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Lubricated Goat in case you didn't know are unlike any other Australian band you've heard (that is assuming you've heard one to begin with) and if it weren't for Stuart "Spasm" Gray there wouldn't be a Lubricated Goat. Blame it on others or assume he is an asshole, Goat lineups have varied. Some say its because Stuart has/is a dictorial dick of an ego and is tough to deal with, but then again we're talking about a guy whose real handle is Elvis Hitler (and please, I ain't refering to the duff Michigan outfit).Regardless, these things make him no less the visionary, if anything they emphasize it.

Lubricated Goat, as those "in the know" will tell you make music that is quite often compared to the Butthole Surfers. I'd like to say that they're better than that.

Lubricated Goat have several pieces of vinyl for you to listen to, and the best part for those of you, as yet uninitated is is that most of these discs are readily available: (in order of release) ... Plays The Devils Music & the Paddock of Love LPs, the Schadenfruede mini-LP a contribution to the latest Dope Guns & Fucking in the Streets Vol. 4 and their most recent exploit, a single for Sub Pop.

In a perfect world Lubricated Goat wouldn't need any introduction. That "perfect world" would also be a planet of Stuart's design wherein every household, cave and dwellin& people smoked or chewed on bizzarre roots - maybe even some dirt - and just generally altered their synapses' on a daily basis; a tucked up place no less, but hey no more tucked up than it already is, right?

Lubricated Goat are like too many bad drugs going to the "right" people/purpose, but hey, when your satelite dish signal bounces into your living room via The Golden Triangle what could one really expect anyway? Shine the Toohey's (tm) induced stupor and forget all about the ready availability of various opiates and their derivites though, the real culprit's called "The Telly!'' That's right, funny as it may sound, Stuart and his bunch of OZ miscreants have been addled by too many episodes of Boob Tube American Style: Dallas, Barnaby Jones, Cannon, Lancelot Link etc.. you name it. Oh, and not to forget, their own brand of Australian Videodrome damage.....

YF: So what's the deal with the TV personality on the posters (swell looking, multicolored silkscreened affairs used to promote the annual "'Sausage Meet," a festival of like minded bands held in Sydney)?

Stu: Who, Bernard King?

YF: Yeah.

Stu: He's been doing a running job with us for years. He's this judge on this talent show. He"s a gourmet chef and he's really vicious and really, funny when he comes and puts on these things. He also fancies himself as a bit of a nightclub performer, he sort of talks his way through these things, he can't really sing and he just rips the shit outta people.

YF: Was the label (Black Eye) more or less designed for you guys and some other bands or for you guys specifically and then it just grew from there?

Stu: Black Eye?

YF: Yeah, how did Black come eye come about?

Stu: Well, John Foy first started Red Eye and the first records he put out were from Salamander Jim, a band that me and Martin (Bland) were in . He also put out a single by James Baker, who used to be in the Hoodoo Gurus, me and Tex played on that, the James Baker Experience. Then he had all of these other bands that were sort of pop bands that wanted to use it as sort of a launch pad.

YF: So how long has this line-up been together?

Stu: This lineup, about two months.

YF: When was the band formed originally?

Stu: It sort of goes back about eight years. You know how I told you yesterday about all those songs I wrote years ago? I had this band in Melbourne and Brett Ford was the original drummer, and he had all these songs, and then it sort of jumps about four years 'cause that band sort of folded up and then we put something else together when we were in England and that sort of came to a halt when we left, and we finally started to do something in Australia. I had this band that really couldn't play very well, and we started to do some of the songs. Then I tried to get Brett to move to Sydney to be in the band and then I went to Perth and recorded the first half of the first album that we did, and then I came back via Adelaide and recorded the second half of the album in Adelaide.

YF: Wasn't the second side recorded in someone's living room or something?

Guy: It was recorded at Martin's.

Stu: After we recorded that we took the tape to John Foy and that was when he started Black Eye. He put out our record and the stuff that Lachlan put together for the Waste Sausage album. Then he eventually managed to get Brett and Peter Hartley to move to Sydney to form a proper band called the Lubricated Goat.

YF: So what are those two guys doing now?

Stu: Hartley's in a band with Guy.

Guy: He plays drums, he's switched to drums, so has Ren. He was also in a band called the Butcher Shop with Tex and Lachlan.

Stu: And Brett runs a trendy clothing shop. He's not allowed to play in bands, his wife won't let him and he had to leave our band and go back with his wife.

YF: So, what do you call that in Australia, mommy-coddled or pussy-whipped?

Guy: Pussy-whipped.

Stu: He has a band now. He wants them to be Motley Crue, but they're more into being sort of standard, being sort of Detroit...

YF: That's sort of common in Australia, that sound...

Guy: Yeah, in Sydney.

