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Vice Blog

1994 - MUCKING ABOUT WITH THE MEANIES

For the past five years The Meanies have been slaughtering audiences on a regular basis with their crazy live shows. If you're not familiar, they are: the dreadlocked Link Meanie on vocals, Tas Meanie on guitar, Wally Meanie on bass (that's him with the goatee in the photo up there standing next to Eddy Vedder) and Ringo Meanie on drums. Their new album 10% Weird encapsulates everything great and positive about Australian punk music right now.

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Vice: So, it's five years since you guys started The Meanies. How's it all going?

Wally: It only seems like yesterday that Link gave me a demo with a dodgy band name on it. The Meanies has a much better ring to it that Arson Underground, don't you think. Oh shit, did I just say that out loud? It's going great actually, never a dull moment. The gigs are great and the number of t-shirts we churn out is ridiculous. We're just a bunch of idiots from the 'burbs doing something we love and we get to tour the world having a great time. Sometimes we even get paid. It's nuts.

Is right now a good time for music in Australia? Who are the bands that you're particularly digging?

1994's a great time for Oz music I reckon. Tumbleweed, Snout, Spiderbait, You Am I, Fur, Front End Loader, Magic Dirt, The Mark of Cain, Fridge, Hard Ons, Cosmic Psychos, silverchair, Ratcat, Screamfeeder, TISM, Budd, Christbait, Headache, Smudge - the list is endless of the great shit around right now. And how about all the festivals that have started?

Yeah, you've played every single Big Day Out so far, right? That's like three years running!

Yeah, we did our third Big Day Out earlier this year, which is pretty amazing considering there's only been three. The first one with Violent Femmes and Nirvana was Sydney only but the last two have been national. Let's hope that festivals keep going and just keep getting bigger and better.

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And you've played with Nirvana, yeah?

Yeah. How fucking sad was Kurt's departure from this mortal coil recently? Bloody shithouse. Maybe he should have done what Leonard Cohen did this year and head to a monastery for some chill-out time. We did a handful of shows with them a couple of years ago, which was pretty special. Didn't get to talk to Kurt much because he was crook and he had that woman from Hole with him being overly protective and annoying. Dave and Kris were lovely though. In fact we ran into Kris in the US last year and he remembered Tas & I fondly from that tour, which was nice. Tas wasn't even a Meanie then but his band at the time, Seaweed Goorillas, also did a Nirvana support slot.

You guys have just been to Japan. How was that? What are kids listening to in Japan right now?

Our first ever international tour was to Japan in September 92. What a mind fuck! For a green as grass bogan from the eastern suburbs to have his first overseas experience somewhere like Japan, I tell ya, I'm set for life now. We had such great 'tour guides' too - The 5678s in Tokyo and our Time Bomb label boss Kenji in Osaka. You've got to love a country with beer vending machines but no real sign of alcohol abuse. Really.

You've also recently been overseas recording your new album 10% Weird. How's that been?

Yeah we went on a European tour in September 93 and did 29 shows in 32 days and on the way over we stopped into the US to record the album. We recorded in Seattle, which is a great city, kinda like Melbourne and Sydney rolled into one. Conrad Uno, who's also worked with Sonic Youth and Mudhoney, was the producer and that's how Bruce Milne, our illustrious leader at AuGoGo Records, knew of him. Anyway, we spent two weeks recording and mixing with Conrad and did half a dozen gigs in and around Seattle whilst there.

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We heard that you made friends with Eddie Vedder - the singer from Pearl Jam over there. That's awesome. We're dying to hear their third album. You touring with them in Australia?

Yeah one of our gigs was at a place called the Lake Union Pub and a bunch of Bruce's mates came along to check us out. It was members of Mudhoney and a few of their mates basically. It was a great gig in a tiny, well packed joint with a great atmosphere and the crowd practically standing on the band as there was no real stage as such. Anyway, Eddie was one of those Mudhoney mates and, as we found out a few days later when we just happened to cross paths again, he said he really enjoyed it and he asked if we'd consider playing with his band when they tour our neck of the woods.

Ha, amazing.

Now believe it or not, I didn't even know who he was but I said yes anyway because he was just a nice bloke I happened to be bowling against. Then when we realised who he was Link wasn't so keen on touring together because he thought their crowd would wanna kill us, so it almost didn't happen. Bruce cackled like a school girl when I told him what Eddie had offered because he thought it was hilarious that the little old Meanies would be playing arenas with this million selling band. He seriously doubted it'd ever actually happen. But good on Eddie for being a man of his word cos they're coming here next March and The Meanies are the support act. And I'm not shitting myself at all…. ahem.

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Do you think the Internet is going to have any effect on the way people listen to and buy music in the future? Will it affect you guys?

Absolutely but I'm not exactly sure how, I'm far from computer savvy, in fact I'm pretty technologically inept. I got a fax machine way after they were the norm and I don't have a mobile phone yet. I'm too precious about being labeled a wanker I think.

It'd probably be easier to manage all the bands you're in charge of if you had a mobile. Just a thought. Who exactly are you managing right now?

I'm managing The Meanies and a new band called Even that I've just joined recently too. I'm the booking agent for Screamfeeder, Seaweed Goorillas, Pollyanna, Bodyjar, The Living End, The Fauves, Underground Lovers, Headache, Sandpit, You Am I, Tumbleweed, Snout, Red Textas, Something For Kate, Budd, The Mark of Cain, Fur, Sidewinder and Smudge, just to name a few.

That's a lot of bands. You must be crazy busy.

Things are good. There are a lot of tours on and heaps of places to play. I get to meet lots of great people and some old musical heroes along the way and keep my finger on the pulse too. It's all good.