Rocca, Jane, 1999, 'The Sexbombs - The Sexbombs', Melbourne City Search - Sounding off, May 13, http://melbourne.citysearch.com.au/E/F/MELBO/0000/06/51/5.html, downloaded 25/5/99
The Sexbombs take the clattering sounds of punk rock and combine this with the bass-thick heaviness of a rockabilly ethic. The enthusiastic jostle of the opening track, Baby Don't Blame Me I Was Drunk, utilises drunken guitar hooks with powerful drum kicks.
It is here that the Melbourne band's rage is at times reminiscent of Jon Spencer's Blues Explosion. The Sexbombs's B-grade schlock appeal is sometimes brittle, but always in-your-face. They redefine grating '70s garage rock with an urban Australian sensibility.
The Reverend's Dirty Shame shuffles to the same garage sound. This song combines raw guitar chords with a husky vocal charm. I Wanna is fuelled by a shameless punk chant. It's fast, it's loud and instantly sexy.
Shifting between dirty rock'n'roll playing and gravel-tinged vocal explorations, The Sexbombs are an explosive local act who should not be overlooked. Whether it's their twisted rock'n'roll rumble or their manic punk style, this is definitely worth checking out.
www.oocities.org/SunsetStrip/Mezzanine/8704/ Web master, 1999, 'The Sex Bombs - Interview', Australian independent music site that Leaping Larry L should see, recorded 29th, June 1999,
The following interview was recorded with all of the members of the band, The Sex Bombs. This is a transcript of the interview conducted on 29th June, 1999 and was conduceted at the Shanty Town recording/rehearsal studios, in inner city, Melbourne. Three days after today, they were to support Guitar Wolf from Japan, in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. For those who seek the full interview, I guess you'll have to hassle the Interviewer for a (laugh a minute) tape at slagain@hotmail.com
Interviewer: Okay. The band members are Adam, Karl, Finn and Ben, but on the CD (to be released) you have different names?
Finn: We should just start the interview with those names.
Adam: "Yeah, no, that's just our names. We're the Sex Bombs. We're not just Adam, Karl, Finn, Ben from the Sex Bombs. We adopt alternate personalities you see."
Karl: "... We need scapegoats."
Interviewer: Those (personalities) are?
Adam: "I'm 'The Reverend Dirty Shame'."
Karl: "'KP Express'."
Finn: "'Ace D'."
Ben: "the 'Fingers of Fury'."
Interviewer: 'The Fingers of Fury' there you go.
Interviewer: Just going to the name, of course you haven't changed it yet, so it's still The Sex Bombs, it comes from a Flipper song. You listen to much of them?
Adam: "No, not really. We were just looking for a name, thought 'the Sex Bombs' sounded like a good sort of 60s garagey sort of name."
Interviewer: How did you guys get together then?
Adam: "Karl and I met first."
Interviewer: How was that? How did you both meet?
Adam: "Ahh. We met at work actually. We worked in this auction room as storemen.
nsbp;nsbp;nsbp;nsbp; He said do you wanna start a band. I said yes, but I'll have to be the singer, 'cause I can't play any musical instruments. So we said OK, we're there."
Ben: "So those two started with another drummer and a 'funk' bass player."
Karl: "No, no, Brett was the first bass player. "
Ben: "Oh yeah."
Karl: "Brett was a flat mate of mine, who played guitar."
Finn: " ...and they were called the Sexy Babes.."
Karl: " ...and we organised a gig for 250 bucks, but we didn't have a bass player. So, we taught Brett the songs in a couple of days. But then Brett didn't keep playing. Sleazy prick(?)."
Finn: "No he wasn't that ready, just..."
Adam: "We got a drummer that thought he was John Bonham. Cymbals and shit kept growing around him like a big disease, until we kicked him out."
All: Laugh
Interviewer: But you're happy with Finn's little kit?
Adam: "Yeah that's perfect."
Finn: "One little cymbal. No bull."
Interviewer: So obviously you two (Adam and Karl) were friends first and...
Ben: "I actually came into the picture because, my current girlfriend is Karl's ex-girlfriend of four years."
Interviewer: Karl's ex-girlfriend of four years, there you go.
Ben: "and that's how we came together."