Stu: We drove past his job recently and you could see Brett and his band standing up in front and they all had their new clothes on, that they saw in the shop, and that's what he wanted us to do.

Guy: He's finally found someone that he could dress up.

YF: Which is?

Stu: I can't remember their name.

Martin: Rattlesnake Shake.

Guy: That's a bit of a groovy name.

Stu: And now they're sponsoring the Hitmen and stuff like that like "'Wheels & Doll Baby presents the Hitmen". and they take 'em and dress 'em all up.

YF: Is this the same shop where you put your sculptures on consignment?

Stu: I used to when they had it in Perth, I used to a bit when they had it in Sydney, but now they're too cold...

Guy: They're bigger than than.

Stu: Well, I used to work there.

YF: So, how'd you happen upon the name of the band?

Stu: I think Lachlan suggested it. We asked if he had any names like Cheatin' Parrot and then he found an antonym, Leather Moustache.

Guy: Orthopedic Supplies [much laughter].

YF: So where were your heads at, at this time thinking of names?

Stu: Well, he"s just good at thinking up names. He put out a list of really bad names, but Lubricated Goat's one of the better ones.

YF: So with the Lubricated Goat you can more or less put a theme around it so to speak.

Stu: Yeah. Well, we managed to sort of justify the name other than the most obvious joke of somebody fucking a goat. It's got all these connotations that really work.

Guy: Lubricated Goat - Slippery Devil.

Stu: Lachlan's helped other bands with names as well, and sometimes he thinks up such a good name that you have to form a band to use it even if you only play once.

YF: Its also a good medium to use to nose up Bible-thumpers and things like that.

Guy: Oh yeah, definitely. You've seen the record covers; they're not to be taken seriously, but I'm sure people are annoyed by them.

Stu: On the compilations, we especially think up a name for a band and form a band to do one song, and put it on the album.

YF: Like Furry Men of The North.

Stu: Yeah. My alias is The Cunt because I wanted to call our second album The Cunt and have a picture of myself on the front, but it didn't happen and now I just do little songs by that name on the comps.

YF: Do you have a lot of heavy-handed decency laws in Australia?

Stu: They can refuse to print certain words on the record covers or refuse to listen to the recordings, when the test-pressings come back and they say, "'we can't listen to this."

Guy: We're too offensive.

Stu: They want stickers on the albums and stuff like that. There's a "Made in Australia" sticker over the penises on the back of the Waste Sausage compilation. It all adds to the fun, really. You know, throw in some nude boys to shock somebody. We've got this rep for being anally retentive and all this sort of stuff.

YF: As if your minds were in the gutter somehow.

Stu: Well, usually the first questions people ask us in interviews are about our records.

Guy: There must be something about Black Eye records that makes people think all the songs are about shitting and pissing.

Stu: The people think we're so puerile that they wouldn't want to see that there's a proper band behind it.

Guy: They think we're just a "shit, piss, vomit" kind of band.

Stu: They still write about the label, instead of an article about us or Thug, or the compilation.

YF: They lump you all together, you a little angry about that?

Guy: It's just that we're different, Thug are nothing like us, they're a fantastic band, they're my favorites, but they're nothing like us, and the compilation is different as well.

YF: So how many lineup changes have you had?

Stu: Well, every time the drummer left or anything like that happened, someone else would begin to play.

YF: So would it be unfair to say that all the lineup changes are because of you and your ego?

Stu: Yeah

Guy: Hey, that's not true!

Stu: Yeah, it would be unfair to say that, that, what I mean.

YF: Unfair?

All: Yeah.

Guy: Ive been in for three years.

Stu: It's because of the people that managed to get in the band who went from being sort of acid culture to fucking drug addicts, to people who couldn't play, to fucking who knows.

Guy: Gene's a funny one. How would you describe Gene? He's not a drug addict.

Stu: Well, the music wasn't fast enough for him. This is for example, Gene (Revet) is the drummer on our new album. He's in a band with his neighbours called the Space Juniors. He played with us for about nine months and the music wasn't fast enough for him. That band just broke up, the Space Juniors. The singer poked the guitarist's eye out with a carrot. [Laughter]

YF: Really?

Guy: The singer attacked the guitar player with a carrot in the tour bus.

Stu: They write songs about food they're not allowed to eat. There's a song called "Spinach" and another one called "Milo." They're sort of Ramones-ish, but they're trying to act dumber than the Ramones.

Guy: They're very childlike. They've got one song that just goes "Yeah!"

Stu: They're a mix of vegetarians and they had all these carrots in the van, and there's Mick and his brother on one side and Gene and the guitarist on the other side, and they'd always gang up on each other. Probably, Gene and Carl were just sitting there and Carl set on Mick for about an hour and Mick couldn't stand it for any longer and he attacked him with the carrot - a deadly weapon!

