Lubricated Goat

LUBRICATED GOAT have changed line-ups more than a few times recently. Present at this interview were Stu Spasm, Guy Maddison, Pete Hartley and Brett Ford ie the same line-up as on "Paddock Of Love". *Right, the history of LUBRICATED GOAT... Stuart: I don't want to talk about all that stuff. None of that stuff about LEATHER MOUSTACHE. *You don't want to give any history? You and Brett were in SINGING DOG... Brett: Yeah, well, that time was awful. The history of me and Stu is, we lived together in Melbourne about six years ago, and we had the best band. with Nick (Barker, of THE WRECKERY) and we couldn't get a gig, probably because we were ahead of our time - that's what I put it down to. We only did about three gigs all up. Then Nick joined this other band with Nique Needles, Stu moved to Sydney, I went to India, then came back to Perth and started playing with Pete. Stu was in Sydney playing in Beasts Of Bourbon and things at that time. Then Stu went to London and I went to London as well, and we just happened to bump into each in a nightclub. So we started a band in London with Ren, whose in BLOODLOSS. Then we came back to Australia, I went back to Perth and Stu to Sydney. Stuart: I had to talk Brett into coming over here. Brett: But I had my business in Perth ("Wheels & Doll Baby", a clothing shop). So Stu came over to Perth and we did gigs there with Pete on bass. Stuart: I'd just like to say at this point, that Guy's now cutting his toenails with pliers. Brett: So we formed the 'GOAT in Perth and made the album ("Plays The Devil's Music") there. Stuart: That was the first attempt at making the 'GOAT into a proper band. Our ideas formed in the SINGING DOG, but we were all just living in Melbourne with no money, we couldn't even get equipment. So that was quite frustrating. Pete: And they didn't even know me then, which would've been depressing. Stuart: The SINGING DOG had some of our ideas, but when I came up here (to Sydney) I played entirely different music, because everything was sort of CRAMPS-y at that stage. Swamp reared it's ugly head. In England, me and Brett were playing together again but under much the same conditions as Melbourne except worse, because it's even harder to do anything in England. It's only now that we're in a position to do something proper. This is the first time we've actually been able to have a band and play together under the right circumstances, using the same ideas we've had for a long time. *What were those ideas? Stuart: Just the way we play together, all these bending rhythms and things, but we don't want to get into boring muso tech type talk. *Can you explain the intent of the 'GOAT? Stuart: Well, let's say what our music is for... you get so many bands around that just stand on stage and play these little tunes. They design the band to play three minute pop songs because they obviously aspire to be like the music we hear all day on the radio - all these pop bands playing "la la-la" music for people to wash cars by or sell things. Music for people to listen to while they're working. our music isn't designed for that purpose. It's not designed for the same sort of things as other people's music is. Our music is music for people to perform obscene sex acts to and to put on when they're having even normal sex, and music for impressionable teenagers to kill themselves to. It's supposed to be like a soundtrack for various things. It s much removed from just playing for people to have a bit of a dance or whatever, even though we have really strong rhythms. The actual sounds we make are intended to create atmospheres. That's what we want to do. I liken our music to a Stuka coming in and dive-bombing. That's what the noises Pete makes and things like that are. The lyrics sort of create the atmosphere, and the music swoops and swirls. The fretless bass that we've got is like a big, low, bottom-y thing that shifts like the techtonic plates that hold up all the countries, and when they shift it's like an earthquake. We just wanted music that's like all these big tumbling... um... things. Pete: Things. It's basically like things. Stuart: This big, twisting thing. You get people who play the guitar and they think of "how you play the guitar" as just 'jangle jangle', changing chords. You say, "This is how the song goes" and they go, "What are the chords?". Hardly any of our songs actually have chords in them. Guy: I just feel like the backbone of a big, lumbering beast. Stuart: The bass is the bomber coming in, hurtling in to drop it's bombs, approaching the drop zone, and the guitars are the accompanying fighter and fighter-bomber planes, and the drums are the bombs going off. Brett: No, the drums are the tanks. Stuart and the vocals are Hitler giving the orders, and the people are the victims, in the audience. Pete: But sometimes the bass is like the blades of grass, but really intense. Brett: (Laughing hysterically) (in pixie voice) And the guitar is like the butterflies. Stuart: Eurgh, we don't have butterflies. *You've been, in a number of reviews, compared with the BUTTHOLE SURFERS, what do you think of that? Stuart: I think that, in some ways, they obviously must think in a similar way to