Interviewer: The ex-girlfriend. Yeah, that makes sense. Let's get this guy...
Karl: "Ben came along to all our gigs and didn't know how to play bass either. Had to teach him to. "
Finn: "Adam, Karl's the pretty boy.(?)"
Interviewer: Was this back in Wornambool was it, or?
The Sex Bombs: "No, no, no."
Karl: "All up here in Melbourne."
Ben: "When was it? Couple of.. "
Karl: "be about a year and a half ago. It was like about December. "
Finn/Adam: "December 12th we played our first gig."
Karl: "Yeah, of what year was it.. '90?"
Adam: "Not last December, but the year before that."
Karl: "'98?... Yeah."
Finn: "and we together for 2 weeks before that."
Karl: "Yeah, and then we just jammed all over the summer at your (Finn's) place."
Interviewer: So, obviously through being in the band you've become good friends, but you asked me (the interviewer) to play keyboards, any plans...?
Karl: "Only back in the initial, probably in the Sex Bomb days."
Adam: "Yeah, 'cause we changed from Sex Bomb to the Sex Bombs when we got these two (Finn and Ben). It was a big change."
Interviewer: Yeah, well it was big change, now you're playing shows.
Karl: "Yeah, I was thinking keyboards might be a good idea..."
Finn: "... but we beat that idea out of him (Karl)."
Karl: "Yeah, the direction we were heading, way back then was heaps different... "
Adam: "Yeah, it probably was different. We used to get paid more before these two c**ts joined."
All: Laugh
Interviewer: Aside from asking me to play keyboards, did you have any plans to get other people into the band?
Adam: "Yeah we did, we jammed with a fair few people."
Karl: "Yeah."
Adam: "But it just never worked out. I think four is confusing enough."
Karl: "Yeah exactly."
Ben: "We talked about another guitarist but, I don't think we need one."
Karl: "No."
Finn: "..KP's too proficient."
following this Ben and the rest of the Sex Bombs, then talk about something else, namely jamming with a buddy of theirs...
Interviewer: So, before the four of you got together, you must have listened to a whole lot of music. What made you listen a lot of music? As more than just a passing thing?
Ben: "Yeah. We listen to different music."
Adam: "Yeah. Absolutely."
Ben: "Like I seem to be more... punk. As in like New Bomb Turks and all that..."
Finn: "More classical, yeah."
Interviewer: More Bach, nothing wrong with that.
Ben?/Finn?: "Cramps and stuff."
Finn: "Yeah."
Adam: "Yeah, Finn is more rockabilly sort of..."
Ben: "Adam is more Beasts of Bourbon, country."
Adam: "Country yeah, I like country."
Ben: "Elvis."
Adam: "Elvis. Love Elvis."
Ben: "But we like it. Karl's different... "
Karl: "Just all sorts of sh*t. 'Blues Explosion (JSBX) and... I don't know..."
Adam: "Actually, I think what cemented it was when Karl and I saw the Blues Explosion."
Karl: "Yeah, a couple of years ago."
Adam: "We thought, we got to be like that(!). 'Cause they were pretty wild. "
Karl: "Yeah. Then the Beasts of Bourbon followed."
Adam: "...and then the Beasts of Bourbon were on after that."
Finn: "Then Fred Negro inspired you a bit."
Adam: "Yeah he did too. That was earlier in the day. That sexual cantaloupe."
Karl: "Yeah at the start where he was pissing... "
Interviewer: I remember going to that Big Day Out.
Adam: "Did you see that?"
Interviewer: The cantaloupe?
Adam: "Yeah."
Interviewer: Yeah.
Karl: "Yeah. Fred Negro, that was so funny.
Adam: "That was brilliant. What a start to the day."
Karl: "With the baked beans..."
Adam: "'This cantaloupe is making me thirsty'.
All: laugh
Interviewer: I think the week after that Big Day Out, Fred Negro in his 'Pub Strip' (in Inpress magazine) the cantaloupe and (other) things; he claimed that young girls approached him for autographs.
Interviewer: (to Carl, Ben, Finn) What made you to decide to play your instruments and learn them?
Karl: "I don't know..."
Ben: "You'd (Karl) been playing for ages..."
Karl: "I'd been playing guitar since 14."
