If there’s one downside to the collapse of Australia’s once impenetrable mega-festivals like Soundwave and Big Day Out that’s not often talked about, it’s that big-time international acts now have fewer opportunities to come here and threaten to shoot our local bands.
Of course, that might be an upside if you happen to be a member of homegrown punk rock heroes Frenzal Rhomb. According to guitarist and former triple j personality Lindsay ‘The Doctor’ McDougall, such a threat was made against the band way back in 2003.
In response to the recent controversy surrounding Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas after the singer made a racist joke whilst onstage in Melbourne, McDougall raised a point about the importance of watching what you say on stage because it could come back to bite you in the backside.
“One year at the Big Day Out, we were about to play our hit* single ‘Ball Chef’, a jaunty tune about those good humans tasked with preparing ‘Rocky Mountain Oysters’ or buffalo testicles for eager consumers,” McDougall recently recounted for Music Feeds.
“Our much better-spoken singer Jason was explaining that [buffalo testicles] are indeed a menu item in parts of America, something we’d seen for ourselves. I decided to add an extra element to the narrative, albeit a false one,” McDougall continues.
Apparently, it was at that moment that McDougall decided it would be a good idea to exclaim to the massive Big Day Out crowd, “In fact if you go backstage, Chino from the Deftones is chewing down on a big plate of balls right now!”
“Turns out that things you say on stage have a habit of getting back to the people you say them about,” McDougall adds, to which we can only say – no kidding. Sure enough, despite the fact that smartphones had not yet been invented, Deftones indeed heard tell of The Doctor’s quip.
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“An hour or so later Jason (who is often the target for reprisals, being our tallest and most identifiable member) was being cornered by Chino and his merry music-makers, and being told things like, ‘You used the D-word for your own devices!’ and ‘If we were back in Sacramento, I’d shoot you in the foot,'” McDougall recounts.
According to McDougall, he, Jason Whalley, and Myf Warhurst eventually got to bring the incident up several years later when Deftones came to visit the triple j studios, but “that audio was erased to make room for the new Wolfmother single or something”.
Indeed, as triple j put it, “Last time [Deftones] were in town, they threatened to kill Jay! Join Myf, the Doctor and a slightly scared Jay for the Rematch!” So the lesson is: watch what you say when you’re on stage, even if it’s 2003 and you think you can get away with it.
