“They were very different bands,” says Scientists guitarist Kim Salmon, the band’s songwriter and only common denominator throughout their scattered ten year original history. “The only reason we’d written the original songs for The Scientists were that they were the only songs that James [Baker] and I could write,” Salmon says. “But I wanted to do a bit more of a Stooges thing anyway. I used to say to James that we should do more stuff like The Stooges, and he’d say ‘But you don’t write it.’”
Kim Salmon had formed The Exterminators (nee The Invaders) with Roddy Radalj and Boris Sujdovic; when former Victims drummer James Baker joined on sticks, The Scientists was born. Sujdovic was the first member to leave – “Boris got the boot, which was just immaturity, very poor form,” Salmon concedes – followed shortly after by Radalj. Salmon and Baker stuck it out for a couple more years before dissolving the band in 1980, frustrated with a lack of success and unsure where the band was heading.
When Sujdovic suggested to Salmon that he move across to Sydney and restart The Scientists, Salmon packed his bags and joined his former bandmate. With Baker committed to Le Hoodoo Gurus, Salmon convinced Brett Rixon, at the time playing drums in Salmon’s post-Scientist band Louie Louie, to come over as well. The fourth member of the reborn Scientists was Tony Thewlis, already a fan of the original Scientists.
While Sujdovic thought the garage punk version of The Scientists would work well in a Sydney market stocked with garage-influenced bands such as The Riptides, Salmon was already leaning toward a more minimalist sonic style. When Salmon finally got around to listening to The Cramps, he knew he’d found what he wanted. “When I listened to The Cramps I heard this really unhinged singing, really primitive drumming and speeding guitar that reminded me of The Stooges and the more sonic territory of The Velvet Underground like Sister Ray, and that’s what I wanted to do,” Salmon says.
Even The Ramones, whose 1976 debut album had sent budding punk rockers like Salmon into a frenzy, had exhibited a brand of minimalism that Salmon found inspiring. “Someone had suggested in some piece of writing that they were like [Dutch painter] Mondrian,” Salmon says. “And I went with that, because I thought it was cool.”
By 1983, The Scientists had established a following, and attracted the attention of Bruce Milne and Greta Moon’s AuGoGo Records. The Scientists’ first single, Swampland, illustrated the new, minimalist Scientists. “The songs I was writing were much more visceral,” Salmon says. “I wasn’t really a lyric writer. The idea of minimalism was really cool because I didn’t have to write many lyrics. I just looked at things that were around me. Set It On Fire was inspired by a friend who was always complaining about his job, Burn Out was about getting wasted at the end of the night, Rev Head was about hooning about in cars, We Had Love is self-explanatory. Because there were so few words, I was getting it right. And even with the music, it was very simple – I went out of my way to have as little musical content as possible. I actually spent a lot of time on that, and deliberately tried to make sure there wasn’t any extraneous stuff on there.”
By 1984 The Scientists had re-located to London, brazenly securing a spot supporting The Gun Club on some European dates at the end of that year. They slogged out for a couple more years with reasonable success, including shows with Sisters of Mercy and Siouxsie and the Banshees. The band’s relationship with its Australian label soured, leading to a few years of protracted legal wrangling. Meanwhile drummer Brett Rixon had had enough of life in London and returned to Australia, followed by Sujdovic. After a few more lineup changes, Salmon returned to Perth. “I think The Scientists had come to its logical conclusion by that time,” Salmon says.
The Scientists would undertake one final tour in 1987 before Salmon decided to pursue his musical interests via The Surrealists, punctuated with the occasional foray with the Beasts of Bourbon. The Scientists would resurface again from 2000 onwards, initially to promote the release of a couple of compilation records, and subsequently for the occasional show at the All Tomorrows Parties and Don’t Look Back festivals. Along the way The Scientists would be venerated by artists such as Mudhoney for The Scientists’ role in creating the so-called grunge sound.
The release of The Scientists boxset, A Place Called Bad, aggregates the entire Scientists catalogue, as well as various live recordings including a live set from Adelaide University in 1983. The gulf between the teen garage pop of Frantic Romantic from the Perth era and the electro- freak-punk of Human Jukebox from the band’s latter London period is significant. The common denominator however, is The Scientists’ desire to buck whatever trend they could see around them. “We were always pushing against something,” Salmon says.
BY PATRICK EMERY