YF: So what about those lineup changes?

Stu: Well, we've got the drummer not being allowed to play anymore because his wife won't let him and then we've got another guitarist who that drummer actually gave his first mushroom trip to, and he was just starting to get to that psychedelic stage and he was a good guitarist with good ideas but he just suddenly started going wheeee and it was farewell to him, because he just sort of... you know.

Guy: He's all right now.

Stu: Yeah, he's come back down again, but he just took off for a journey around his mind when he was in our band.

YF: What inspired "Jason The Unpopular"? (first song on side one of the Goat's first album)

Stu: There's a Jason who I met shortly after the record came out and he comes round to our house so we'd introduce him to people round the bar. It's not a very flattering song to write about someone that you know.

Guy: We had a drummer named Jason.

Stu: It's just about someone having really bad dope, really.

YF: I just thought there was a general incident or something that inspired if at the time.

Guy: There's no particular Jason, is there?

YF: Were you having a particularly bad day yourself?

Stu: It's certainly not about me.

YF: Walking through the park and the birds were talkin' to you.

Stu: As it happened, we were just mucking around with this four-track and I wrote those lyrics really quickly and just put them to this song. We had a drum machine and sort of added guitars. We recorded eight songs in one day, that was one of them.

YF: So what sort of responsibility do you claim for the lyrical content?

Stu: Well, I wrote all the ones on the first two records, but Guy's started to write some now.

YF: I mean what sort of responsibility do you claim towards the potential listener and the reaction she or he might have. Do you feel any moral obligation there? Stu: No.

Guy: If someone wants to listen to something that makes them feel better, they can.

YF: Pretentious Question #48: Are you going to go commerical?

Stu: Half the reason our original drummer, Brett, stayed in it for so long is because he thought we were going to go commercial and December came around and he said, "Are we going to go commercial next year?" as sort of a joke and his wife was really looking forward to it. Then it was January and we were still doing the same thing, and his wife just sort of looked at me as if I was wearing something she didn't like and then she goes, "You're not going commercial!" as if we'd been leading Brett on for such a long time. Straight after that he left, he feared it was going to be the same thing forever.

YF: The group did somewhat recently have sort of a brief spot with potential commercial success on a TV show, right?

Guy: No, not really.

YF: How did that come about?

Guy: They rang us up and asked us if we'd do it and it just seemed to fit in with the song we were gonna do, it just seemed to be a good thing to do, for the Goat to go national. Bruce Griffiths actually wanted us to do it. He works for the show that we went on. He's the Ambiance Consultant.

Stu: It came about through people getting the wrong idea because sometimes when you get nude you get a free beer and there's also another band that used to play in the nude sometimes and hearing about this and how it gets twisted, it came about that they thought we were gonna play nude on this show, and actually we don't play nude, but we said that we could, we all had to agree to it. Nude to the world!

YF: Buck naked.

Stu: We really couldn't hide behind our guitars. It was hilarious.

Guy: But that wasn't really a flirt with commercialism.

YF: But you have to admit that playing in front of all those eyeballs, that the possibility was there.

Guy: Yeah, but we played that song "In The Raw" and it's not really accessible on short listen. There's a section on the ABC called "Backchat" with people writing in and one whole day of it. It's only about a ten-minute show and it was all of these people writing in about us and discussing what a disgusting, abhorrent noise we made and things like that.

Stu: We didn't get any money out of it. You don't need to go commerical if you already get to go on TV and all that sort of stuff.

YF: Did you have any expectations in coming over here?

Stu: Well, we knew what it would be like from the TV.

YF: What do you mean?

Stu: We've had it blitzed at us through the TV for such a long time that the screen just sort of opened and sucked us in.

Guy: It's exactly as we expected. That's why we came.

This interview rapidly disintegrates into three different conversations about gun control, Bloodloss and sculpture. Thank you is also in order for Criss Keiser for transcribing this - the audio quality was harsh! Thanks for dealing with it.

Since the publication of this piece it has come to our attention that anew album is on its way this Fall, and according to Stuart the money for studio time was donated courtesy of Polygram Records of Australia. The record however will be released simultaneously here by Amphetamine Reptile (who else?). The title is Psvchedelicatessen . The lineup that toured here last year (Stu, Martin, Ren & Guy) is intact with the exception of Guy who reportedly got into fisticuffs with Stuart and as a result was sacked. His replacement is Lachlan, formerly of Thug. The Goat will be touring with this lineup stateside for the month of October '90 and will end Halloween night in Seattle. For those of you interested in seeing the band play your town write to Amphetamine Reptile, Attention booking department, 2541 Nicollet Ave. S. Mpls. Mn. 55404