Jimi Kritzler: The Ugly Australian Underground

Jimi Kritzler (White Hex, ex-Slug Guts) spent four years interviewing 50 Australian bands for his debut book ‘Noise in My Head’. He tells TIM SCOTT about documenting the ugly –and sometimes tragic – stories of our underground.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] In his introduction to Noise in my Head, author Jimi Kritzler writes that being in a band isn’t simply the glorious hedonistic existence most people imagine. “Often it is 13 hours driving in a cramped van only to play to 50 people. It is being ripped off by promoters, fighting with your bandmates and being consistently broke. It is hauling heavy equipment upstairs, arguing with security guards and sound engineers. It is recording LPs on a budget of $300 and coercing brilliance out of nothing.”

Subtitled The Ugly Australian Underground, the book documents 50 Australian bands and personalities of the last 10 years – including Eddy Current Suppression Ring, The Drones, HTRK and Royal Headache – through candid interviews and photographs.

Kritzler knows a thing or two of the ugly underground: his band Slug Guts imploded at the end of a draining 2012 US tour. (He now plays in White Hex.) He freely admits that who he chose to include in the book was completely subjective but interview subjects as diverse as Mikey Young, Marcus Rechsteiner, Jonnine Standish and Jarrod Quarrell make for compelling reading.

How did the book come about?
It wasn’t actually a book to start with. I was studying journalism and needed a thesis and so started to interview some bands. Someone suggested that it would make an interesting book so I widened the scope and it ended up being 50 or so bands.

I didn’t want the interviews to be like stuff you see in street press but something more personal. Luckily people were very forthcoming with intimate details that I wouldn’t necessarily reveal about myself.

“If you hate the book that’s fine. Go spend four years writing your own.”

Who were some of the bands you interviewed early on?
The first interviews were with Straightjacket [Nation] and Marcus [Rechsteiner] and UV [Race]. I remember speaking to HTRK, who did the first half early on and then the second half when they came back to Australia.

With a book of this scope, people look for the omissions just as much as who is included. Were you conscious of this?
It’s very subjective. I wanted it to be a mix. I am by no means a big fan of all of these bands but I think each of them has a really interesting story and I think these stories are important. What brings them all together is that they are contemporary and have an aesthetic or approach that links them all together. I don’t want to have [an] overarching “This is a scene” kind of thing – I think that’s horrible. It’s more these are the people and bands that interest me.

Yeah, but you know some people are still going to nitpick.
Yeah, sure, but if you disagree that’s perfectly fine and if you hate the book that’s fine as well. Go spend four years writing your own book.

The subtitle is The Ugly Australian Underground. Why is that?
I had two publishers and neither of them was into that as a title so it became the subtitle, but the ‘ugly’ is not a reference to the music or sound but more the people. I mean, most of them are great aesthetically to look at, but the stories they are telling for the most part are pretty ugly.

“The majority of interviews took place in people’s houses or rehearsal spaces. It was very informal.”

The two biggest names in the book are The Drones and Eddy Current Suppression Ring. I can understand ECSR but why The Drones?
Eddy Current to me is a really important and influential band, particularly on some of the other bands in the book. I spoke to Mikey [Young] with Dan Stewart [Total Control, The UV Race] in a Mexican restaurant in St Kilda and he mentioned the early days and the direction of where he saw the band heading.

The Drones are a bit different because to me they represent the old guard. A continuation of stuff like Ian Rilen [X, Rose Tattoo] and all those kind of guys, but they still have an interesting story of coming to Melbourne and establishing themselves.

There is candidness to a lot of the interviews.
The majority of the interviews took place in people’s houses or rehearsal spaces. These were the best places to lock them down. It was very informal. I think this made a difference and the fact that I knew most of the people, so maybe they didn’t shy away from saying certain things that they wouldn’t necessarily put in an interview for a magazine. They were more into revealing shit that had gone on. If you are friends you know about these things so I’d put it to them. And not a single person shied away from any question.

“The book looks at death but also celebrates their lives and what they achieved and did.”

