Thanks so much to Pete for the great interview! I wrote about The Sometimes some years ago on the blog, hoping to find out more about this very little known Melbourne band. At that time I was looking like crazy for their 7″ single, but little did I know that there was another release by the band that doesn’t get listed anywhere on the blog, a CD EP. Happily not too long ago Pete got in touch with me and was keen to answer my questions and tell the story of the band!
++ Hi Pete! Thanks a lot of being up for this interview! How are you? When was the last time you picked up your guitar?
All good thanks.
Pretty strange but really great to revisit an obscure release by an unknown band from 30 years ago. I only came across your blog because I was clearing out a whole lot of junk and came across a bunch of copies of the 7″ single. I did a google search on it out of curiosity and up came the one reference.
Picked up the guitar yesterday when I discovered an artist I really liked in the eighties named Tommy Keene had passed away. Tried to play a riff from one of his songs with moderate success. I have been trying to renovate a house for the last ten years so unfortunately the guitar only gets picked up after I’m done with the power saw, battery drill and spirit level.
++ What are your earliest music memories? What sort of music did you listen at home growing up? What was your first instrument and how did you get it?
Firstly The Beatles. They were like our Wiggles. Next watching a television show called “Uptight / The Happening Seventies” that featured early Australian bands performing in black and white.
My brother Andy, who was also in The Sometimes and I hassled my mother to buy singles like “Turn up your radio” by The Masters Apprentices and “Eagle Rock” by Daddy Cool. We’d dance in the lounge room with our cousin to these records while our extended family watched on. We’d crack them up with our antics. Not sure what they thought of this new culture in which they’d chosen to bring up a family.
First rock band I saw was AC/DC when I was about 8 years old at The Catania Ballroom in Thornbury. That blew my mind and I was hooked on guitar based rock music from then on. A track that made a huge impression and tempered the rock side of things was “Arkansas Grass” by Axiom. Perfect pop song, if you overlook the ironic country feel. From that point I became intrigued by the songwriting side of things. Around the ten year old mark we got into Gary Glitter, Bowie and Slade. Early teens onward was the Led Zeppelin phase and to a lesser degree Black Sabbath.
My brother was more into the guitar side of things and was a huge Jimmy page fan. He bought a Gibson Les Paul copy and I ended up with a Gibson SG bass copy. Can’t remember how I got it. Annoying my parents most likely. We had a good balance between us, he could play the cool riffs and I’d try to get bits and pieces together to resemble a song.
Led Zeppelin led to Jethro Tull and then the punk/new wave movement focused things up a bit. Initially bands like The Stranglers, The Clash and later post punk stuff like The Church, Birthday Party, Killing Joke, Echo and the Bunnymen.
++ I noticed you have Greek background, same as your manager too! I was wondering if anyhow there was a Greek music influence in your music? Or if you were aware or fan of the great guitar pop bands from the 80s in Greece?
I was unaware of Greek guitar pop at the time but anything in the rock field that had a 12 string jangling away or visited an exotic scale would get our immediate attention as we were exposed to Greek music as kids. My brother played a bit of bouzouki and that definitely comes out in his playing. Little tricky fiddly bits. You can kind of hear a hint of it on the lead run on “Let your guard down”.
++ Were you all originally from Melbourne? How was the city back then? What were your favourite places to hang out? What were the good record stores? What about the venues to go check out up and coming bands?
Yes all from Melbourne.
In the early eighties in my band watching days Melbourne, as far as street life went was pretty dead after hours. Very un-European and kind of culture-less but if you were a music fan and you knew where to look it was a dream. Rock music was the culture in a way. There were a heap of venues, mainly pubs with original bands playing seven nights a week. Punters back then were happy to see bands playing their own songs and testing the musical boundaries. There were two inner city areas to see up and coming bands. St Kilda was more of a Punk / New Wave scene. The Crystal Ballroom and The Prince of Wales were the best in St Kilda. You could see Australian bands like The Birthday Party, Go Betweens and many up and coming punk/new wave bands. Carlton had smaller venues like Martinis and Hearts. I remember that scene being a bit straighter with more rock/pop type bands with an alternative tinge such as Paul Kelly and the Dots, The Sports, The Cheks etc. More of a university crowd.
