Interviews/Articles -  There will be more soon!
Bassett, Darrell, 1996, "The Martians - We Three Assholes", Inpress Magazine.
This is the sort of stuff that causes rock'n'roll embolisms. It's heavy gauge pub rock at it's best - fast, grunting, sweaty vibes that hit the ear and drive straight to the boot. It's no wonder that they've built up an  impressive reputation around town as a must see. It has that irreverent edge that goes down well with the Australian drinking public and chock full of grinding riffs you just know you've heard... somewhere.
    The disc has five songs that belt along with plenty of momentum and feature an usually grinding guitar sound and some wild vocals. Ventolin Blues being a prime example. There's elements in this music of The Cosmic Psychos to The Beasts of Bourbon. Highway Fever, is a fair blast of volume bearing down Hoddle Street.
    An impressive debut from a kickarse outfit.

Hayman, Matt, 1996, "The Martians - We Three Assholes", Inpress Magazine.
Hard driven, low tuned sixties garage rock, full of fuzz and a little surf guitar, isn't exactly the most fashionable sound to instill when venturing the local live circuit in Melbourne.  But it leaves The Martians a distinct standout, and with that against the grain notion, they proudly present themselves as We Three Assholes, the title to their new EP.
"We've had such an inconsistent live sound, that when people heard our CD the said 'this isn't how you're meant to sound', but actually it is how we're meant to sound, this is how we want to sound. If we could get the perfect live sound it would be like that," bass player David Archdall states confidently regarding the five recorded tracks. "We used to have trouble (playing live) because each week I'd bring a different gadget or bass setup. I'd find a pedal and think 'I'd better try this on the weekend'. We're never going to play CD songs note for note when we do them live anyway."
    The name of the band, The Martians, is that just to tag your music as being foreign to everyone else's?
"Yeah exactly, it's so stupid and dumb and wacky. It's not grunge sounding or whatever. That is our way of saying that we're not like other people and we're going to do it our way. I mean it's a stupid band name that is really a cliche in itself."
    How does a band as idiosyncratic as this come together in the first place?
"We've been together for about two years. Roman (Tucker) the guitarist and I just met through a mutual friend years ago with the intention of getting a band together. So there's none of that childhood days romantisicing to crap talk about. We realised that we could hang out together and we look at life in similar ways and view situations the same way quite often. Musically we had heaps in common as well. The drummer...I've known him for years. He's a mad guy who has a tendency to get naked a lot but it suits us, we go off ourselves."
    Lately The Martians have scored some impressive support slots with overseas acts such as The Supersuckers, Dead Moon and Wayne Kramer, the latter surely something of a mentor for The Martians?
"Aaahhh... yeah I'm a huge MC5 fan, but I thought Wayne Kramer lacked a lot of danger in the sense of edge that MC5 had. Dead Moon were amazing though, and they watched every band they played with, including The Martians, and that was touching."
    With such a rich deep rock sound that is very much of yesterday's technology and contemporary music focus, would it not be appropriate to release something on vinyl?
"Yes, we want to. All we've got in the band is complete vinyl junkies. We're big fans of rock'n'roll right through from the fifties to now, even though it's degenerated and is changing. The seven inch vinyl format or whatever was really the ultimate rock'n'roll format, but at the moment we're just so fuckin' poor, and the guys putting out our record won't do it for us, so we just have to wait and do it ourselves. We'll probably do that with the next record."

