“I remember saying to Ben when we were still in high school, ‘There’s no way I’m going to be doing this when I’m 30,’” Brayovic recollects. “Thirty was just so old when we were 18.”
During Peabody’s 20 years, Brayovic and Chamie have never been hell-bent on attaining glamorous rock stardom. Instead, they’ve been more interested in making music they could confidently stand behind. As a result, the band was almost ten-years-old when its debut LP Professional Againster came out.
“I guess we weren’t in a hurry in those days and we were happy playing gigs and we recorded a couple of EPs,” Brayovic says. “Sometimes people take a little while to find their feet creatively, and that’s just what happened with us.”
A turning point for the band came in 2002 when Peabody was introduced to Jamie Hutchings of Bluebottle Kiss, who went on to produce the group’s first three albums.
“That was the first time we really had some external influence from someone who knew what they were doing,” Brayovic recalls. “He scaffolded us a little bit, if you will, and then we were much more confident by the time The New Violence came about.”
Indeed, 2005’s The New Violence sings out as Peabody’s most definitive mission statement. The record still pulses with sweaty energy today, and it’s no surprise Brayovic feels particular affection for this period.
“We’d released two albums that were pretty well received and had got a lot of airplay. It’s stupid, but if you get played on the radio there’s a level of sub-conscious vindication you get from it. More than anything, every second week we were out of Sydney, we were going all over Australia. It was just fun – the three of us in a van for at least a couple of years. We were playing festivals, we were getting good supports, all that sort of thing.”
Peabody’s 20th anniversary show is set to provide a comprehensive career retrospective. Former drummer Graeme Trewin is even coming back to perform tracks from the first two LPs. Since Trewin’s departure in 2007, two further Peabody albums have been released, both featuring drummer Jared Harrison and guitarist Tristan Courtney-Prior. The band’s catalogue mightn’t be overwhelmingly voluminous, but some tunes escape instant recollection.
“Weirdly, for Got You On My Radar, one of the reasons we haven’t played that for so long is I simply forgot how to play it,” Brayovic admits. “We’d lost the piece of paper with the tuning on it and I just couldn’t remember the chord shapes. Then I was cleaning up my computer and all of a sudden I came across a tab that I had made for a guitar player magazine in 2005. So there it was in front of me – how to play the song again.”
Brayovic and Chamie have actually held down day jobs all through Peabody’s 20-year run. Not cracking into the big time might be disappointing from a financial point of view, but it means that Peabody still offers its core members invigorating redemption from the conventional world.
“If anything it’s only made our resolve a little steelier,” Brayovic says. “We’re not going to let things like everyday life get in the way of us doing this because then you start to wonder, ‘Well, why were we doing it in the first place?’ It wasn’t so we could make a living. It was because it’s the best feeling in the world to rock out with your friends. And it still is. I can’t wait until I strap on a guitar and play music with three of my best friends.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
