Them Rumblin’ Bones
Don’t bother trying to label TRB in a genre. They mix hard rock with stadium rock, a bit of funk, a bit of soul and everything else in between. Featuring Venom, Michael Stangel and one of St Kilda’s best landlords Dave Stevens, they haven’t played a city gig yet, but with an LP on the verge look out for ‘em. Dave spoke to me in his St Kilda pad.
Dave: It’s a strange story how we came together. Me and Michael meet in high school and formed our first band at 13 which broke up when we were 14.
We had nothing to do with each other for 30 years. Not for an issue, we just went our own ways. When Pure Pop was going under he got in touch with me and he was offered a development deal to do a TV show, and he contacted me and said I’ve got this idea for a show. We do a mockumentary about a reality show for a record label.
I would play this guy that ran this record shop/venues that was shut down because of noise complaints and now the two of us are running a record label in Geelong. We picked ideas to this production company and they were supportive and he threw them these ideas and they were like yeah, it’s great keep at it.
After a year, we released the show wasn’t going to happen so we thought we better earn some money. We had all these situations for this fake record company so we thought let’s put it into practice. And we came up with this cover band, doing gigs in regional Victoria. We had ideas for funny hi-jinks for the show, so we thought let’s do it but for real.
So, we did classic rock covers for a year, me Michael and Venom. It gets soul sapping for after a while and we thought well we’re good enough players so let’s write some tracks. We had access to a studio in Geelong, and we wrote all these songs.
The studio is not a commercial studio so we had unlimited time so the meter wasn’t running. We spent four months recording a mixing and now it’s ready to go. It’s funny as sometimes you have a band that has a member that plays in a cover band, and plays in an original band on the side. But now where all in the same boat (laughs) so we can’t double book ourselves.
Munster: you mentioned before the meter wasn’t running and you belted out the songs in four months, that’s a pretty quick turn round most bands would kill for that.
Dave: Well that’s the things this studio in Geelong is amazing guy Pail. He’s a lawyer who works three months a year doing pro bono work in Aboriginal communities in Northern Territory. He has a studio in his house and he opens it to schools and all kinds of people. He’s one of the good rich people he’s an angle and a big supporter of the arts it’s not a profit thing. Was great to use it and have attention to detail and get thing right.
Munster: The three of you are big music fans so it must have been hard to pick a genre to stick to
Dave: Yeah that’s the thing we didn’t have a vision as what we wanted to do when it came to original music. It wasn’t pre-planned like what band do we wanna be. We just went into a room and this is what we came up with.
There were times when say Mike would come up with some chords and it sounded Hendrix like, so I would add my own thing, but it wasn’t calculated, it’s just what we came up with. When I ran Pure Pop, I put the bass away for 10 years I don’t know if people at Pop knew I played bass. So, this has been great to do, been like therapy.
And you know a band is only as strong as its weakest member. With Michael AND Venom I’ve had to lift my game. Having not played for ten years it’s great to play with amazing players. There’s that saying if you’re the best muso in your band you’re in the wrong band (laughs). That’s not the case with me.
Munster: With the covers band, I take it artistically that might not have been the most fulfilling thing but from learning to play again it must have been good.
Dave: It was, it’s like training, in saying we do the cover band we weren’t top 40, just a classic cover band, we weren’t doing songs we didn’t like. That was good just to get the chops up but it comes back quick. I was still playing at home, I just wasn’t in a working band. If one of us didn’t like the song we wouldn’t do it, because it must be fun, and playing old rock songs is great.
Munster: you mentioned before how you threw up your own ideas and use different styles in the same song, so it must have been a pretty egoless environment where you can all do your own thing.
Dave: Yeah, usually the best idea is the first idea. The songs, like a four-minute song if one of us suggested something, it would cost four minutes of our life. Your heard the ideas that worked, the ones that didn’t were shithouse (laughs) you can’t be afraid to try something new. If someone says something have a go. It’s obvious if something doesn’t work we don’t need to say it. It’s no issue we’ll just try something else. We all have three pretty crazy egos, but we all trust each other’s tastes and opinions.
Munster: Fred Negro recently drew you wearing a shirt saying cock rock, you think there’s a bit of that in here?
Dave: That actually came about as the three of us did Cock Rock Friday in Geelong. It’s the cover band and a guy called Andrew on second guitar, and we do 80’s hair metal and cock rock. Gunner and Whitesnake. We made some shirts saying cock rock, and Fred saw that hence the drawing. But we do a lot of big rock riffs, so I can see that influence.
Munster: you mentioned before you can all sing but was there any argument on who was going to do lead vocals?
Dave: No not at all. Michael was always going to be lead singer. I can sing Venom can hold a tune but Michael’s a singer. I can hold a tune but not a front man. We all over 70’s rock, and in that hard rock there’s backing vocals and harmonies which you don’t hear in today’s rock. We all had ideas for harmonies and that gives us more a 70’s-rock vibe and we all like to sing and makes us sounds bigger. I always loved rock that has great harmonies.
Munster: Michael does have a very appealing, kinda stadium rock style to him.
Dave: He’s gotta a powerful voice, one of the tracks he come across like a young Doug Parkinson kinda raspy rock style, and he can do it all in one go, never needs a second take.
Munster: Prior to Pure Pop you mentioned you were in a band playing bass, but not quite as rocky as this?
Dave: No I was in a band called Lynch Pin, I don’t wanna say power poppy kinda melodic, Crowded House style. We went overseas a few times. Before that I was in a band called Stickyback Monkey which was round the early 90’s we had loops, guitar bass and drums but we were outta place as we were during the grunge era. We made a EP and we made it with Tony Cohen. If you Google us the only mention of Stickyback Monkey it’s on his discogs page. And I also played with Jeff Lang, he went to high school with me and Michael.
Munster: tell us what some of your favorite gigs at Pure Pop were?
Dave: So many, Glen Hardson was fantastic, Lee Renaldo and Steve Shelly was amazing. Barry Adamson did a fantastic show. But I loved that Courtney Barnette played in front of ten people. And she also played the classic Album series where she did INXS. She was this girl that came from Tassie that made her way. She had something special about her. She might not have been the best guitarist but she did it in a special way. Alex Leslie played there 100 times but watching him develop was incredible he asked for his first gig at 16. There was such a great vibe from the stage and the audience, they were there for the music, not to be seen in a cool joint.
Munster: What’s next?
Dave: the LP launch is in Brunswick in OCTOBER 8 at Spotted Mallard, and we wanna record again, even though this one isn’t out yet. And pretty much just play, and looking forward to people’s reaction to the music.
Munster: And favourite Fall LP to end this?
Dave: Don’t have one?
Munster: Ween?
Dave: Sorry
Munster: Pixies.
Dave: Doolittle
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