Thanks so much to Nick Batterham for the interview! I got in touch with Nick on Twitter (thanks Wally!) after I had written about Blindside on the blog. The band was around in the early 90s in Melbourne, Australia, and released a string of singles and an album on the renowned Summershine Records. Aside when it comes to their releases, there was not much written about the band on the web. So I took the chance to ask Nick as many questions as I could! Hope you enjoy!

++ Hi Nick! Thanks so much for getting in touch! How are you? Where are you based now? Still in Melbourne? Are you still involved with music?

I’m still making music in Melbourne, including with my oldest friend Hamish from Blindside. We’re currently working on a new project together. I’ve also just released another solo album, seems to be a habit that I can’t get rid of.

++ Let’s start from the beginning. Like what are your first musical memories? What was the first instrument did you get and how? 

I come from a musical family so I grew up with a piano and an organ in the house. I studied cello from a very young age but gave it up at the start of high school. Around that time Hamish and I became school friends and I began to absorb his musical tastes. About age 15, I started learning guitar from his father Jim and by playing along to the records we were worshipping. My brother quit playing the flute when he got braces on his teeth. I pawned his flute and used the money to buy my first guitar from the pawn shop. I taught myself enough to justify getting a better guitar for my 16th birthday – a red Canora acoustic with a pickup. I soldered a cable to RCA plugs and ran it through our home stereo until it tore the speakers. Hamish and I tried busking playing covers of U2, The Cure and REM around Frankston. We didn’t make any money, but we didn’t get punched up either. Still a good definition of success.

++ Had any of you been involved with other bands prior to Blindside? When and how did the band start? How did you all meet? How was the recruiting process? Why the name Blindside?

Blindside was our first proper band – using two other friends from our school, drummer Nick and bass player Chris. I can’t remember where the name came from. We were a little bit goth at that time, so it was probably an attempt to sound dark and mysterious. We had previously called ourselves Mourning Cloud and taken photographs playing guitars in the cemetery! We rehearsed on weekend in Chris’s loungeroom or in Nick’s parents garage. Nick’s older brother Manu worked at Missing Link records and had a great record collection that we immersed ourselves in…. Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation, Dinosaur Jr – Bug, Husker Du – Candy Apple Grey. We’d listen to records then go to the garage and try our best to sound like the bands we loved. The common thread was noisy guitars. We were remarkably lucky to have our formative years when we did. The influencing forces were strong and our tastes were dynamic. We absorbed everything and started writing our own songs.

++ And who would you say were influences in the sound of the band?

++ All of your releases came out on Summershine Records. How did you end up on that label and how was your relationship with them?

I don’t remember if Jason had seen us play or not. I gave him a cassette and I think he gave us some cash to mix it properly. None of us really knew what we were doing but our desire was strong and we thought we were the best thing ever.

++ Your releases came both on vinyl and CD. That was kind of unusual then, and today it seems very difficult to do that for an indie band. I suppose the band had quite a following and it wasn’t as complicated to sell these records back then? And which of the two formats would you say you prefer and why?

7 inch singles were the norm and CDs were kinda new. It felt like a life defining moment to get your music on a vinyl record the first time. CDs took over through the 90s. To me vinyl still has a feeling of permanence that making a CD doesn’t have. Getting vinyl back from pressing is just as thrilling today as it was the first time. Now I only play CDs in my car – because it is old enough to have a 10 stack CD player!

++ Your first release was the “Endless” single. Here the 7″ and the CD have different songs and tracklist. I also notice that you designed the art for your records. Were you a designer by trade? And how important were the aesthetics of your releases for you?

I don’t remember what songs were on the different releases. I was studying design at university and getting into doing my own black and white photography. I dropped out during second year because I knew all I wanted to do was play music. I was playing lots of gigs with Blindside and touring with The Earthmen. The sleeve pictures were my early photographic experiments and the design… I remember cutting out the text from a bromide machine! I still like doing the artwork on my records. Really, I see the sleeves and the recording and video clips all as the same activity, it’s an elaborate craft project to keep myself occupied.

++ You worked for many of the records with Simon Grounds as producer and engineer, how was that experience?

Simon Grounds was a live sound engineer that did our early shows. He offered to record us at his house, he was a bit older than us and seemed to know about recording. He was an eminent figure within the St Kilda music scene. We probably didn’t fully appreciate his achievements at that time. I remember he had tree branches inside the house and boiled coffee beans in a big pot. The studio was a cat playground. We were just thrilled to be capturing our sounds properly for the first time. Until then I had been recording everything on my 4 track cassette so the rapid expansion of knowledge was exhilarating. He certainly captured where we were at.

++ I love the song “Plague” from this first single, wondering if you could tell me the story behind it? What inspired it? 

Thanks! Funny I couldn’t remember what Plague sounded like so I googled it. I think the YouTube track called Plague (with a picture of Hamish on the 7 inch sleeve) is actually the song called To Be Found. It was a double A side, perhaps with the labels on the wrong sides. It’s an angsty teenage song about feeling like an outsider and trying to belong. All the tragic teenage stuff you can only sing when you’re hiding behind your floppy fringe. Very strange listening to it now after so long. I can hear how much I loved the Smiths and the guitar is all Dinosaur Jr. The rhythm and chord progressions are something I have repeated a lot over the years.