Peters, Glenn, 1998, "The Martians - Mars needs guitars", Inpress Magazine.
A few songs on the Martians album Dislocate My Hip were recorded with the band nude. Go out and buy it if you want to work out which ones are nude because drummer Daniel Dempster was not about to give it away during this interview with Glenn Peters. Anyway, they launch the album this weekend with friends Lazy and The Powdermonkeys. It should be a good night.
    Getting good feedback from the album?
"It's getting a fair bit of airplay on PBS and RRR. It's good that people are getting behind it  and supporting it. It's mostly good feedback. I mean we are not being rock stars, selling a million copies or anything like that. It's our music, the music we love. We realise we are never going to be rock stars or make any money or anything. We are just going to have fun."
    Hey that's a refreshing attitude. A lot of local bands at the moment want the world fame and plenty of cash...
"I think we all realise that we are not going to make money out of it. We all do other things as well so it's not like we are trying to make a living out of it. It's great fun playing live. I couldn't describe anything as good."
    The Martians' sound is uncomprimising, aggressive when necessary...
"Definitely. We are all into being aggressive and punk rock. Obviously we are not going to comprimise our music for anything trendy, going pop or rap. It's the same thing we have been doing for a long time and we are going to keep doing it."
    Tell us about other Martians projects...
"Roman's in a band called Spudgun. That's more poppy stuff. He was in this thing last year called The International Jetset. It was like an airport soundtrack. It was very interesting. Dave plays in the Slaves of the Avaricious, an art rock kind of band and Dave and I play in the Creeps which is a joke country and western band. I have a new band playing at the Tote on Saturdays with dub who used to be in Root Beer, playing acoustic Hank Williams sort of stuff. The Martians is the main thing but it's good to be able to do other things. It keeps it interesting."
    What year was music at it's best?
"It's hard to say. I guess there is the 60s stuff like garage rock. I love that but I like to live in the present. Obviously you have influences but it is the 90s now. We just want to do stuff now, not trying to rehash something that was done thirty years ago.  As a 22-year-old Anglo-Australian male I don't really know much abou it."
    The reason I asked such a contrived question was that watching you guys play brings me back to 1990-92 when local music was pretty bloody hard and it had a big following...
"That's definitely true. It's pretty hard to be a rock'n'roll band in '98 and get a big following and make a bit of money. It's not hip anymore. If you love it and live for it you keep doing it. As I said, we are not Albini rock or a hip hop band or anything like that, It all comes in cycles. It will be hip again one day."
    There seems to be a small genuine rock movement around at the moment...
"Yeah, definitely. We are into it for feeling and soul but we are not stuck. We play with bands like Lazy who are definitely not rock'n'roll and we play a lot with S-Bahn. I enjoy playing with those bands as much as I enjoy playing with The Powdermonkeys and Hoss. I guess we are not straight down the line rock'n'roll. We are a bit noisy and do arty stuff every now and then. We just have fun. Fashions come and go."
    Yeah, like the song on the new album, Whiteline, it starts all noisy, arty and synthy which is cool and then the guitar line comes in...
"Yes. It makes it a bit different. Dave's got a Moog. We have been using it for a long time. We went through a stage where we just used the Moog and keyboard live. Then we decided to go rock again. We do another band called The Martians Big Band where we have ten people on stage playing different instruments. The electronic music is very popular today, not that there is anything wrong with that. I love some of it myself. You have to be open minded."
    Hectic recording the new LP?
"It was done over a long weekend. We did everything live. Obviously there were a couple or overdubs done later but it was very hectic. It was fun. A couple of songs were fuckers, we couldn't get them down. There was a lot of pizza eaten and we recorded a few songs nude. You have to do little things to keep happy."