Adam: "Karl's a guitar egghead he knows how to play "Sweet Home Alabama" ."
Adam, Finn: laugh
Karl: "Do not! Well, just a bit of it."
Ben: "I started because they needed a bass player."
Karl: "Yeah."
Finn: "So you'd never played an instrument before."
Interviewer: What about you Finn? Had you played drums for long or?
Finn: "I had guitar and drums (lessons?) but my guitar got stolen, so... I stayed with drums."
Karl: "Ah. He was too lazy to learn an instrument."
Adam: "I guess it shows."
Interviewer: But have you thought of learning anything?
Finn: "No. (to Adam) There was talk of tambourine."
Adam: "Too hard."
Karl: "...and Harmonica."
Adam: "Far too hard."
Karl: "Yeah. Just talk."
Interviewer: So what made you think, lets be in a band?
Adam: "Ah. I don't know. It started off as a bit of a rash decision. Then I somehow talked our way into this gig when we didn't have a band. So... "
Karl: "It was 250 bucks."
Adam: "Yeah it was 250 bucks."
Interviewer: I think that's the second band in Melbourne I heard they, got a gig first, then they formed the band later on after that. The other one being Uncle Bill, the Bluegrass band that plays in Carlton."
Adam: "Ah yeah. They're good. I've seen them before."
Interviewer: Yeah.
Interviewer: Have any of you guys or some of you guys been in other bands or doing other stuff at the moment? Or?
Sex Bombs: laugh
Ben: "Finn's the only one, who's been in another band."
Interviewer: Finn you want to talk about it.
Finn: "No."
Sex Bombs: laugh
Karl: "We heard their demo."
Finn: "It was a long, long time ago in a world far, far away."
Karl: "Yeah. They were pretty pox... let us not speak of them again."
Adam: "Yeah, they went onto to become Custard."
All: laugh
Interviewer: As a whole band, the Sex Bombs what bands influences the band?
Ben: "When I first started... I said... Ah, it was just stupid goals at the start, when we weren't thinking anything. Karl said your goal was play with the (Jon Spencer) Blues Explosion
Karl: "Yeah. "
Ben: " ...and I mine was to play with the New Bomb Turks. So I'm happy with the... "
Karl: "Ben was going to quit the band after that... (laughs)"
Ben: "Yeah. That's what I said, I'll quit when I play with the New Bomb Turks."
Interviewer: Anything else other than Mr Spencer and the New Bomb Turks?
Karl: "Ah. Just sick of seeing pox bands as well. Like we thought were ordinary bands. Like all those pop bands..."
Adam: "Yeah. Karl and I would go and see bands in Melbourne. Just sort of when we were starting. Just the two of us. They were very uninspiring, especially on stage and their music was really insipid. And we thought we have to change that."
Karl: "There's only really the Martians that we really sort of liked."
Adam: "We really got into the Martians. "
Karl: "As well as Intoxica."
Adam: "Yeah. "
Interviewer: I saw their last show the Martians and...
Karl: "Didn't Dempster get in the nude?"
Interviewer: "Yeah."
Adam: "... collapsed on his drum kit. I was at that too. That was fuckin' funny that."
Finn: " ...Dave wore a g-string."
Interviewer: Don't know if you hung around for the end of the night but John (guitarist) from the Onyas lit his dacks on fire."
Adam: "Lit his dacks on fire?!"
Interviewer: Yeah, he just set the cigarette lighter and lit them up.
Karl: "I saw him try to do that at.., the New Bomb Turks. Yeah. He tried to do it at the Tote. His jocks were too sweaty and they wouldn't light! (laughs)"
Adam: "Was that when he showed his cock to everyone?"
Karl: "Yeah."
Adam: " ...The lack of dignity. But really once we got together I think it was full of the garage bands, because we could copy their sounds quite easily. Like the Stooges, you know, that kind of thing. Just the ethos of that... "
Karl: "Stooges, Cramps."
Ben: ".. and Sonics."
Karl: "We listen to a fair bit of Reverend Horton Heat. "
Finn: "Yeah. Listen to that."
Interviewer: So what from seeing bands in town, most of which didn't excite you were there any bands, which made you think, Yeah, I got to play in a band and do the best we can?
Karl: "Only the Martians."