us. They must have come about in a similar sort of way. Although I listen to them, I wouldn't say that we were copying them in any way. Pete: They've just got the same sort of knowledge that we've got, and they're as diverse from what people already know. They know that much more as we know as well. Stuart: I'm surprised that there's not more bands that do similar things to them. Guy: You can talk about in the way of where original music comes from. Each musician has a background of music and things that they've liked. Obviously there's people who've liked the same things in the past. Like, say, BLACK SABBATH, now that would be an obvious connection between us and the BUTTHOLE SURFERS. Stuart: I've hardly ever listened to BLACK SABBATH. Guy: Well I've listened to tonnes of it. Brett: I grew up on that sort of thing, Richie Blackhead, Deep Pimple! Stuart: I've been hearing things like what the BUTTHOLE SURFERS play, in my head, for years. When I used to work in this factory, when I was about 16, 1 used to make the day go past quicker by singing about twelve whole albums that I liked, in my head, during the course of the day. And I used to know every lead break and every little background vocal and every subtlety off pat. I used to, like, sing "Raw Power" through in my head, and things like that. Doing things like that, you can also get some music in your head, that you've created in your head, and make all sorts of things happen to it that you can't begin to do playing instruments. It's like when you're tapping a drum rhythm on your knees, you can make anything happen along with that inside your head. But it's amazing how many people don't actually get to transfer what's in their head onto their instruments. Guy: I've also heard us compared to PERE UBU, later day BLACK FLAG, LED ZEPPELIN... the BUTTHOLE's comparisons have mainly been people saying, "People who like the BUTTHOLE SURFERS will like this...". Stuart: See, there were people in the 60s that played acid music, and then they went off and got technical and sophisticated with it and it lost it's charm in that way. And then everything went really basic again, and then it had to take off again. And that's what the BUTTHOLE SURFERS are doing in a way, because they've obviously developed in a different way again.... Brett: They've extended the best side of psychedelia. Because there was the jangly guitar, fringe-haired psychedelia, which was pop, basically, to me. But there was also the experimental kind of thing. Stuart: From music getting carried away as it did towards the end of the 60s, when it was experimental, then in the 70s there was all this pomp, silly wizard music and all that sort of stuff... *Wizzard the band? Stuart: No, just silly pomp music, YES, and all that kind of stuff. Which isn't psychedelic. You put that on the record player, it'd probably make you vomit. And then everything went really plain again with punk, and then there was bubbly new wave... we sort of left off where the silly new wave thing started. A lot of my ideas formed after all the shit, like YES and all that was chucked out. We were developing our ideas at the same time all the bubbly new wave music was happening, and listening to a few older things because we got sick of listening to the more basic stuff like punk music. It's just the logical extension of how old we are, and how long we've been developing our ideas and everything. Pete: Seeing these fads and things come and go makes you realise that it's pointless following them. So you might as well create them and just do what you're into and not think about what's going on. Stuart: lt's the most obvious thing for us to be doing, making the music that we're doing, because we all like really quite heavy music, but we also like music that's good to listen to tripping or whatever. Music that's got lots of cascading sounds swirling through it. Pete: Pretty music is even more pretty when it's got lots of balls. *I like the concept there but I'm not quite sure how you execute "pretty music" with lots of balls? Brett: That's what the KRYPTONICS was. Did you ever see them? *Yeah, a couple of times. Pete: Impact meets beauty. Brett: That was a total clash. I just found this really nice, neat pop band and I thought, "Oh, this really deserves destroying" and who better to do it than Pete Hartley! (Much laughter). So I got him and Bob's your auntie!. It was a fuckin' great band when it fired. It fired about one in three or four (gigs), when the clash actually came together. Stuart: What's actually pretty about it is, there's the strong beat and everything driving it along, and then over it the guitars and things take off like fireworks, and spiral and dive... That's what we want our music to be like, like what fireworks is to watch for your eye. Pete: We don't get sacked in the 'GOAT, which is good. We used to get sacked quite often in the KRYPTONICS (Much laughter). Brett: Every night, yeah! *You mentioned "creating your own fads". I've also seen in at least one overseas magazine a quote, actually it was in a review of SLUB, in "Maximum Rock'N'Roll", and it said something along the lines of "this band is out there with THUG, LUBRICATED GOAT and FEEDTIME as the