Mid-December will mark 20 years since Quan Yeomans, Peter Kostic and Ben Ely first formed Regurgitator, and after two illustrious decades the band have irrefutably been cemented as Australian musical legends.
However, it makes the announcement of their “extended hiatus” even more bittersweet. Declaring their current tour to be “the last for the foreseeable future” – due to “a wonderfully surprising addition to Quan’s family” – it dually means this year’s brilliant new record Dirty Pop Fantasy could be the last we hear from them whilst their future stays in this murky state.
Speaking to the incredibly friendly Ben Ely, the upbeat bassist explains the band’s Titanic 2013.
“We finished recording [Dirty Pop Fantasy] about [five or six] months ago,” reflects Ely about the new album. “I listened to the songs so much that I said I wouldn’t listen to it until it got back on record and I picked up the test pressing on vinyl from Zenith in Melbourne and had a listen and yeah, I was quite happy with it.”
For their eighth studio effort, ‘Gurg decided to take their sonic direction even further off-kilter. Dirty Pop Fantasy sees the band harking back to the neon electronica age of the ‘80s and the toxic grunge of the ‘90s, combining these opposite decades into a truly esteemed record that thrives simply because of its nonsensical nature. However, as Ely notes, their complete aversion to cohesiveness was whole-heartedly deliberate.
“As far as money’s concerned, I really don’t care about it. Frankly, I don’t give a shit. We just like touring live and I guess that’s how we made our living in the past even when we were on a major record company.”“We had this conversation that we really wanted to make this album like a compilation album where it almost sounds like lots of different artists rather than just a band,” the smiling veteran explains.
“We tried to focus on making it really genre specific and stylistically different from each track, so yeah hopefully we achieved that a bit.”
And they certainly did. Our glowing Tone Deaf review of the album praises the record for the way it “constantly dances across different blends of genres, never standing still long enough to become pigeon-holed, making it a truly existing 42 minutes.”
Sometimes the record sounds like an ‘80s film score with vintage synth-fuelled electro tracks like ‘Made To Break’ and ‘Mountains’, but then it morphs into amped-up alt-rock with ‘Fuck You Sweetness’, ‘Bongzilla’ and ‘My Little Terrorist’, to name a few. So, according to Ely’s own criteria, ‘Gurg successfully achieved their mission of unpredictability.
The recording process for this conceptually odd album was, unsurprisingly, a tad unconventional. The trio wrote most of the album in Hong Kong after wanting “a break from Australia and a break from distractions [to] really just focus on writing.” Still, this time around things were “a little more planned out an organised” than with their previous release SuperHappyFunTimeFriends, which Ely candidly admits was made in three weeks “because our manager said we had a tour coming up and we didn’t have any material”.
“We got this warehouse apartment in a nine-story walk-up [flat] in the centre of Hong Kong. It was an old yoga studio so it was pretty barebones – it was like a concrete block – and we just slept on the floor and played guitar and bass through little practice amps and had a Roland Octapad and played that through a practise amp and we wrote songs like that for a while. It was pretty… strange,” he says with a pause, but admits the stripped-back approach inevitably paid its dividends.
“We were really limited – we didn’t have our gear or drum kits or anything. We were just riding with acoustic guitars and ukuleles and practise amps and stuff so it was pretty limited, but I guess that was a bonus, really, because it made us focus on the songs rather than the sounds.”
Another interesting aspect of Dirty Pop Fantasy was Regurgitator deciding to test out the new trend of advanced streaming, letting fans listen to the album in full in the week’s build-up to its official launch. Unlike the cash-hungry motives of Mumford & Sons and Justin Timberlake, though, Ely says it was just about sharing.
“We don’t mind giving our stuff away for free,” the bassist says matter-of-factly. “I wasn’t really making this record for anyone in particular and I haven’t had any ambition really on the last couple of records; I just make the records for people who like our band.” “You just don’t know what could happen [in the future]. It’s a weird and wonderful world, isn’t it?”
“As far as money’s concerned, I really don’t care about it. Frankly, I don’t give a shit,” he expresses casually, completely nonchalant, and it’s obvious he’s being sincere. “We just like touring live and I guess that’s how we made our living in the past even when we were on a major record company.”
On the topic of tours, Ely is clearly relishing being out on the Dirty Pop Fantasy tour. Refreshingly, despite having 20 years of tours under his belt, he exudes the excitement of someone embarking on his first.
“I wanted to do a [show] where we just play ‘80s songs and dress up really badly and have break-dancers and saxophones and kind of things like that,” he laughs. “An ‘80s extravaganza… It fits the Dirty Pop Fantasy kind of idea.”
The national tour has reminded the country about the very essence of ‘Gurg, with our reviewer at the Brisbane stop-off remarking that “Regurgitator had the crowd eating out of their palm during every note and everything in between” as they “unleashed their comedic presence and perfected experiences to create a night full of frivolity and extravagance.”
Finally, the conversation ends with the dreaded topic of the future.
“I’m not really sure,” Ely openly ponders. “You just don’t know what could happen. It’s a weird and wonderful world, isn’t it?”
Everything feels a little less weird and wonderful with Regurgitator going on an extended hiatus, but the levels will no doubt be restored to normal when, or if, they emerge from the other side.
Check out the video for ‘Sine Waves’ from Dirty Pop Fantasy below.
Regurgitator 2013 Dirty Pop Tour
FRI 11 OCT Brisbane THE HIFI
Tickets from www.thehifi.com.au or 1300THEHIFI, all Oztix outlets and regurgitator.oztix.com.au
SAT 12 OCT Gold Coast COOLANGATTA HOTEL
Tickets from Oztix ph1300 762 545, Oztix outlets and regurgitator.oztix.com.au
SUN 13 OCT Byron Bay THE NORTHERN
Tickets from The Northern ph 02 6685 6454, www.thenorthern.com.au
Oztix ph1300 762 545, Oztix outlets and regurgitator.oztix.com.au
WED 16 OCT Scarborough INDI BAR
Tickets from the venue, Oztix ph1300 762 545, Heatseeker outlets and regurgitator.oztix.com.au
THUR 17 OCT Bunbury THE PRINCE
Tickets from the venue, Oztix ph1300 762 545, Heatseeker outlets and regurgitator.oztix.com.au
FRI 18 OCT Fremantle METROPOLIS
Tickets from the venue, Oztix ph1300 762 545, Heatseeker outlets and regurgitator.oztix.com.au
SAT 19 OCT Perth THE ROSEMOUNT
Tickets from the venue, Oztix ph1300 762 545, Heatseeker outlets and regurgitator.oztix.com.au
New album DIRTY POP FANTASY out September 11th, 2013.
www.regurgitator.net
www.facebook.com/regurgitators