Adam: "Only the Martians we related to."
Karl: "The Beasts of Bourbon too..."
Adam: "Yeah, the Beasts of Bourbon too, but they sort of big and.. "
Karl: "and old."
Adam: "Yeah. Old. They were gone by that stage."
Interviewer: Fat and Ugly.
Karl: "Any bands impressed you Ben?"
Ben: "No."
Finn: "When I spoke to these dudes, like they said, let's get up there and play, because there weren't any bands out there having fun. So I thought yeah, might as well."
Adam: " ...I really liked the Exotics and Intoxica. I always thought Tony was a brilliant singer, but now that I'm better than him..."
All: laugh
Interviewer: What do you see yourselves doing in the future? Obviously you're supporting (the band) Guitar Wolf soon.
Ben: "Get overseas and get vinyl out."
Sex Bombs: "Yeah."
Finn: "Smoking bongs and getting pissed."
Ben: "Yes."
Interviewer: So obviously you've recorded your first CD, but do you have any plans to do any more of that?
Ben: "Vinyl."
Karl: "Yeah. We want to do a seven inch."
Ben: "Well. Once we get this out of the way (CD) and get some money to do recording. We've pretty much got the go ahead from International Trash to do a seven inch."
Adam: "... but it has to be recorded on analogue."
Ben: "That's alright.."
Karl: "That's cool. Yeah."
Ben: "We want to do it live, not track by track.."
Karl: "Yeah."
Ben: "... maybe few vocal overdubs..."
Interviewer: So do you have any idea of what exactly the band wants to do and can the band do that?
Ben: "Yeah, we can do it."
Karl: "Yeah."
Karl: "Conquer the world."
Interviewer: Conquer the world. That's what the band wants to do?
Ben: "Well, my main goal is, to actually, get overseas. That'd be awesome."
Karl: "Yeah. Going overseas and playing would be cool fun. "
Ben: "Yeah. Actually have people there that would show up..."
Finn: "Yeah, play to bigger crowds. "
Adam: "That's my main goal."
Finn: "... Melbourne crowds are slack."
Karl: "Yeah, they are."
Ben: "... and then write songs about being 'pretty fly for white guys.'"
Interviewer: laughs
Karl: "You should've seen it the other day, Offspring had some TV special on and it was BMX jumping. They were like jumping cars with BMXs."
Ben: "That was probably some video..."
Karl: "It was a MTV thing or it was on a Channel Ten. They had the Offspring in between. But the BMX stuff was cool. One guy was trying to hammer cars. I think the record was five cars and they were going for six. Over the ramps..."
Interviewer: On what Bikes?
Karl: "On BMXs. One guy was just peddling and going up the ramps and jumping them. Another guy was getting towed by a motorbike and would then let go. He, did it no worries every time and was just cruising over, but the other guy ate it, about three times."
Adam: "What? Into the ramp."
Karl: "Yeah, as he was coming down."
Adam: "Ohh."
Karl: "He f..... lost it."
Interviewer: laughs
Adam: "Have you seen that one of Evil Knievel at Wembley Stadium, on those big suspended ramps, when he was jumping those buses?"
Karl: "No."
Adam: "He made it, but then he just bought it savagely... "
Karl: laughs
Adam: ".. like he couldn't control it when he got down. F..... hell! What a maniac!"
Karl: "Did you see his son, jump the Grand Canyon over there? Robbie?"
Adam: "Oh yes! (laughs)"
Karl: "Robbie Knievel."
Finn: "Yeah. Robbie..."
Interviewer: So what do you see as the highpoints for the band? Aside from the first gig!
Ben: "Definitely New Bomb Turks."
Karl: "I reckon the gig at the Corner (Hotel), was pretty good. The Battle of the Bands."
Ben: "Yeah, that was fun."
Adam: "Yeah, that was good 'cause we played to shitloads of people."
Karl: " ... and we were f...... pissed."
Finn: "... yeah, and plastered... "
Karl: "Yeah. I remember all these beers on stage and these dudes from PBS (Melbourne community radio station) were just looking at us like, 'look at all those beers'. All the other guys were drinking water, in the other bands."
Adam: "We were already pissed when we got up there and we had jugs everywhere. We're going 'what...' We are professional.."