vanguard of new Australian music". How do you react to that? Stuart: Well, it just seems like an obvious thing for someone to do was to create something new in this. country. When I first came to Sydney, it was so easy to do something here and stand out, because there was just all these "rnnannnanna rnnannanna" bands in Sydney (laughter) and I had no intention of doing anything like that. *Can you explain that in some form that will translate onto paper?! Stuart: You could say 'Detroit'. Guy: Influenced by RADIO BIRDMAN. Stuart: Yeah, all these stock standard guitar players, thousands of them, walking 'round Surry Hills with their leather jackets on, having their guitar for a gun and all standing there with their legs astride... Guy: ... pumpin' out Deniz Tek's riffs. Stuart: But we're not being reactionary, we're just doing our sort of music because we always wanted to do that sort of thing. And that's why our music takes shape the more we practice. We define our ideas more. Brett: It's got to the point now where I'd rather listen to us than just about anything else. I listen to other things and I just like bits and pieces. Stuart: I'm always disappointed when I hear most records, at how limited their imagination is. (Stu is handed a "Best of '87" Top 10, from a LA radio station, which lists the 'GOAT at number 4). Listen to this, "The Devil's Music - LUBRICATED GOAT, twisted Australian swamp grunge from a band named after a type of condom." (laughter) That's not a very apt description, you couldn't call us swamp grunge. Brett: Twisted, yeah. Stuart: From my point of view, as a I've tried to do all these things with guitars that are unrelated to the blues. I like the blues as much as the next bloke (laughter from Guy) but I'd rather hear musicians playing it, not ex-punks. I actually feel that I know more about music than most people I hear in bands that are like that. I hear them playing wrong notes and really pathetic imitations of blues riffs... Brett: Pathetic "Johnny B Goode" riffs ... Stuart: ... and it makes me fuckin' sick to hear 'em. Brett: You get Johnny Thunders rehashing riffs and then you get other people rehashing Johnny Thunders. Johnny Thunders is boring. Stuart: He's... er... different, but he's very limited. I can't talk to people unless I like their music. If I go around to someone's house and I look through their record collection and I see a few things in there that I don't like, then I just sit there, lookin' at them, when they're not lookin' at me, for the rest of the night thinking "you fuckin' dickhead" (much laughter). Pete: It's unfortunate that some people don't take music as like going to the cinema or something. They have music on while they're doing something else and it's just something to put a wash over the white spaces. They don't actually step into it and enjoy music as the whole thing. *They don't take music as 'music', it's just something else to do the washing to. Stuart: Yeah, and you get people who listen to certain things, and they say, "I really like this music", and you say, "Yeah, well that sums you up" (laughter). Anyone that likes The Smiths or Boy George or any of that crap. Brett: I like The Smiths. Stuart: No, you don't! Brett: Yes, I do. Stuart: You're out of the band then. Brett: No, you can print that I like The Smiths, because they amuse me so much. It's pure entertainment for me. Stuart: Yeah, it's turned full circle, we hear The Smiths on the radio and we roar with laughter. Brett: (In a voice somewhere between Morrisey and Kermit The Frog) "Shyness is gooood, a da da-da da-da". Stuart: (In similar Morrisey/Kermit tone) "It's 1988 and a man can wear a dress if he wants to, de da da-da da-da" (lots of laughs). *That description does say 'twisted', does twisted apply? Stuart: Yeah, we twist things. What's it say again, "twisted Australian swamp grunge", it isn't actually saying we're swamp grunge but it says that we twist it. I don't feel that we're doing anything with swamp grunge. It's as if to say we're influenced by the SCIENTISTS and that kind of thing. I never used to listen to the SCIENTISTS, I'm not influenced by the SCIENTISTS. Brett: I haven't even heard them. Stuart: I listened the CRAMPS as a passing fad, but our music couldn't be more removed from that sort of thing, bands trying to play really simplistic music. I'm not really into playing simplistic music. Pete: I think she's just used "grunge" to mean "grunty", but there's an infinite amount of music you can use and put grunt to it. So "grunge" is an infinite thing. Stuart: The best Australian band I've ever seen is THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, and they're the only Australian band I think that could ever have possibly influenced me. And our music is not like theirs. Brett: I reckon the best Australian band is a toss up between AC/DC and ROSE TATTOO. Stuart: We appreciate the power of AC/DC and the first ROSE TATTOO album only the first album. But other than that I don't think I was influenced by any Australian music. There are no Australian guitarists that I think are very good. Brett: Angus. Stuart: Oh yeah, Angus, and Peter Wells. Pete: He's pretty straight though, he's just got a nice fuzz