“Hiring a booker is the anaesthesia that dulls the pain of having to deal with that kind of stuff,” says Ahn. He’s talking about how the band came to be playing at this year’s Chopped Rod and Custom festival, which is in its sixth year and gaining fresh devotees every round. “Really, if you’re a musician, you should be thinking about one thing: your music. You should be concentrating on writing a song or learning to play your instrument better.” Having said that, Ahn is something of a petrol head and is frothing to see the displays. “I’m actually quite a big car enthusiast. I used to have a bunch of really nice cars and motorcycles, in my time. It’s going to be a mouth-watering experience for me.”
The band are often asked about their thoughts on the evolution of the music industry because they’ve seen so many changes during their career. Ahn reveals his personal thoughts on attending festivals, which differ slightly from his opinions on playing them. “I’m 48, and a 48 year old man does not stand in the hot sun with 50, 60 thousand other people with their shirts off,” he laughs. “I am not for one minute prejudiced against big festivals, because when I was young and full of pep I would go to those things.”
Instead of spending their time as punters at fests, The Hard-Ons have been diligently putting together some amazing collections of their early material for release. So far we’ve had Smell My Finger, encompassing the years 1984-1987, and Dickcheese, which covers 1987-1988. “The next one is coming out in November; we’ve got three re-issues to come,” Ahn explains. “So that’s, let’s have a look, that’s 480 minutes of music still to be reissued. Sorry I couldn’t work that out, I had to use a calculator on my desktop. I’m Asian, and Asians are very bad at maths.”
Ahn also has his fingers in the visual arts and filmmaking pies, with an exhibition of his poster work on display at a Mexican restaurant in Newtown (“It’s not one of those Mexican restaurants that you take your family to, it’s actually quite funky; it’s the perfect place to have a pretentious exhibition, and that’s what it is”) and participating in a recent documentary entitled Kick Out the Jam. Ahn’s second band Nunchukka Superfly played at the September premiere of the doco, which features a series of people in the biz talking about their experiences about the Sydney punk, hardcore and metal scene. “It was fantastic,” he enthuses. “The filmmaker had absolutely no agenda about where the film was going to go, so she just let people talk randomly. So the views that are expressed are conflicting and varied from person to person, it was fascinating. [It’s for] anyone who has empathy with anyone who’s involved in the underground music scene, with underground bands and small, sweaty pubs and a do-it-yourself ethic.”
On the subject of making new music and the way that The Hard-Ons have financed themselves, Ahn explains about the incredible funding opportunities which are available to musicians in Europe, but which don’t necessarily produce the hardiest bands. “What does that tell you?” he asks. “Maybe the fact that things are tough makes bands really knuckle down, and it separates the hard working people from the people who, after a year, are like ‘Oh, I’m not a rockstar yet? I’ll give up.’ It does make the Australian bands really tough. I mean look at The Hard-Ons. We work really hard and we had a lot of things against us, and we’ve been to Europe 16 times.” Onward and upward, boys.
BY ZOË RADAS