Interviewer: See, piss does help. Piss does help!
Adam: "Oh, we didn't play very well. We had fun. We got drunk."
Ben: "and we won the crowd."
Interviewer: How did you go in that by the way?
Karl: "We got to the State Finals, that was it."
Interviewer: Where did you end up in the State Finals?
Karl: "Ah, don't know."
Interviewer: Don't know, don't care...
Adam: "Didn't win it."
Sex Bombs: laugh
Finn: " ...Got pissed..."
Interviewer: That was the victory that night.
Interviewer: What did you think was going to happen (to Adam and Karl) before Finn and Ben joined?
Adam: "Really I just wanted to get a song on, RRR or PBS (Melbourne community radio stations)."
Karl: "Yeah."
Karl: "Didn't really have many ideas..."
Adam: "So, I've already far exceeded my expectations... "
Ben: "They didn't have high expectations.."
Finn: "We're going to have to set new goals, I think."
Ben: "Yeah."
Adam: "What? Get a song on MMM?"
Interviewer: No, Triple J!
Karl: "I'm thinking FOX!"
Ben: "We've already done that.(laughs) Triple J. (laughs)"
Finn: "What?"
Karl: "3 am."
Ben: "3 am in the morning, we we're on."
Adam: "Really?"
Ben: "Yeah, mothballs."
Adam: "Oh that's right. Ah Yeah, see we've already done it."
Karl: "We've been on Channel 31 (Melbourne community TV station), we're TV stars!"
Interviewer: On tele? Where was this?
Karl: "Channel 31."
Ben: "We were house band on 'the Loft', a TV show."
Interviewer: When was this?
Karl: "about six months ago, it was a while ago.."
Ben: "We were good."
Finn: "No, it was alright..."
Karl: "One of the other great gigs was the gig in the Cellar. Downstair s at The Cellar in Warnambool.
Adam: "Yeah, at Warnambool. That was good."
Karl: "... it was just a small place and everyone's was pissed and like by the end of the last song, everyone was on stage jumping around, it was crazy."
Ben: "Dan's got photo's from that, still haven't seen 'em..."
Interviewer: So as much as you'd like to go on forever, you won't be...
Adam: "We're immortal."
Karl: "We'll get micro chips put into us."
Interviewer: when you guys leave the band or give it up, what would you after this?
Karl: "We're planning like a big kamikaze plane crash... "
Finn: "While we're playing..."
Ben: "Oh god, it's way too early to even think about that."
Adam: "I'm gonna jump out in a parachute in my white Elvis suit over Las Vegas."
Karl: "and then get in a car and crash James Dean style..?! "
Finn/Karl: (laughs)
Adam: "No, no, and then go to the Showroom."
Ben: "Yeah, Adam will go solo."
Finn: "He'll do cabaret sets in Las Vegas."
Ben: "I'm gonna start a 'funk' band."
Interviewer: Aside from playing in the band or working, what do you guys do to pass time?
Finn: "I do the Wicked Horse Breakers."
Ben: "What?"
Finn: "A Break Dancing Troupe."
Ben: Laughs
Ben: "Well, I just work, go home and play Nintendo... "
Interviewer: Laughs
Ben: "I haven't got much on at the moment, really... "
Adam: "I live in the country and... "
Ben: " ...play golf."
Adam: "shoot things and... drink at the pub. Just the usual things. Live a simple life."
Interviewer: What do you guys to kick back and...
Karl: "Just listen to music and play guitar."
Ben: "Watch tele."
Adam: "I do a lot of Marijiana actually."
Karl: "Yeah."
Ben: "Play with toys."
Adam: "You didn't expect to get some sense out of this did you?"
Interviewer: No, certainly not.
Interviewer: There was a friend of mine, up in Sydney who saw you through the TISM video. Want to talk about that?
Adam: "Forgot that."
Ben: "Yeah that was a highlight."
Adam: "Yeah that was good actually."
Karl: "After the Battle of the Bands, a few of the bands from that got asked to be in the video clip. We were one of the bands asked."
Adam: "We were down at the Docklands, we got our own little space, car parking space, we get to setup in..."
Karl: "Everyone was pissing in the... at 10:00 in the morning."