There was also a strong suburban circuit where the rockier, more commercial bands would venture out to. I remember seeing The Church, Sunnyboys, Matt Finish, Midnight Oil, INXS, The Models etc. at these venues. That was when I was into seeing bands but not in a band.
Lots of great record stores. Missing Link and Greville Records were the main two. Au go go started up a little later.
++ Talking about bands, did you feel there was a good scene in Melbourne? What were your favourite bands? And were there any like-minded bands that you were friendly with?
By the time I tried getting a band together the poker/slot machines had arrived and many venues stopped having bands and the scene for smaller indie bands had really quietened down. Carlton died off and St Kilda became more for mainstream bands on tour.
The Fitzroy area became the indie centre. Some new venues popped up such as The Punters Club in Fitzroy and that was a great place to hang out to see up and coming bands. We had a residency there for a while which was great.
Can’t say we were really friendly with any like minded bands. We weren’t really part of the Melbourne indie social scene. We were a couple of guys from a working class area with a really hard hitting drummer playing a cross of indie rock/pop that would at times break out into a Led Zeppelin inspired 70’s rock-out.
We were a bit scattered stylistically, Too heavy for the indie pop scene and too light for the heavier grungy scene. This made it difficult to get gigs. This was compounded by not having that indie social networking thing going. Having said that I remember “The Odolites” being quite generous with some support spots although I never knew what they made of us.
I thought the Melbourne scene while I was only watching bands was more creative. Bands like the early version of The Models around the time of “Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta …..”, early Hunters and Collectors, The Birthday Party, The Chemicals and The Moodists were really cool and inventive. Really loved the way they used the rhythm section as the driving force and layered guitars around it. Later on I think bands got a bit too cliched in the guitar department. Strumming away on C G D and F for a whole gig.
++ Had you been involved in any bands before The Sometimes?
Before The Sometimes pretty much the same garage band with school friends and my brother. We eventually got out of the garage and started playing live under many different names – about six from memory. “96 Tears” was one. We were learning how to play live so we’d go out and learn in public. Every time we burnt too many bridges we’d fall apart. Get pissed off with each other. Go away. Come back, change our name and go round again.
++ How did the band start? Who were The Sometimes and which instruments did each of you play? And how was the recruiting process?
I’d gone to college and started meeting new people. I’d met Phil Lawrence at college. He had played a few times with the last band I had going. I think it was called Ten Thousand Miles. I was playing bass in the previous bands. I got Phil Lawrence to play bass so I could be freed up to try to concentrate on vocals which I was struggling with while playing bass. I needed a guitar player and drummer. I only knew one guitar player and one drummer so my brother ended up playing guitar and Russell played drums. That lineup lasted a while and we put the 7″ single out.
++ Why the name The Sometimes?
A bit of a gag really. Couldn’t get many gigs, we only played Sometimes…
++ What would you say were influences music-wise for The Sometimes?
Myself and my brother Andy pretty much as mentioned above. The drummer Russell didn’t really like any of the more alternative bands. He liked bands with great drummers like Matt Finish from Sydney and kept going on about Billy Cobham ad nauseum. Phil liked 80’s guitar bands such as U2, Echo and the Bunnymen etc. but was also a closet Kiss fan. I suppose we were a combination of a guitar band and a kinda post punk bass/drums driven band.
++ And what would you say are your all-time favourite Australian bands?
Early on Masters Apprentices, Axiom. During the punk/post punk days The Saints, very early Models, The Moodists and The Birthday Party were great. From the more mainstream side of things The Church, Midnight Oil, Matt Finish, very early Go Betweens, The Swingers, very early Hunters and Collectors. The Chemicals were a real quirky unknown techno band that had some great tunes. Later in the 90’s I really liked Died Pretty and Samurai Trash put out a great single called “Come out and play”.
++ Where did you usually practice? How was the creative process for the band?
Would have been a rehearsal studio although I can’t remember which one.
Creative process varied. Some songs would start with one of Andy’s riffs. I’d then overlay a vocal line and it would grow from there. Russell was a pretty inventive drummer and he’d often bring a song to life. Other songs I’d pretty much work out on a four track and then the band would add their bits and some would come out of jamming as a band.
