Maymi has spent much of his 20 years playing music in the realm of psychedelic music
Most independent artists, Ricki Maymi (Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Imajinary Friends, The Wild Swans) has had his share of interesting day jobs. Acting on a tip-off from one of Maymi’s friends, it’s put to him whether it’s true that he once had a job dressing up as a clown in a toy factory. Maymi laughs, but quickly corrects the factual context. "I was actually dressed up as a toy pantomime soldier," he points out. "I wore a tin suit and had to wear all this make-up. It was part of the job description that I couldn’t talk to anyone. I’d come into work in the morning having been out all night, still wasted on whatever. And it showed that it’s true that women love a man in uniform, because even though I wasn’t allowed to talk, these cute girls would come up to me and give me their phone numbers," Maymi laughs. "That was a great job – I’d be quite happy to take that job back!"
Maymi has taken a break in his itinerant musical lifestyle to spend time with his son and partner in Perth. His love of Australian music is well known – over the years Maymi has contributed to, and played with, The Triffids, The Church, and The Black Ryder, among others – and his knowledge of Australian independent artists is encyclopaedic (early in the conversation Maymi refers to The Vegetable Gardens, an obscure ’60s Perth band).
Maymi’s first exposure to Australian music was, however, much closer to the mainstream. "I think the first Australian artists I heard were Olivia Newton-John, Air Supply and Men At Work," Maymi grins. What about Little River Band, I inquire – they were huge in the US in the 1970s and early 1980s. Maymi laughs heartily in response. "Yeah, definitely – I was just going to mention them as well!"
Eventually Maymi came across The Church, and his interest in Australian independent music blossomed. "I don’t think I would have heard about The Go-Betweens if I hadn’t listened to Jack Frost in the early 1990s," he figures. Maymi met Church bass player Steve Kilbey at a gig in San Francisco in 1991, "It was October 1991," he recalls. "I was about 18 or 19, and I wasn’t old enough to be in the club, so I was hiding in the shadows, trying not to be seen," he laughs.
Maymi went on to forge a strong friendship with both Kilbey and guitarist Marty Wilson-Piper. "I played with Marty Wilson-Piper before I played with Steve," he explains. "And then when they were on tour in Australia I guested with them, just jamming along." Maymi’s friendship with Kilbey blossomed, and the pair have continued to record and perform together whenever the occasion has arisen.
This Saturday night Maymi teams up with Kilbey at the Ding Dong Lounge as part of Tone Deaf’s first birthday celebrations. "We’ll be doing songs spanning the entirety of Steve’s career," Maymi explains. "All the songs will be Kilbey tunes one way or another."
As he explains, the on-stage relationship between Maymi and The Church bassist is as tight and dynamic as it is off stage. "There’s definitely a sense of looseness and good faith when we play together," Maymi says. "There’s no sense of pressure. Steve trusts me to do it right."
Maymi’s unbridled passion for Australian music, and his ‘outsider’ geographical cultural status afford him a unique position in assessing the qualities of Australian independent music. For Maymi, it’s the lack of insularity that shines through. "There’s more to the world than the world they’re part of," Maymi reasons. "It’s a sense of wonderment, outside of the universe that they’re working in." He contrasts this aesthetic to that of New Zealand independent artists, another geographically-based genre with which Maymi is intimately acquainted. "In New Zealand they’re not competing with the world market, so you get band like The Chills, The Verlaines and The Clean who’re making music just because they want to, and that comes across in their music" he opines.
"They know they’re not going to be really successful, so they don’t have the same agenda as a band coming from LA or New York. That makes it more humble, and not pretentious in the slightest – whereas in LA or New York people would pat you on the back for being pretentious."
Maymi has spent much of his 20 years playing music in the realm of psychedelic music. It’s a genre description that he believes has been misappropriated to the point of exhaustion and irrelevance. "Psychedelia is a head space," Maymi nods. "But I think the term has been cheapened – to describe bands like The Verve and Oasis as psychedelic is heresy!" he laughs. "Psychedelia has become like ‘alternative’ – you get these bands calling themselves psychedelic, but it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing."
Indeed, Maymi still sees himself located well outside the mainstream music industry, and asserting his own artistic independence. "I’ve never been on a major label, and I’ve never been interested in being signed to a major label," he says. "I’m an artist, and I’m a creative person. I’m not interested in some pony tail blowing smoke up my arse."
It’s put to Maymi that, as he gets older, and with a young child to support, there might be the temptation to choose financial security over artistic integrity. He dismisses the concept out of hand. "I can always get a job doing something else other than playing music," Maymi says. "I could pack groceries, go back to school or get a job as a toy soldier," he laughs.
Then again, Maymi would be just as happy shooting the breeze on any other topic rather than music. "I’m here to dispel the myth of the guy in the rock ‘n’ roll band – that all they want to do is talk about music and guitars," Maymi says. "If I walk into a room with twenty guitarists and they’re all talking about guitars, then I want to talk about the weather. I’d rather not be in a sea of guitarists – I’d rather be in a sea of plumbers," Maymi laughs.
RICK MAYMI (BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE) and STEVE KILBERY (THE CHURCH) help TONE DEAF celebrate their first birthday at Ding Dong this Saturday October 9. Along for the night will be Lowtide (formerly Three Month Sunset) and The Demon Parade, as well as Teddy Girls and Tone Deaf DJs. Tickets from dingdong.oztix.com.au.
