“It’s pretty far for us but we thoroughly enjoy coming to Australia and I’m not just saying that because you come from there,” guitarist Bill Kelliher says. “If I could live anywhere else in the world, it would be there and I tell people who’ve never been there that they need to go. It’s like a really, really nice USA,” he laughs. “Nice people, good food and good times.”
The band is particularly psyched about the opportunity to stretch out with a headlining set. After all, even when they were top of the bill on their Soundwave Sidewaves last year, it wasn’t quite the same thing as their own headlining tour in terms of setlist or production. “Soundwave and Big Day Out are great, but when we do those sideshows they’re not quite the same as doing a whole headlining tour,” he explains. “It’s weird, because Australia is the size of the US but to go over there and do a headlining tour is like three gigs, whereas we can play the States for a full year and still not hit every state, playing every second night. I don’t know why we’re only doing three gigs. We should do ten. I know some other bands have been over there and hit all the major cities and secondary markets, but I don’t know. I think the people who book our band just try to get the biggest shows, but why not hit some of the smaller cities? But I don’t make the rules.”
So why not do ninja gigs at bars? “I played [at Whole Lotta Love] with my other band, Primate, last year,” he enthuses. “We actually just played a 200-capacity venue here in Atlanta last week right before we went to Mexico. It was for a benefit, a secret show that we announced a couple of days before the actual gig and sold out in about 30 minutes. And it was fun. It was definitely taking it back to the old-school vibe. We used to play back there when we first started and even back then, ten, 12 years ago we used to sell it out. It was a hot, sweaty, fun thing to do, for sure.”
Kelliher will be bringing a handful of his signature Gibson Halcyon Les Paul guitars with him. Available to the public, these guitars feature a golden sunburst finish and his own, signature Lace Music electronics. He also has a limited edition Golden Axe model based on the pointy Explorer shape, long hailed as an icon of heavy music – but those buggers are too big to bring to Australia on this run. “I’m going to bring three or four Les Pauls over there. It’s a nightmare with freight stinging you for every little last thing. And the Explorer is such a big, oddly-shaped guitar that it doesn’t fit into the standard three-guitar case we bring outside the country… And there are certainly worse problems to have in life, but unfortunately that’s all we can bring over there.”
Kelliher is a huge Star Wars fan and it seems a shame to have him on the phone and not ask about his enduring love of the original films. “I’m covered in Star Wars tattoos, he begins. Bounty hunters, Princess Leia, a Storm Trooper, a Death Star with Grand Moff Tarkin inside of it. I love all the imagery of it. It’s great. That’s why I collect all the toys, ships, posters… The artwork and the way it looks is amazing. So futuristic, and all the characters are so well-done and interesting. They make for good tattoos, that’s for sure.”
So what does Kelliher think about the forthcoming Episode VII – The Force Awakens? “Hopefully J.J. Abrams will make up for all the shit that George Lucas fucked up during the prequels,” he says. “They were terrible. There was no story there. It was so confusing… I don’t know how any eight or nine-year-old would be able to tell what the Trade Federation is or what fucking Watto is.
Star Wars was a very simple movie. You could tell the Blockade Runner was being chased by a giant ship and it was probably the good guy being chased by the bad guy. ‘They’re building a space station, the good guys have stolen the secret plans – let’s find those droids. Hey, this is the old wise man. Let’s rescue a princess.’ How simple is that? And every boy of my generation would be like ‘That’s what I want to do. Fly the space ship, use the blaster and rescue the princess’.”
BY PETER HODGSON