Shorland, Holly, 1998, "The Martians", Beat Magazine.
The Martians are the dark and light sides of rock combined. They're nasty little fuckers and they're angsty young men lost in the wilderness. They poke fun at rock cliches and they're a full on rock band. They're really fucked up but they know exactly what they're doing. Maybe they're just like everyone else trying to find a way or reason to function on this planet. Who knows?     Who cares? It's doubtful whether the Martians would.
    The Martians were originally known as The Silver Surfers but changed their name when former drummer Scott Hartley left the band and was replaced by Daniel Dempster. They remain a three-piece with original members Roman Tucker (vocals, guitars) and David Archdall (vocals, bass) making up the members. Their early Silver Surfer sound described by Tucker as "space rock extravaganza - really over the top, big long-winded sounds" has changed considerably through having played together for years, although the emphasis is still on the chaotic and the wild. With Dempster on board, The Martians are, as Tucker says, "more compact, Dempster follows the guitar. He's a really riffy drummer, so it becomes really minimal and a lot more trashy. We've got a lot more into garage trash stuff and noish stuff."
    Known for throwing themselves around, doing  the swaggering, staggering rockstar thing and the nihilistic and  angry young men thing, The Martians clearly enjoy being musical brats. But they're not deluded about their status in society, they're just doing in it for laughs. Or so they say, "We're not serious about this at all," says Tucker of the glorified punk thrash rock the Martians like to indulge in, "People who take us seriously, like, 'Why do they sound like this?', or 'Why are they going off on that horrible tangent?' when we were doing some of the weirder stuff -  well that's just silly because we're not taking ourselves seriously, we're having a ball." But given that the Martians have a very clearly identifiable aprroach to rock'n'roll and it should be and what it sounds like, they coulkd probably write a text book on how to be complete rock pigs and still come away looking like intelligent human  beings. Tucker says, "we all agree on a lot of ideals in terms of where we are coming from. We're really all interested in chaotic, wild, crazy, energetic music. It has to have a sense of - there's a definite sense of darkness - but we also totally ham ourselves up."
    The pleasures that come from being bad and mad and fucking the consequences are pretty obvious to anyone who has experienced them first hand and the Martians seem to really want to exploit every angle of the rock monster available to them, be it abuse of other people, abuse of their distortion pedals or abuse of themselves. Tucker says, almost modestly as though he doesn't want to sound like he's bragging, "We get drunk a lot. There's a bit of a drinking culture with The Martians. We certainly binge drink."
    It might appear that these guys just revel in everything hard and fast. Asked about whether or not he enjoys being disaffected, Tucker says, "I don't think we're disaffected... Talking philosophically, in the sense of what we're trying to portray, we're a bit anti-world, for sure, we enjoy we enjoy that. That to me is what punk is all about - it's not what you play, it's attitude, a sense of 'not all is well', but we don't write politically. It's sort of tongue in cheek cross semi-realism in there. Certainly we sing about experiences, what we do and things that happen... and I guess life isn't that great always. Obviously it seems like it's just rock'n'roll cliches, you know, like 'Jump in the car, I've got a chick, hanging out in the street, taking drugs all that' but I don't think we write that obviously. I think there's snippets that we like to poke in there, that does seem a little bit sarcastic or darker."
    Certainly with a song like I Love you, Love (from their debut album Dislocate My Hip) where one nasty and really quite desperate and bleak line is repeated and repeated while the music builds to nowhere and just dies - that's surely a really fucked-up song on every level, and it's one that The Martians seem to be especially proud of. It's a thing of beauty to make a song so nasty that is so completely compelling. It's like being fascinated by what goes on inside the mind of a serial killer, when you don't really want to know because it can't be good, but you need to know and you cannot stop until you find out. The Martians music is often like that. The Martians get of on putting on a show and getting a reaction. Tucker says, "When we play, it's a real performance thing... You go along and get blown away by a really wild show... The three of us produce this sound and we don't give a fuck - that's what comes out of our 'thing'...
"I grew up wanting to see bands because I wanted to check out the rock action onstage - I wanted to see things happen, that's why I was interested punk rock'n'roll, there was always something wild happening or chaotic. There was a sense of excitement when you'd go the a show. And The Martians, for me, really try hard to recreate that energy."

Tauschke, Steve, 1996, "The Martians - We Three Assholes", Beat Magazine.
Local trio, formerly Silver Surfers, follows its nose for a cracking debut EP that comes clean without the studio varnish. Occasional manipulation ("Floating... " ) but no gloss and certainly no faux pas indulgences. Ramones and King Crimson don't quite paint a true picture but as reference points they convey part of the Martians axiom - to let it all hang out with zero care factor. Just call me rock'n'roll, indeed!

Tauschke, Steve, 1996, "The Martians", Beat Magazine.
Courtesy the Dr Jim's label, "We Three Assholes" marks the debut EP by local crew The Martians. Frontman Roman chats with Steve Tauschke
Beat: You changed the band's name from The Silver Surfers. Was that because of threats from the comic people?
Roman: "Well, we hadn't even released anything (as Silver Surfers), we'd just been playing local GB gigs. I think our biggest gig at that stage was with the Cramps at the Palace. And if (it?) was just something that we were going to pursue - and we wanted to record and get our stuff (out?) overseas - then we might cop a bit of shit for it. But at that stage it wasn't a worry, we hadn't been contacted or anything. Musically we felt we'd changed since the beginning. We changed drummers which changed the sound dramatically."

