose between the Beasts and The Dubrovniks, because they’d just got a deal with Mushroom. But maybe that was just Timberyard wanting to separate James from me and Kim, because in 1989 I was with The Johnnys and there was no one saying I couldn’t do both groups.

Baker: The Dubrovniks at the time was more our band. We wrote the songs for that band and we’d had enough of the Beasts at the time. So we said, “OK, guys, we’ll see you.”

Salmon: It was difficult when Boris and James left. They were overcommitted. We had the subsequent rhythm section under our noses in my band and I had been hoping they’d be in all along. It took a while for it to happen. Unfortunately, when it did happen, it was the beginning of the end for me, which I hadn’t figured on.

Sujdovic and Baker were replaced by Brian Hooper and Tony Pola, the rhythm section from Kim Salmon and the Surrealists. A couple of years after recording The Low Road, Salmon left the Beasts of Bourbon at the end 1993. With Charlie Owen replacing Salmon on guitar, The Beasts went on to record two more albums, 1997’s Gone and 2007’s Little Animals, before imploding in a sea of acrimony and rock ’n’ roll indulgence on the band’s 2008 European tour.

Not long after the Beasts came to a grinding halt on the road, the first three Beasts of Bourbon records were re-released, and rumours swirled about a possible reformation of the original recorded line-up. But with Salmon reluctant to return to the fray, and Perkins and Jones’ relationship estranged after the tumultuous events, a reunion seemed well beyond the boundaries of possibility. In mid-2012 it was reported that The Axeman’s Jazz line-up of the Beasts of Bourbon would be reconvening to play the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in February 2013. Eventually, the rumour – initially denied – was confirmed when it was announced that Perkins, Salmon, Jones, Sujdovic and Baker would once again team up.

Perkins: I didn’t think the original line-up would reconvene. That’s the really strange, aligning of planets about this period of the Beasts of Bourbon that’s about to happen. Around when the box set came out, All Tomorrow’s Parties approached us and they approached me. I spoke to Kim and he said no straightaway, as if it was something he would never consider – he didn’t let me finish, he was so quick to say no. So this time they did the smart thing by approaching him first.

Salmon: I was really hoping someone would make a sensible offer, in the sense that it was unreasonable [Laughs].

Sujdovic: I don’t think I really thought about playing with Beasts again. When The Dubrovniks were playing a lot in Europe, I didn’t think I’d play again. When that box set came out a few years ago, I thought we might play some shows. But I suppose the Beasts were still going at that time.

Baker: There’s been talk about it for about five years. Different people had different ideas on it, and now it’s all happening. This time I was approached by Kim. Kim’s sent me the list of songs we’re going to play – we’re not going to be sloppy.

Sujdovic: I was surprised to get the call because I didn’t think Kim would be into it. Over the last few years The Scientists have played ATPs all over the world, but I was surprised that the Beasts were asked. The ATPs have been good, and easy and fun.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Jones: I can’t say that I gave [the reunion of the first line-up] any thought until recently. Probably around our 25th anniversary it would’ve been impossible because we’d signed to Alberts. Each time I’d spoken to Kim he wasn’t up for it. But I remember thinking at the time it was a shame, and maybe we could do it for our 30th anniversary – if we were all still alive! We’re only doing this one show. I had no idea when I was working with Gareth and Fiona [from The Drones] that they we were working on this – the first time I’d heard about it was from Kim, who’d found out from someone in ATP. Everything has happened without any thought, but now everyone has agreed to it.

Sujdovic: I might be able to get through ‘Psycho’ this time, and I won’t be doing it deliberately. I won’t be pretending to be a better musician. That song goes up twice – with a head of Coopers it really fucks you around. But no one ever knows I’ve fucked it up – no one ever comes up to me.

Salmon: When you get together any old band you don’t get together where you began, you get together where you left off, which isn’t always the best point, because that’s where things may have gone sour. I’ve found The Scientists a challenge to get back together, but we’ve worked through all that stuff. So with the Beasts, it’s not going back to the Southern Cross, it’s at the end of some eight-week European tour where maybe things were getting a bit hairy. So you have to go into these things with open eyes. I’ve not lost touch with any of the members individually, it’s only collectively. I’ve toured Tex in relatively recent times; it’s just that with me and that band, it’s going back to something where there’s a whole lot of associations. I don’t think anyone could deny that that band’s taken its toll on the people in it.

Perkins: The ATP thing is happening, and then unconnected, the Iggy Pop thing pops up, and they want us to do the support for that. So we had to be there, and part of that tour is the Blues Festival and Charlie Owen, who’s part of the line-up that will play the Iggy support, can’t do the Blues Festival, so Kim is doing the Blues Festival – one only gig. So over the next six weeks, the three significant – recorded – line-ups of the Beasts will play. And it’s all purely chance and happenstance that it’s worked out this way. Hopefully it’ll put a few things to bed!

Beasts of Bourbon will play ATP in Altona, VIC this Sunday (Feb 17).

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PART ONE: Beasts of Bourbon’s formation and the recording of debut album The Axeman’s Jazz.