But were you conscious of not digging dirt or asking anything provocative or salacious?
No, not at all. At no point does it try to be scandalous or like some celebrity exposé. It was just honest. It was just digging deeper than the whole “The last album was pretty good. What’s the new album about?” or “Who was the engineer?”

Some of the people the book is dedicated to include Shaun South [of Chrome Dome], Sean Stewart [of HTRK] and Brendon Annesley [of Negative Guest List]. All very creative and talented people who unfortunately died before their time.
Yes, at some points the book looks at death but also celebrates their lives and what they achieved and did. There’s also a lot to be said of the people in this book. There’s a remarkable amount of character and intelligence in their answers and their stories are pretty amazing. It’s a very simple equation. It’s these people and their lives and the music they make in their lives. It’s the sole thing that they have. It’s the thing that gets them out of bed and it’s repeated over again. Some more violently than others.

It ranges from “This is all I have” to “I’d be fucking dead” if I didn’t have music or the band.

I especially enjoyed the HTRK interview.
The HTRK interview was great. The first half was done before Sean died and the second part after. It was very articulate and very open about everything: Sean and the music process and the years of not doing anything and the stagnancy and the years in Berlin. And the Chrome Dome interview is really important to me personally because of Shaun South and just because he’s incredibly open and it’s weird what he says. Looking back on it, the last paragraph is painful. I had people saying that I should take this out and I said no. Maybe it will fill in some gaps; I don’t know.

Were there any interviews that were difficult?
Not really, but it was a really difficult interview with Helen Johnstone from Garbage and the Flowers just because she doesn’t like being interviewed. After every question it was “I got to go now” – it was difficult to keep her on the phone. She was very open about everything, but at the same time I could tell that she wasn’t someone who liked to talk about shit. She was incredibly intelligent and articulate but it was quite a bizarre interview.

“Being in a band, you learn when a journalist has just had a cursory glance of a one-sheet.”

Were there any Australian music books that influenced you?
Not really. I really didn’t like [Clinton Walker’s] Inner City Sound; I found it pretty cut-and-paste and the writing was not very good. It didn’t really reveal anything. Maybe it did at the time and it just hasn’t dated very well. People will disagree with me, as that book is held up to high esteem, though I don’t know why. The only music book that I’ve really ever liked is a biography, possibly unauthorised, of Stevie Wright.

Were you leading the questions as a musician or a journalist?
I think more as a friend. There were questions about touring and stuff, but I think I knew how to avoid bad questions. Being in a band, you learn when a journalist has just had a cursory glance of a one-sheet that a PR person has sent them before they call you. You don’t want to be rude, but invariably you try to out-lie [compared to lies in previous interviews]. You only know these things about the people because you have been around them and you would only know to ask these questions because you know these people.

I got that on chapters with the Wonderfuls and Circle Pit.
With Circle Pit it was just back and forth between Jack [Mannix] and Angie [Bermuda]. You can tell they love each other. It just goes into deep detail about Jack’s life over the last five years that included drug use and prostitution and then there’s the voice of Angie and she’s just worried.

Bobby [Bot] from the Wonderfuls is so funny. He talks about going to a psychiatric hospital – he was in a room with a guy hitting a punching bag and Bobby would hit a note on a piano and some patronising uni-student intern came over and said, “Oh, you’re quite a great piano player aren’t you?” and he was like, “Fuck off. I’m playing one note. Don’t patronise me!” He just has a great sense of humour. And his album Salty Town: I don’t think many people have heard it, but it’s amazing, [like] Scott Walker with a crushing weight to it. I will always back the underdog.

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‘Noise in My Head: Voices from the Ugly Australian Underground’ comes out this month through Melbourne Books in Australia and HoZac Books in the US. Pre-order it here. Launch info below.

Thurs, May 1 – Boney, Melbourne, VIC [w/Forces, The UV Race + HTRK and New War DJs]
Sat, May 10 – The Midnight Special, Sydney, NSW [7pm, w/DJs Shogun, Angie Bermuda, Nic Warnock + others]