++ Your first release was the 7″ with “People Go Home” and “Let your Guard Down”. This is a great single! So was wondering if in a couple of sentences tell me the story behind each song?
Let your guard down is pretty self explanatory. It was about a real person. Basically pleading to make the most of opportunities. Throw caution to the wind type stuff.
People Go Home was about the frustration of living in Melbourne at a time where there was little street life and just watching the rush of people scrambling to get back to their homes after a days work. Sort of explains the repetitive riff that goes round and round.
++ I also always wondered about the picture on the sleeve, who is she? And what about the picture on the insert?
The bass player Phil did all of the artwork. They were just images of a couple of friends of his that he had in his photo album. We thought they were better looking than us so we put them on the cover. I always hated doing band photos and that side of things.
++ And this record was a self-release is that right? How come? Was there no interest from any labels?
We hadn’t really developed enough to approach labels. We thought putting a single out could help us get some more live work and maybe some support spots. We didn’t expect it to do too much. We were happy to get some airplay on independent radio such as 3RRR, 3PBS, 2SER, get a couple of reviews and then move on to an E.P and try to grow from there.
++ The two songs were recorded at Platinum Studios by Paul Kosky. How was that experience? How many days did they take to record? What was your diet while making these songs? Pizza and beer?
I think it took two sessions over two days. Platinum was a great studio. We thought it was better to spend less time in a good studio rather than more time in a lesser one.
I remember it going really quickly. Paul was very supportive and very very positive. He got sounds very quickly. We had done some recording in the past but of course we were too green to control the process and kind of got guided through it. In hindsight of course a musician would have done everything differently. We sounded a lot lighter on the recording than we were live at the time.
There was a little beer and most likely a souvlaki or two from up the road.
++ I saw that you appeared too on a compilation tape called “Screaming at the Mirror” that was released by Ticklish Tapes. How did this come to be? And who were Ticklish Tapes? And did you appear in any other compilations?
We played some gigs with a band called Clowns Smiling Backwards who were a really heavy experimental band. Their singer Bo ran a studio and was putting a compilation out. He was kind enough to include a track on it. That was the only compilation tape. I really liked the compilation tape idea as you have a bunch of bands with a common cause and you felt part of something bigger.
++ Only now that I’m in touch with you I got to know there was another release, a CD EP with four songs titled “I Never Had Anything”. Was this self-released as well even though it says RP Records? How many copies did you press? It seems so rare!
That was self released but distributed by Siren Records. RP Records was a joke, as in Rupert Pupkin Records, as in the guy in that Scorsese film The King of Comedy. I was starting to feel like him after pushing music for so long to little avail. 500 were pressed. It did get a bit of airplay on Triple J – a national broadcaster here which was great. It was a bit light for the more independant stations like 3RRR and 3PBS.
++ I notice that for this CD the band is just you and Russell with the help of friends. What happened?
In summary, post single we split up. Reformed with a female singer, then my brother left, I went back to bass, Phil played guitar. Split up again…… Female vocalist left. Then a friend Lucky from the pre- Sometimes bands joined. We did some more recording with Lucky as lead vocalist. The recordings turned out really well. Of course the band split again before we could do anything with them which was a shame. I was left holding the master tapes of seven songs. So I re-recorded my vocals as lead and put out the 4 track EP. I thought just put it out and see what happens. I chose the more acoustic songs as I figured they could be played solo or with a smaller acoustic lineup.
++ These four songs were recorded at Elva Foods by John Archer. That’s an odd name for a studio. Care telling me a bit about it?
John Archer was the bass player of a big band here in Melbourne called Hunters and Collectors. John owned the P.A that H&C used for touring. He housed that in his factory/residence that used to be used for food manufacturing. It was called Elva Foods.
For the E.P John set up a mobile recording in the factory. We tracked the drums at another studio called Big Beat because they were running with a similar tape machine.
++ So after this EP, why no more releases? Why no album?
Well, no more band. I’d had enough by then. Went off to play in cover bands for a a couple of years.
++ Are there any more songs? Any unreleased recordings by the band?
Post cover band I started recording again and started just sending tapes out to the U.S as a solo performer.
