It was a meeting of minds within the local heavy music scene that came up with the idea for the show, Leigh explains. “I think it was sort of a local band decision, everyone wanted to play one night,” he says, “and we couldn’t put them all on a separate bill. So we came up with this one idea, and we put it to Mo and Sons, which is the company that runs Movember, and they loved the idea and wanted to be a part of it. So that’s where the whole concept came from. It’s a very very good cause,” he concludes.
Ruby’s isn’t the most central of locations, Belgrave approximately an hour’s drive east of the Melbourne CBD. But to Leigh it was the only choice. “It’s just the venue to hold live music,” he states categorically. “A venue built for music, it’s where it needs to be.”
The goal of the evening is to simply raise as much money as possible for the cause, as well as raising awareness, and there are more ways and means for the organisers to achieve this than just through ticket sales. “There’s auctions running on the night,” he explains. “There’s a guy that’s been growing his moustache for about 15 years. He’s going to auction off his moustache to raise money. Hopefully we can get enough out of that to get him to do it. But also our goal is to raise awareness.
“I also better mention Tama and ESP have jumped on,” he adds, “and have given us a raffle. We’ve got a guitar from ESP that we’re raffling off and a snare drum from Tama. I better mention the sponsors!” he laughs.
The Band Scene itself is a booking and promotions agency which also has a very worthy cause behind it. “The Band Scene’s been around for about two and a half years,” he states. “It was originally a concept from a band itself to take over and bring music back into venues instead of DJs. And then it just built up over the last two and a half years to be able to run events like this.”
The company also have some very major events planned for the near future. “There’s also going to be, at a secret location at this stage, a night called Grunt,” he says, “and that will be our party night for the metal and hardcore underground scene. That’ll be a fortnightly event.
“We’ve got a 24 hour license there,” he continues. “So it wouldn’t hurt to try and break a world record there I reckon! I think the going timeframe is about 32 hours worth of live music, non-stop, so I wouldn’t mind trying to beat that. That was done overseas somewhere, it’s never been done in Australia. So we’ll try and see what we can organise with that one I reckon.”
While Movember is an annual, global event, Leigh is a little sketchy as to whether they will be running Brutal Movember every year. But he is very confident that they will become involved in other worthy causes in the near future as well. “At this stage we’re not sure, so I wouldn’t commit to that just yet,” he says, “but ultimately there will be other fundraisers that we’ll get involved in, and run some big shows at our secret location for Grunt. We’ve actually got the ability to run three rooms there, so we’re going to try and push the barriers there.” Obviously a man running a company with a very broad long-term vision, and one which needs to be supported. As does the Movember cause, and heavy music fans can do exactly that this coming Saturday night at Ruby’s Lounge.
BY ROD WHITFIELD