Adam: "Everytime they had a shot (of us) they had to come and make us hide all the tinnies."
Karl: "Everyone was pissed."
Interviewer: So did you actually meet the TISM guys without the masks on?
Adam: "Yeah, we saw them without the masks on."
Ben: "It was awesome, just 'cause they were so many bands."
Finn: "They were about thirty bands, I think."
Ben: "Like, at one stage they were going..."
Finn: "They were all doing the drum solos."
"Like, they were all going, the whole row of thirty drummers. Thirty drums. Which was just going... So it sounded awesome."
Finn: "That was my highlight actually."
Ben: "That was cool. Bloodduster was there. Ah, no the guitarist was playing... Then, 'cause of that, we got asked to be in a Livin' End video clip."
Interviewer: What? Livin' End?
Ben: "It was, for 'Prisoner of Society'. They were re-shooting the video clip for the American release. They asked us to be in that, so we dodgy on that, but we went down anyway to have a look."
Finn: "They did. I didn't 'cause I thought it was a pox idea from the start."
Ben: "So we went down there to check it out..."
Finn: "I thought it was a sh.t idea.."
Karl: "Weren't you at that?"
Finn: "No."
Ben: "When we went down, there was all these, f......, I don't know, fifteen year old skinheads. Just like skaters, with all their skateboards and it looked, bad. They told what we were meant to do. It was just this vacant car lot, with stones on the ground or whatever. We were all meant to stand together in a group and the Livin' End, they weren't even there. They were doing a separate bit. They were going to be in a prison cell. It was like, they were meant to be up top in the prison cell and we were meant to be on the bottom chanting, "we don't need no one, to tell us what to do.."
Karl: "So obviously we didn't do it..."
All: laugh
Interviewer: So obviously, you've supported New Bomb Turks, you're about to support Guitar Wolf soon, what are some other notable supports you've done?
Finn: "U2."
Interviewer and rest of the Sex Bombs: laughs
Interviewer: ...that you have done, not that you will do.
Adam: "Ah. I don't know. The biggest one, apart from that would be, Iggy. "
Karl: "Already done that one."
Adam: "No, we struggle to get gigs really."
Finn: "Did you say who we'd like to play with."
Interviewer: No, who have played with.
Finn: "Ah."
Adam: "Well, the Makers are supposed to coming out."
Karl: "Is that confirmed or is that just..."
Finn: "and the Supersuckers."
Adam: "Well Luke was telling me that at the last Tote gig... thinking November for that one, I think."
Interviewer: Aside from Jon Spencer and you've obviously supported New Bomb Turks, who else would you like to support?
Adam: "Cramps."
Ben: "Supersuckers."
Karl: "Yeah. Cramps."
Ben: "Yeah, wanna get the Supersuckers (support)."
Adam: "Yeah, Supersuckers would be good."
Karl: "Yeah, that would be awesome."
Interviewer: Well, hopefully they won't do their country set..
Ben: "Oh."
Finn: "There's some other Japanese bands we'd like to support."
Karl: "Reverend Horton Heat."
Finn: "Oh yeah."
Adam: "Although, they've cancelled their tour, about five times in a row. 'Cause he's too f.cked."
Ben: "Elvis."
Adam: "Yeah, play at Melbourne Park."
Ben: "We should do the support. We should open up. (laughs)"
Karl: "Yeah, Elvis. is coming out."
Ben: "Like the original band who did a concert, like they're all getting back together and playing along to the footage."
Adam: "It's Elvis singing, its just his vocal and they play the music live and the Jordanaires are singing and everything..."
Karl: "The Jordanaires are?"
Adam: "Yeah. It'll be cool, I'm going for sure."
Interviewer: Being in the band, there must things that frustrate you. What kinds of things frustrate you?
Ben: "Gigs."
Karl: "Getting gear home! That's the most frustrating thing."
Finn: "Getting piss weak riders everywhere, except the Espy."
Karl: "Yeah."
Adam: "Yeah, actually riders are a problem."
Ben: "F.ck all money."
Adam: "We need more piss."
Interviewer: So even at the Tote, it's not good enough.
Finn: "They give you eight cans. Two cans each. "
Ben: "If were lucky we get twelve cans."
Finn: "What kind of a rider is that."