Beat: I remember you playing as the Silver Surfers from those GB days. Have most of this EP's songs been kicking around since that period?
Roman: "Yeah, it's still the Silver Surfers lineup on this recording because the recording is about a year old now. Just as our old drummer was leaving we did it so basically they're all old songs."

Beat: Who's into the moog and theramin?
Roman: "We all love those weird instruments and when we started recording with Simon (Grounds) we discovered that he actually had a moog and he had a theramin, a whole display of all sorts of cool instruments so we just thought we'd incorporate it into our music."

Beat: Those instruments can really invigorate that basic rock n roll format.
Roman: "We've got that basic rock'n'roll thing and that's what we perceive ourselves as - a rock'n'roll band. But we also want to convey, and this comes across in our live shows cos we're full of cabaret-style antics and try to dress ourselves up to look stupidly sleazy and suave. When we recorded we wanted to get that weirdo, crazed sort of feeling across that we can get live and we thought that we put so much effort into our actual playing that we thought we'd do the basic rock'n'roll tracks live and then experiment with instruments in the studio."
 
Beat: The name "We Three Assholes" is a take-off from another band right?
Roman: "The Devil Dogs did something very similar. There's a Spinal Tap kind of idea I suppose."

Beat: You seem to be really thumb-nosing the whole rock concept with tracks like "Just call me Rock'n'Roll"?
Roman: "We really do like to play with, we like to make fun and play jokes on the whole concept of rock'n'roll and what it means to be a star and all that sort of stuff. Basically what we're doing is getting out there and doing things we wish we could do in real life but can't. So we go out and act like maniacs on stage."

Beat: Where did you find the S&M photos?
Roman: "We wanted to go for a sleazy, fucked-up punk kind of imagery that we all sort of love and Dave got into doing some of the artwork and we wanted to incorporate a kitsch, a stupid sort of look and that's what we came up with. The pictures are taken from "Popular Mechanic" magazine, the S&M photos are from a 70s porno and the cover is from a 50s calender."

Beat: Do you have any new tracks on the boil?
Roman: "Well, we've just signed up with Dr Jim's and he said we should record another record. This year we've been working on a whole heap of new material and we're moving really fast. We want to get a full length record out by the end of year... I think we're Dr Jim's most rock'n'roll band. He puts out a lot of crazy, noisy, atonal bizarre sort of stuff which I really like as well. Dr Jim's is not the kind of person who follows any sort of trend but if it works for him he goes for it 'cos he's kind of passionate."

Tom, 1996, "The Martians", Form Guide.
"Spazzed out space junk pushed through a rock'n'roll incineration device", is probably the closest thing that comes to my mind when wanting to describe local three piece, The Martians. That's why I caught up with Roman (guitar, vox) and Dave (bass, vox), for a more comprehensive description, and the shit on their forthcoming EP ("We Three Assholes") on Dr Jim's Records.
You used to be the Silver Surfers, what happened to that?
Dave: It must be the most often asked question I get. The name itself, came from a Marvel super hero, and there's been a history of bands who have had to change their name because of that like the Uncanny X-Men, and a British pop band called Captain America; so we knew we would eventually have to change it.
There's still that underlying space theme going through your work, with the change to The Martians.
Dave: "Yeah, well we wanted to keep that stupid over the top attitude, which comes from Hawkwind, and just things we listen to... and it is noisy music, so we wanted to keep that theme in there. The Martians is a wacky name, cause it is so over the top it's got this crazy mentality behind it!"
Roman: "Yeah, and it had to carry on from the Silver Surfer's idea. The Martians is still a space thing, we just thought it was funny, ya know, The Martians."
And you've got an EP out soon?
Dave: "Yes, it's been produced by Simon Grounds who I've been a fan of for a while, the stuff he has done, I saw him with The Puritans years ago, he got up and used these crazy instruments, and I thought, fuck this guy's really interesting, so we got to meet him, and invited him to one of our shows and things just went from there."
Roman: "And he actually performed on it, so it's as much a creation of his as it is ours, the whole mentality of this recording, was to build something out of nothing."
So are you happy with what you have come up with?
Roman: "Definitely, we went for a certain sound and used a lot of old valve stuff, the mikes we used for instance were all sorta pre-Elvis dated ones."
Dave: "My approach to the studio was to have a real live feel, so we recorded the initial tracks live, but I also wanted to treat the studio as a different outlet, to our live show, so I think we managed to do what we set out to achieve.
Live, you guys come across as a punked up version of The Cramps, what do you think?
Dave: "I don't really agree with that, there's other elements in there as well..."
... I was thinking more that sleazy cabaret style, they do so well...  of
Dave: "Yeah, that's there for sure. It's not your typical punk show - there's that 'kitchness in there and it's also about energy and letting off what I can't let off walking down the street cause I don't fancy 'Larundle' or something like that."