Actually had a little interest from some producers and a major label however the stumbling block was always that they were in the U.S and I was on the other side of the world.
So yes, quite a few more songs that have never been released. Although one called “Today is like any other day” I sent out as a CD single type thing and it got played a bit on internet radio and some small college stations in the US. It also received some favourable reviews.
++ And from all your songs, which one would you pick as your favourite, and why?
The song just mentioned, “Today is like any other day”. It was 3 minute 30 seconds had a good verse, a good chorus, a good bridge and told a good story with enough irony. One other track was “Forty Second Move” which was basically a just good pop song.
++ What about gigs? Did you gig lots? What were the best gigs that you remember and why?
By today’s standards we did a lot but at the time we always felt like we were struggling to get them. I really enjoyed doing an early weeknight residency at the Punters Club. It was a new small venue and it was good to be able to turn up each week and begin to hone the act. It lasted around 6 weeks. It Would have been great if that could have lasted longer and we could have built on it before starting to try to get support spots with other bands.
Another gig was a support spot for a band called The Pony at a large venue called The Corner. I remember finally playing through a large P.A, with great fold back, it was an agency gig and the bands’s sound came together. Unfortunately there were 5 people watching but it didn’t matter, I found out what it meant to experience job satisfaction.
++ Were there any bad gigs? Any anecdotes that you could share?
I just remember many gigs being a struggle. I think we were trying to play music that was over complicated through small P.A’s in small rooms that we were too loud for.
No rock’n’roll anecdotes really. Just remember doing a gig at a small pub and my brother had developed arthritis. He often used to wear those beige Scholl sandals with the bubbled souls around the house.I’d used a bath robe to pack a guitar in a case so it would not get damaged while transporting.
We were half way though the set. All dressed in dark jackets, black jeans and looking dour, probably singing about something depressing. I turn around and there’s my brother wearing a light blue terry towelling bathrobe complete with Scholl sandals, white socks and a huge grin.
++ And where was the farthest you played from home?
Not too far. We never ventured more than 10km from home. Most venues we could get booked at were in the inner city.
++ Did you get much attention from the music press or radio?
As mentioned before public radio stations 3RRR, 3PBS and 2SER were all very supportive. Commercial radio would not play independent releases.
We did get some good reviews in the music press and an article or two.
++ Today, are you all still in touch? Has there ever been talks of or a reunion gig?
Yes we are all still in touch and still friends. Phil passed away recently which was really sad. A reunion rehearsal would be great but I can’t see us ever playing live again as a band. I don’t think anyone would come anyway. A jam could happen though.
++ In retrospective, what would you say was the biggest highlight for The Sometimes?
The bathrobe….
++ And one last question, tell me a bit about Melbourne today. I’ve never been, I hope to one day, so many great bands from your city. But was wondering what would you say one shouldn’t miss when visiting. Like the sights, the traditional food or drinks? What would you recommend?
It’s a more vibrant and varied city than it was in the eighties. Outdoor dining, many bars and cafes now rather than pubs alone. Unfortunately many older pubs are being gutted and turned into apartments which is a bit sad.
The multicultural angle is its biggest asset I think. From food to music to art there’s always lots to experience on that front.
Live music has suffered a little bit but it’s more varied these days. It’s not all rock music. You can see an African band, Greek Rembetika, Latin etc. I’m a bit out of touch with the indie scene but there are always lots of bands playing. If you check out the Beat Magazine Gig Guide or the 3PBS Global Village Gig Guide you’ll see that there is a lot of live entertainment. Lots of good food spots.
Malabar Hut for southern Indian, GRK Kitchen for Greek, Claypots/Barbarossa for seafood, Moroccan Soup Kitchen or Moroccan Delicacy for Moroccan, Thalia Thai for Thai….
Sights? Usual tourist spots are the Great Ocean Road, Penguins at Philip Island, Wilson’s Promontory, The Grampians. Victoria Night Market.
There are usually some good music festivals over summer.
Cool suburbs to check out would be Fitzroy, Carlton, Brunswick, Northcote and St Kilda.
++ Thanks again Pete! Anything else you’d like to add?
Just thanks for showing interest and I’m glad you enjoyed our humble release from 1988….
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