++ On the 2nd single, “Idle Eyes”, there is a photo of a girl called Christine on the art. Who was she? 

Christine was my girlfriend. I remember the photo was taken during a party in a hotel room after a hair show. Her sister Suzanne was a hairdresser and Christine had been a hair model in the show. Suzanne had won a prize. The room phone rang and she answered “Hello, winners!” I guess you had to be there, but it is forever stuck in my memory. It’s over 25 years ago but I still call my home wifi network “winners”.

++ Your 3rd single “Teenage Goth Suicide Cult” has a very interesting title. This time around I suppose you weren’t totally happy as the 7″ didn’t get proper artwork? But something that caught my attention was that you appear as Beebaa and Laalaa. Or Hamish Cowan as Biggest Muff. What is the story behind these names?

The title was from some tabloid magazine headline. The BeeBaa was my fuzz pedal and the Big Muff was Hamish’s fuzz pedal. And Laalaa was for me being the singer. I was smoking weed obviously.

++ After the singles you released an album called “Hopes Rise”. How different was to record it compared to the singles? Was it a better experience? And are the songs on the album that were on the single recorded again?

The recording sessions for the album followed closely after the single sessions. We were paying as we went so it was in dribs and drabs. I think we were just recording the songs as quickly as we wrote them. It has an acoustic version of To Be Found on it.

++ The band appeared on a few compilations. One that caught my attention was the “Youngblood 4” one that was a compilation supporting young new bands from Australia. How did you end up contributing to this RooArt compilation, and was there any other sort of support by them, perhaps a gig, other than appearing on the CD?

That was a year or two later. RooArt offered Blindside a recording contract for our second album. I turned it down because the money was less than what I already had debts for at Metropolis studios where we were recording overnight in down time.

++ Are there more unreleased songs by the band? 

There are about 15 songs recorded for that second album that never saw the light of day. At the time I thought they were all a mess. In reality, I was the mess. We were recording from 9pm until 9am every night. I got pleurisy from going too hard. At that time The Earthmen had just signed in the US were going over on tour, which seemed more exciting, so I put all my eggs in that basket and let Blindside fizzle. It really is a shame. Blindside were really happening and I lost perspective. The album didn’t get finished and all that exists are the desk mixes.

++ Was there any interest from other label?

We turned down a deal from Homestead Records too. Hamish still reminds me about that quite frequently. What might’ve been?

++ What about gigs? You even played big gigs, supporting Smashing Pumpkins, right? Any anecdotes that you can share?

I remember they had giant racks of weird guitar effects and were a bit too heavy metal for my taste. We supported the Breeders a few nights later.

++ Did you play many gigs in total? All over Australia perhaps?

Blindside played a lot but only ever in Melbourne I think. The Earthmen ended up playing all over in their later years

++ And were there any bad gigs at all? Any anecdotes you could share?

We were pretty shambolic at the best of times. We equated noisy with good, so in that way the gigs were always good.

++ When and why did Blindside stop making music? And what happened immediately after?

See above. The Earthmen toured overseas, half disbanded, then signed to Warners and made a major label album all in the two years after Blindside ended. Hamish started Cordrazine in that time.

++ You’ve been in other bands, tell me if I’m missing any, like Cordrazine, The Earthmen or your solo project. How different would you say are your other music ventures to Blindside? 

All the bands are as different as the personnel involved. The Earthmen were a noisy band that got cleaner over the years. My own music has gradually become quieter. I still enjoy playing noisy guitar, just doesn’t happen very often. My voice has changed a lot over the years too. That whiney teenager is pretty hard to listen to. I can hear all the formative influences and trace how they’ve had a lasting impact on my writing and recording style.

++ Did you get much attention from the radio or press?

Blindside got local community radio play and street press, but no more than any other indie band at that time. Somehow Summershine managed to get us some amazing press in the UK. Indie guitar music especially was having a great period of broader mainstream appeal so there was plenty of limelight to go around.

++ What about from fanzines?

A bit, not much.

++ And today, aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?

I work in film doing sound and music and I run a recording studio where I produce music for all sorts of things. Somehow I’ve managed to avoid what feels like a real job and have my hobby as my life. I still get to spend time turning knobs and trying to create satisfying tones of distortion.

++ Looking back in retrospective, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?

n 1993 we got single of the week in UK Spin magazine in the same week they reviewed new releases by our heroes The Cure and Dinosaur Jr, which at the time felt like we’d arrived. The real highlight in retrospect is being part of the great Summershine collection of bands, at a time of such vitality in local music. It set up my life path and some core friendships.

++ Never visited Melbourne, would love to go to Australia one day, but would love to go one day, maybe I can ask for some suggestions? Like what are the sights I shouldn’t miss? Or the traditional food or drinks I should try?

I’m a bit of a homebody so probably not the best tour guide. I’d certainly avoid any foods served as being “traditional”. It’s a good town for coffee, but you don’t need to fly 18 hours for that.

++ And I must say I’m a big fan of guitar pop made in Australia, but would love to ask what are your top all-time bands from your country? And if you could recommend me a few obscure bands too?

The Sugargliders are my all time top pick. Used to love seeing Ripe and The Glory Box play live and the Dirty Three when they started.

++ Thanks again Nick! Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Thanks for taking an interest in such obscure things from so long ago! It was a special time in my life, remembered very fondly.

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Listen
Blindside – To Be Found