box. Stuart: I've never seen him with his pants off. Pete: Every thing sounds so much better if you play it loud and grunty. Grunt is a mean thing, it's a really nice thing. It's power. And adding power to music is really good. *That's not purely volume though. Pete: No, it's just a really nice sound. If you record a guitar and an amp that's hurting, and then you play the recording really softly, it sounds really nice. Stuart: I don't think there's anything that you would call "swamp" or "grunge" or anything like that. It hasn't got much blues in it. There might be a bit of distortion. Live, there's the grunge that accidently occurs, like when the soap suds get caught in the bottom of the sink. That's what grunge, I think, is, when people leave hair in the top of the drain. Brett: The hardest thing to do is just say what we are. People ask what sort of music we are and I can't tell them. Stuart: That's because we don't model ourselves on anybody. They said here that the PRIMEVILS were "Surrealist rock". That's not a bad little definition. I'd like to think we were "surrealist rock". Brett: What do you reckon we are? *If I had to describe you, I'd probably say, "it's rock'n'roll that's been pretty severely warped". Guy: That's a pretty good definition. *Do you want to do the standard, "You've got a new album coming out" stuff? Stuart: "Paddock Of Love" by the LUBRICATED GOAT! Brett: It's the hi-tech GOAT. *How many songs? Stuart: Eleven, I think. Brett: We used a sampler on it... Guy: German choirs, string sections... Stuart: Hear a drug deal actually taking place in one of the songs! Hear glass breaking before your very ears. We had more time to record it than the last one. We ended up recording lots of stuff, overdubbing stuff, that ended up being stripped down to make the songs more basic. We spent a lot of money recording this record, but we learnt a lot. Brett: Things that are effective live aren't always effective in the studio, and vice versa. Stuart: We just want to be able to put out records a bit quicker unfortunately. We've got so many songs recorded for the new one, there's already four left over that can't fit on. Brett:And we just wrote three new ones tonight. Guy: And have a couple of new ones anyway. Stuart: So we've got enough songs for another album already. It's frustrating. By the time the next album, comes out we'll probably have another ten songs. Pete: All these people who have jobs and things like that... Guy: Like the other three members of the band! (laughter). Pete: ... repetitive things, and are confronted with 3D every day. What they can do is put our records on and just zoom right out of that and fragment (much hysterical laughter). Stuart: We've been playing all the songs on this album, live, for awhile. the frustrating thing is that there are songs that we've been playing for just as long that still won't even be on this one. So already by the time it comes out we'll be playing songs that people can't buy on a record. *Would you describe your music as "thinking music", as opposed to "feeling music"? Brett: Both. It's definitely both. Stuart: In a live situation, where you can't hear the lyrics, the music obviously hits you in a feeling sort of way. But if you can hear the lyrics and the music that's meant to complement them, then that aspect of it is thinking music. *I meant from within the band, rather than the audience. It seems like you'd have to have a pretty good idea of what's going on. Stuart: Oh yeah. It's not the sort of band that you can have two rehearsals and just play. Pete: It's tight, but what's going on is basically what we feel. We feel what's being going on, what's been planned what's going on, and we feel our way around it as well. Brett: It's being tight in the way of... it's almost like ESP between musicians. Stuart: But at the same time you've got to know basically when things are gonna change. Guy: You're full-on concentrating. I'm sure I must look like a bit of a blithering idiot when I'm playing. I don't mind being portrayed as that, but it doesn't mean I'm just standing there going "der der der der". You've gotta concentrate. It's more complex music than I've ev-er played before. It's finely tuned. Brett: There's the knack of being tight and sounding loose, and then there's the knack of being loose but sounding tight. You get to the point of fine control after you've been playing with someone for long enough. Pete: What you need, when you're playing live, is to create the party. That's all that's important. Just to create a good feeling, a vibe that goes all around the whole audience and bounces back and hits you in the face. You feel really good and you play even better. Stuart: Someone actually said to me once that we were creating negative vibes - it was the hippy-ish way he said it - I took \ it as a compliment. But I want to play music that's more of a good time for people. Not just being really "wacky" or whatever. We don't really have much doom and gloom. *No, it's powerful, but it's more 'up' powerful, not grind you down. Brett: We've been making a conscious effort to make it more up. A lot of people think it's evil and depressing because of the name too. *Yeah, I know at least