Karl: "Get a slab at the Espy."
Adam: "Yeah."
Interviewer: Good slab.
Ben: "Yeah. Trish won't give us a gig, give us a gig at the Espy."
Adam: "Playing to pox crowds."
Karl: "Yeah."
Adam: "That's the worse thing of all."
Finn: "Crowds that stand fifty metres back."
Adam: "Crowds that aren't there mainly."
Karl: "Playing the Public Bar makes it look full."
Ben: "Yeah, it looks full."
Karl: "Getting gigs?!"
Finn: "Playing third all the time to sh.t bands... "
Ben: "Yes."
Finn: "... and playing second to two cover bands."
Karl: "Two cover bands!"
Interviewer: When was this?
Karl: "The Tote."
Ben: "The last gig, just gone."
Finn: "Gamma Rays."
Karl: "and the Da Mones."
Interviewer: I actually didn't hang around for that, pissed off after you guys and went to the Evelyn and Lisa Miller...
Ben: "Gamma Rays were sh.t."
Karl: "...did yourself a favour."
Adam: "Yeah, they were sh.t."
a lot of chitter, chatter amongst the Sex Bombs ensues, (that I can't make sense of unfortunately.)
Finn: "Just surf guitar covers, every single song."
Adam: "Yeah, it wasn't good. That is dissappointing, to say the least."
Ben: "That's why we wanna get something out, so we get some radio play..."
Interviewer: Anything else that is frustrating or...?
Karl: "Not enough beer."
Adam: "That's our main problem."
Interviewer: laughs
Adam: "If we had enough, we'd never complain."
Finn: "Everything ends up costing money. We end up getting sixty bucks or a hundred bucks and spend like, between us easily more... "
Karl: "Yeah and we have to practice all the time which costs us everytime and strings and crap. Just generally not making enough money. Yeah, generally not enough money and not enough punters."
Interviewer: So if you get to do this single with Mr. Craig Bailey and International Trash, do you think there would be a chance you'd get to do things like tour and ...?
Ben: "Yeah, hopefully that would get distributed overseas."
Interviewer: and tour Sydney and places like that..?
Karl: "Yeah, we want to get to Sydney and Brisbane.."
Adam: "Yeah, that's the thing. People say Brisbane and Sydney are sh.t to play and no one would come and see you play anyway..."
Finn: "Apparently, there's only a couple of venues left in Sydney, 'cause they've all been shutdown. Like heaps of bands move down here. That's what I heard."
Karl: "That's why it's weird, because like, yeah, the venues we play are sort of.. it."
Finn: "Yeah, that's it..."
Karl: "As far as Australia is concerned."
Ben: "I'd hate to see it, if its meant to be that Sydney is worse than Melbourne."
Finn: "Yeah."
Adam: "It's supposed to be terrible."
Finn: "Yeah. I can't imagine it being, that much better."
Karl: "Yeah and I guess and all the bands up there, end up moving here (Melbourne)."
Finn: "Yeah, look at Custard."
Ben: "...and all these kids turning eighteen are going around and thinking that alternative music is Triple J... There are some pox bands...
Placebo."
Finn: "'Living end'..."
Karl: " ...and shit like that (the music in the background, which is going onto the Interview tape). That's what shits me."
Adam: "Oh, are we being taped?"
Interviewer: Yeah. Do you think I'm writing this down
Adam: "No, I thought you had a good memory."
Interviewer: No, I don't."
Adam: "I didn't know we we're being taped."
Interviewer: Well, you should know now.
Adam: "I think I'll need to smoke more marijuana again."
Karl: "Yeah, that's another problem, getting to pissed to remember the songs when we to play..."
Ben: "Yeah. Another frustration. Tuning."
Karl: "Tuning. Oh Yeah. My guitars are shit. They go out of tune too easily."
Interviewer: What do you see yourselves after this, if you were going to play music again? What kind of stuff would it be? Different to this or similar.. or?
Adam: "No, very different. I'd have a different band too."
Interviewer: What, like David Bowie?
Adam: "Yeah. Like Ziggy Stardust kind of thing."
Karl/Finn/Ben: laugh
Ben: "If I was in another band, it would have to be some sort of crap .. very, very heavy..."
Interviewer: Heavy like?
