Peabody: 10 Things We’ve Learnt About Being In A Band For 20 Years

Two decades in a band has taught BEN CHAMIE and BRUNO BRAYOVIC of Peabody quite a bit. Mostly about rum and Econovans.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

1. A band is not a democracy

If you want to have equal say in something, join a debating team. A band needs someone to drive it creatively and someone to drive it logistically. The rest of us/you get the easy job of falling into line and having a good time.

2. You’re only as good as your drummer

Any band is only as good as its drummer. Generally if they suck, the band will suck too. Unless, of course, you know how to work a drum machine, which has an advantage over a human drummer in that you only have to punch the information into a drum machine once.

3. Drummers drum like they drive

While we’re on the topic of drummers, Peabody has had about five or more drummers over the years. So after playing many gigs and then driving many kilometres with these “people,” I can say with confidence that you can get a sense of a drummer’s style from their driving skills. If they are an erratic stress-head behind the wheel, they’ll probably be that way behind a drum kit too. A steady driver that doesn’t fatigue makes for a good drummer.

So if you ever find yourself having to find a new drummer for your shit-box indie band, you’re probably better off having the candidates do a driving test across town during peak hour, while you shake your head, sigh and make notes on your clipboard in the passenger seat. Trust me, it will be far more fruitful than having them murder your beloved songs in the rehearsal room. Note: if they don’t have a car, it’s an instant fail as no one else is ever gonna want to lug their shit around for any length of time before it gets old.

4. A band should be a gang

A band should look like the type of gang that is willing to have the shit kicked out of them to defend their own honour. I’m not talking about being a tough guy or girl – I’m just saying that you shouldn’t let the fact that you couldn’t fight off a cold stop you from standing up for yourself and your band. You and the rest of your band are allowed to call your lead singer an egomaniacal fuckwit – no one else is.

5. No personal problems on tour, ever

This might seem like a harsh edict but it is absolutely imperative for this rule to be enforced in order to function as a working, touring band. Time spent touring will be when you are at your poorest, most hungover, most claustrophobic, loneliest, hungriest and generally most pathetic … and no one else wants to hear about it. Open that Pandora’s box of bullshit and it’s all over for morale and camaraderie. So next time your whiney bandmate starts carrying on about some sort of physical or emotional ailment on tour, bring out the personal-problems red card.

6. Sometimes you win but mostly you lose, so learn to laugh

Laws of probability state that your band (and ergo, mine) will be a commercial and/or artistic failure. Enjoy! The earlier you work out that you will often not get as many people to your show as Greg from accounts doing an acoustic covers set, or that you stand to lose a lot of money and face under emotionally trying circumstances, the easier it will be to laugh it all off. That’s the difficult part, but once you’ve achieved it you can just carry on doing what you do without a care in the world and 20 years later…

7. Drinking before playing

There is a far greater variety of rums available at the average bar these days than there used to be. Before, it was a simple choice of B’s: Bundy in the dark, or Bacardi in the white. Today you can have a spiced rum with a freshly juiced apple, or some fancy-pants imported rum with a twist of lime. Rum is a great pick-me-up after sitting in the van for hours, to get you into the right frame of mind before a show.

Once you’ve had a couple of those, it becomes a game of pacing your run – like an elite athlete – until show time. Several cleansing beers will work best. In this respect it is hardest to get the timing right when you’re headlining. It’s taken 20 years to perfect this, but after the pep of the rum and the hydrating beers, a shot of vodka (middle shelf or better) precisely before going on stage gives you the clear-eyed jolt necessary to be fully cognisant of all going on around you onstage.

8. Pass the punish

For the regularly gigging musician, it is important that you are able to pass the punish, quickly and discretely, to one of your shit bandmates. This means when the Punisher – a friend, a stranger, someone in another band; it could be anyone – starts on some meaningless/boring/annoying line of conversation, you are able to deflect the conversation so that the Punisher engages and corners your shit bandmate so that they may then receive the psychologically crushing weight of the blow instead of yourself.

9. Become the rock ‘n’ roll cyborg

Lug, set up, rehearse, drink, lug, set up, soundcheck, drink, play gig, drink, drink, eat, drink, sleep, drive, lug, soundcheck, drink, play gig, drink, eat, drink, sleep, drive, drink, eat, sleep, lug. Notice driving never comes directly after drinking? That’s because you’re the rock ‘n’ roll cyborg, not the rock ‘n’ roll dickhead. Ray Ahn from the Hard-Ons was right: being in a band is about lugging gear and maybe playing some songs in between. Once you add the other stuff you become the rock ‘n’ roll cyborg, and it only takes a couple of days on the road for this transformation to take place. You stop needing what mere mortals living in the real world need and you step into a time and space warp/bubble where only you and your bandmates exist. When you’re spat out the other end, you find the dishes are still not done and those bills didn’t pay themselves.

10. Rock vehicle of choice

Touring vans have gone through periods where they are the preferred choice. When we first started touring it was in Bruno’s Holden Commodore: it had no heating and a hole in the floor of the passenger side. It made for chilly willy. Then it was the Toyota Tarago. The backseats could be folded away to make room for gear. Then Taragos were reduced in size and took on a sleeker design, which meant you couldn’t fit as much gear in.

Then, in the salad days, we’d hire a 12-seater Toyota Hiace, sometimes with a trailer. I remember that on one povo tour we experimented with a Ford Econovan. It had a cage separating the front seats from the storage at the back. We packed the gear in and put a mattress on top so one of us could sleep while the others drove. But there was no seatbelt at the back and we had a few scary moments when braking hard led to the ‘sleeper’ copping amps and guitars landing on them. Mirroring the changing landscape of car manufacturing, the last few years we’ve preferred the Kia Grand Carnival.

Again, you can pull out the backseats, load in heaps of gear and they’re pretty quick. Yep, inspiring stuff.

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Peabody celebrate their 20th birthday with gigs in Sydney and Melbourne this month, with set lists spanning their entire lifespan. Their latest album is 2010’s ‘Loose Manifesto’.

Fri, June 6 – Yah Yah’s, Melbourne, VIC [w/The Barebones + Motel Love]
Sat, June 7 – The Workers Club, Melbourne, VIC [w/The Fauves + Likedeelers]
Fri, June 13 – The Roller Den (Imperial Hotel), Sydney, NSW [w/Further + SPOD]