Watt, Jarrod, 1997, "The Martians - Martians attack!!"
After a period of absence the Martians return once more to disintegrate crows and march towards their domination of the planet with dirty filthy rock'n'roll. Jarrod Watt spoke to drummer Dempster about their return to the planet.
    The Martians are currently amassing... while masquerading as a dairy manager in a supermarket ('an indie supermarket, but nothin' corporate) Dempster is plotting his band's return after their extended summer holiday following some hot shows last year.
"It was good to have a break... it's exciting again. At the end of last year it got to be going through the motions a bit, y'know, so it's good to be back writing again, and playing new stuff.
"We're still writing at the moment, and basically we'll play a few shows.. we've got a Sydney tour in April, and then basically we'll come home and start recording, and hopefully we'll have something new out in three months' time... "
"This year we're gonna work a  lot. We're gonna write heaps of new material. Last year we were getting a bit slack - we were playing a lot, and not rehearsing, and getting a bit sloppy about it. We wanna try new stuff, more keyboards - Roman's just bought a new organ... experimenting a bit, basically just making it (as?)weird as we can, I guess."
    This need for weird has been expressed previously in the Martians' use of that fabulous little noise-maker the Theramin, a radio-noise device in which the player moves their hands in and out of the radio field emanating from the unit's antenna to generate toens and squeals of noise. The player ends up looking like a voodoo priest, casting hands and fingers wildly about in a desperate attempt to make it look like they know what they're doing.
"We don't kind of use it much anymore; when we recorded the last one (We Three Assholes) we got Simon Grounds, who's got a Theramin, and he can play it and we did a show where we got him up to play. I like it just 'cos it's weird, crazy fuckin' sound. Hopefully Simon will do something on the next record... Just maybe we don't want to be associated with the Jon Spencer thing... obviously we love him, but we don't copy him - we've copied that before..."
    Obviously the Martians have been associating themselves too closely with the arbiters of grunge who think rock started with Sonic Youth - the Theramin got its big TV debut on Led Zeppelin's the Song Remains the Same, and a quite solid workout with Fishbone's Angelo Moore when they toured here last here, nevermind some guy who bites his act from Elvis, and anyway, the Martians pay a greater tribute to one of the rock greats in their show - the one, the only, G.G. Allin.
"Well, you know, G.G. is a legend... some people like it, and others... " Dempster's tone gets a little uncertain here. But how far does the tribute go? Are people invited on stage to take a crap?
"Not as yet... I like Deano the naked drummer . The guy's a freak, and I like his nakedness. You can't beat him for fruitcakes, and G.G., well, he died the rock star death, didn't he? He should've taken himself out. We've had a few fruits get up and start singing it, and they're more than welcome. A couple of times when we've played there's some fuckin' fruitcake down the front who'll know it and love it, and sing all the words. But people should look into Deano the naked drummer, he's the forgotten star,  I reckon."
    When the Martians play this weekend please demand Dempster get his gear off and eat human faeces in an effort to please those sticklers for detail in rock'n'roll continuity. It'll be fun!