Ben: "Get metal. Get Blooddusterish."
Finn?/Ben?: "Christbait."
Karl: "Ah. I don't know. Probably, still flat out stuff, but, more... guitar oriented.."
The Sex Bombs: laugh
Finn: "More guitar solos. (laughs)"
Interviewer: Three guitars?!
Finn?/Adam?: "More guitar oriented."
Interviewer: Finn?
Ben: "More like the Hellacopters?"
Karl: "No, no, no. Be more..."
Finn: "..do lessons or something."
Interviewer: You'd get your own show on Channel 31 that way.
Ben: Laughs "I was watching that last night."
Karl: "Yeah. The guy gives lessons. It's so funny."
Interviewer: You are still young guys whom work, I presume, does that interfere with the band..?
Adam: "No, we try to and not let that happen, as little as possible."
Finn: "We'd need to get more gigs for that to be possible."
Adam: "Yeah, we don't play enough, for it to, interfere with anything..."
Karl: "Finn's a student so,..."
Finn: "No, I just quit, to play drums..."
Finn: "We just need that exposure.."
Ben: "Yes, we do."
Karl: "Yeah, 'cause I think there's, so many crap bands out there, getting good gigs and stuff. Like at the Corner and the Punters..."
Ben: "Punters is sh.t."
Finn: "Do they get good crowds, there."
Karl: "The crap bands. Yeah, they do."
Ben: "Yeah, the sort of crowds that sit on the f..kin' ground."
Karl: " ...whenever you do go, and there was a big crowd or a packed house, like at the Martians at the Tote, it was cool."
Interviewer: Back to the CD, which you want to get out of the way. How many songs are on it and what are the songs?
Ben: "Five songs. It's gonna be Five songs for Five Bucks. What the songs? Ah Baby, Reverend's Dirty Shame, I Wanna(?), Elvis and The Lust Song.
Finn: "You should give the proper names of the song. Baby, Baby."
Interviewer: So, when you were recording for the CD, you didn't record anything else?
Ben: "Two songs got cut."
Adam: "What were they?"
Finn: "We didn't finish them all, did we."
Ben: "No, we finished them. We didn't finish up.. Let's Ride. No. "
Karl: "No, Motor City."
Ben: "Ah."
Adam: "Oh, yeah. We did a version of that song."
Ben: "... and More of You."
after this, The Sex Bombs question each what is and is not going on the final CD...
Finn: "Just make sure you say we're professional."
Adam: "See, we don't even know what songs are on it!"
Karl: "We need a Manager."
Adam: " ...A virtual Manager."
Interviewer: So, how did you manage to hookup with Craig (Bailey) and International Trash?
Ben: "My girlfriend works at Polyester (Melbourne Record Shop) or worked at Polyester..."
Karl: laughs
Ben: "So, I just met Bevan and he heard the CD. He, said he didn't like the initial recording we did. Oh, he did like it, but he liked analogue recordings as opposed to digital, so, I guess that's sort of where it started.
He came and saw us and really liked us. I think he said, he didn't like the CD, but I actually gave him a really sh.tty, first mix tape of it, but he liked the sound of the CD, heaps more."
Interviewer: So, the CD. How is the progress of getting it into the shops?
Karl: "Yes."
Finn: "Hopefully, by the end of the week."
Ben: "Yes, hopefully, have some. I'm actually giving one to a Shock guy, on Thursday."
Karl: "You are? Well, there's a scoop for you Simon (the interviewer)."
Ben: "Just getting to a Shock rep, Simon..."
Karl: "Better hound him..."
Ben: "Yeah."
The Sex Bombs: "Well, we've got to go. Things to do. Songs to play.."
A strange, strange sound from one of the rehearsal rooms, nearby disturbs and the Interviewer and The Sex Bombs reckons, it's time go.
'The Sex Bombs - Live @ The Tote, 7/8/1998', 1998, Inpress Magazine
... Up next was the somewhat optimistically titled Sex Bombs, dishing up a garage-rock sound and coming across as a mutant blend of Gas Huffer and The Saints. Their set was about 15 minutes too long for a relatively new group, but it's great to see bands keeping the straight-up rock tradition alive amongst the under-30 set.
Go check out the Sexbombs, they rock...
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