one person that freaks out because of the name. Brett: I know a few people. I think it's hilarious when they get freaked out about it, but they still do. It's a shame really because those people will probably never come to see us. Pete: It's really nice to be freaked out though. It's a nice thing to have happen to you. It's important to be freaked out every now and then. Brett: Anybody who'd think that we're really evil is a bit... Guy: They're obviously disturbed by the name if they're going to say something about it; so that's not a very nice thing. But then again, you'd have to be a bit of a twit to be disturbed by something like that. Stuart: Our name, and the attitude that we have in relation to that which is behind it, is made to effect people as much as it does, basically, and no more. Or maybe even more (laughter). As much as what these people might read into it is intended as what they would probably receive - without us actually performing satanic rituals or whatever - relative elements are there in a certain kind of alchemy to confront them in that way. Guy: It's an interesting name. Brett: The only thing that I think about our name is it's better to have a shock reaction from someone than no reaction at all. Pete: Our name doesn't suggest any music really. Brett: It's definitely memorable. It got in Smash Hits' "Silliest Names". Guy: We got mentioned three times in Smash Hits in one issue, just because of our name. Stuart: If people think that our name suggests that we're evil, then as far as they're concerned we are evil. We're about as evil as we need to be for their purposes (laughter) to make them wake up a bit and realize how silly they're being by being anything else by the same measures. Because it's all just a put-on. People that use, say for example, Christianitv as a crutch are just putting it on in as much as we might perhaps put on some devilish act. Pete: Christianity as a crotch! (laughter). *(Quoting from a copy of Smash Hits passed over by Guy) "the outfit who've scored more mentions in Smash Hits in recent times than Tiffany, Kylie Minogue and Patrick Swayze combined!" Brett: See, it's a good name isn't it! *"it was impossible to tell if they were utterly hopeless or really quite good" Stuart: Mmm. Did you know that bestiality is anyway, the last sexual perversion to come out of the closet? After incest being exposed for the last year or two, and people coming to terms with incest and all that sort of thing, people still haven't come out of the closet about bestiality. Pete: That's because animals can't talk. Stuart: Yeah. So our name is basically bringing them out of the closet. "Bestiality perverts, come out of the closet!" We're facing it. Facing that issue. Pete: Rights for goats. Stuart: See, people lure goats into sex acts through the guise of it being some magical thing. Some bloke claims to be a warlock and he takes a few goats into a paddock... Guy: ... the goat being the image of the devil. Stuart: ... and the goats enjoy the idea that there's some sort of black magic thing happening (much laughter), because they've always been associated with that sort of thing, and they get a kick out of it. And the bloke usually isn't a warlock at all, he's just leading the goats down there and all he wants to do is have sex with them. And he says "to invoke the Devil, I have to have sex with you , young goat" (more laughter...) And so the goats have sex with the man and no magical thing happens whatsoever... Guy: Except on a personal level (more laughter...) Stuart: And it was just some horny animal fucker leading the goat on and the goat feels cheated afterwards (still more laughter...). So, what we're doing, by being the LUBRICATED GOAT, is getting to root a few goats (more laughter...) by claiming to be the Devil and all that... and we have one night where we suck in a few people that come to our gigs, gather in my room, light a few candles and have an altar and that, and then we tell these girls that we're wizards and all this stuff, and we slaughter a goat and eat it on a spit, and we claim that we'll perform acts of sex magic and they can attain things that they desire, and all we're doing is just leading them on so we can have sex with them (considerable laughter...). And we put on our record to conduct the ritual, because that's the right demonic music (Brett in hysterics by now). That's what we're all about. That's what our music's for. We made the records so that we can put them on at these mock satanic rituals purely so we can have sex with all these young Gothic girls. They stay up speeding all night and they see themselves as witches, they say, "I'm a witch", and you go, "Oh that's good, I'm a wizard!" Brett: "A wizard? Show us your wizzer!" (people rolling around the floor by now). Stuart: And they like it, you know. They get into it. The girls get a thrill out of it, we get a thrill out of it, that's what it's all about. And then if they're lucky I give them one of my sculptures of Alastair Crowley to take home as a booby prize. *Is there anything else you want known about the 'GOAT? Stuart: Um, well if they want to come to one of those sort of do's, approach us after the gigs and bring a six pack.