{Originally appeared in expurgated form in FRISBEE magazine, 1998. Full version first appeard in DUCK FAT #2, 1999.]
Ron Hitler Barassi: Ron Hitler Barassi here, how are you Adam?
Adam Ford: Good thanks.
RHB: Where are you from, Adam?
AF: Um, I�m calling from North Fitzroy.
RHB: (laughs) Oh, right. I thought you were going to say New York or... North Fitzroy, eh? I�ll have to talk to my record company.
AF: Good lord. Where are you calling from?
RHB: Well, you called me, mate. North Fitzroy to St. Kilda, it�s a fuckin� long way, isn�t it? Let�s talk international rock scene here.
AF: We could get two tin cans and a very long piece of string and achieve the same thing, couldn�t we?
RHB: I tell you what, mate, I thought North Fitzroy was a pooncey, latt�-drinking, inner-city pencil-necked black polo-necked intellectual type place. What the fuck are you doing interviewing TISM? What are you slumming it with TISM for?
AF: Well, you know, we all like to bring that cutting-edge irony into the whole thing...
RHB: (groans) Right.
AF: And we like to disprove the myths every now and then.
RHB: You mean slum it with the proletariat just to show that you�re in with the guy who works for your father.
AF: Yeah, well there has to be some reason that the commission flats have never been razed. We like to have that aesthetic �ghetto� element happening.
RHB: That�s a fuckin� good point, you know. Did anyone who�s ever moved to North Fitzroy not fuckin� go to a private school? That�s what shits me - the fuckin� Big Issue and that shit. It�s the best writing in magazines because all the kids are private-school fuckin� educated! I reckon they should put out a state-school only journo mag... Oh, they do already. That�s the Herald Sun.
AF: Can I jump into some questions here?
RHB: Yeah, go for it.
AF: I wanted to ask what your experience with interviews has been, because it was only with the release of Machiavelli and the Four Seasons that you started doing interviews. Have you found that the interviews have been an attempt by the interviewer to either out-funny or out-clever you?
RHB: Look, I tell you what, that�s an excellent point. It�s wearin� off now, but initially... It�s all so yuk-yuk-yuk-yuk-yuk, you know? We find when interviewers or journalists don�t like us, they fuckin� don�t like us with a passion. When we get a bad record review, and we�re getting a disturbing... no, not a disturbing amount, a gratifying amount of good reviews, but when we get a bad one, you can tell that the person who�s writing the bad review is really loving writing it. They�re not writing it out of a sense of pity or disappointment, it�s not a fan who gets your record and thinks �I really wanted this to be a good record, but it�s bad�, its a real sense of malicious glee. I suppose you give what you get. We�re smartarses, we�re wordy smartarses, that�s part of our schtick to be the wordy smartarse satirists, but quite often that�s steppin� all over a journalist�s territory. A rock journalist, well some rock journalists, especially some reviewers, that�s their whole thing, it�s �I�m the sort of wordy smartarse journalist who can take the sound of any band and pigeonhole them. I�ve worked it out.� Their whole thing is �I�ve worked this one out.� With us, they really, really... I reckon they should just write, �Look, we don�t really care about the music much, but I just want to tell the members of TISM that we�ve worked you out and you�re not smarter than us.� You know? �I got a bigger VCE score than you�, that�s what they should write. �I got 100% in English, and you only got a B+. Suck on that one!�
AF: Are you finding any sycophancy in reviews?
RHB: What the fuck? Have you actually been doing some research here, Adam? Yes, there are some... I gotta tell you that I would be a liar to say that I don�t like - that�s a double negative there, you�re going to have to read that back. I like sycophantic reviews. I�m a slut. I like good reviews and I don�t like bad reviews, there you go. I mean, reviews don�t change my opinion. At all. About what we do, about my band. It�s very rare that I read a review, either sycophantic or overly critical, and think, �Oh that�s something new. That�s something I haven�t thought of. That�s a new insight that helps me to do what I do as a person in a band.�
AF: Is that what you want in a review?
RHB: It�s very rare that you get an insight from a reviewer. Good point, you should probably never expect that from a review. But given that a review is never going to change my opinion, I would prefer sycophantic and slavishly adoring to critical. Just like when I park in the city, I prefer not to get a parking ticket at the end of the day, compared to getting a parking ticket. A bad review is like a parking ticket. Everyone knows you�ve gotta drive a car, sometimes you get a parking ticket - that�s part of driving a car, and you just shrug it off. But it�s better the days you don�t get a ticket. But you�re right, there�s been a little bit of sycophantic reviewing, but we get so many reviews that say, �Well this is a fair album,� but I really liked Truckin� Songs better� and you think, �That�s all very well, pal, but back in the Trucking Songs days nobody was saying that, they were all slaggin� us off.� With Truckin� Songs, everyone�s saying, �Oh, it�s nearly as good as Truckin� Songs� and I suppose that�s right, but nobody said that when Truckin� Songs was out.
AF: Maybe you should re-release Trucking Songs. With a different cover.
RHB: Yeah, re-release Trucking Songs and just put a little bit of trip-hop in the background.
AF: For the kids.
RHB: Mind you, Tricky�s done that.
AF: Tricky did a remix of a TISM song?
RHB: Oh, I reckon Tricky�s just a... Actually I was on the phone to Cairns before and Telecom fucked up and all you could hear was your own voice echoing back to you five minutes later, and I thought, �Far out, Telecom could release this.� My favourite band�s suddenly become Telecom. Great bunch of guys - a lot of guys in the band, but they make a lot of money.
AF: And they have to split the door two million ways.
RHB: That�s right, yeah.
AF: Speaking of the backlash, so to speak, you always said in press releases that TISM would get crappier and crappier with time, and that you would hit a point where you were so crappy that you could become popular. Once you brought the trip-hop� and the techno into it, with Machiavelli, you� had a chart breakthrough. Were you surprised that your prediction was accurate?
RHB: Oh, I dunno. It becomes a bit wearying for us all, for critic and fan and person in the band, this whole �TISM are a bunch of mischievous cynical ultra-intelligent scammers who are just playing the industry like a fiddle� thing. We�re just blokes in a rock band. We�re out there in a rock band, making a pop record that, whether you agree or disagree, has got some sort of 1998 sensibility about it, and to construct out of our identity some sort of mischievous endlessly-reflecting mirror-upon-mirror-back-to-infinity scamming media-manipulation - I think that�d be wrong.
AF: But you do posit yourselves as a fairly socially aware band. Contemporary culture is often reflected in TISM�s music.
RHB: You�re damn right there, Adam. Our position, both to the industry and the audience, is a position of satire. Our position to ourselves is a position of satire. It does get tiresome when you�re not granted that as a legitimate position. It annoys me. I don�t mind if you don�t like TISM. I don�t mind if you don�t like the music. I do mind if the position that we take, which is one of satire, is seen as the equivalent of a joke band. Suddenly you�re Weird Al Yankovic. You give what you get, we crap on all the time and claim Peter Reith�s in the band. We are a band of premature ejaculators, but nonetheless, satire is as legitimate, I reckon it�s more legitimate than your rarefied aesthetic of Portishead, myself. I think satire is a legitimate stance to take vis-a-vis your audience and your art as any other. If there�s a fuckin� industry crying out for fuckin� satire, I tell you it�s the rock �n� roll industry. Someone�s gotta lay the boot in, and we�re the sort of cowardly pricks who�ll do that for you.
AF: With masks on.
RHB: There�s nothing wrong with that, Adam. You�re obviously perceptive enough to realise that the masks aren�t like some huge Krusty the Clown mysterioso cartoon character scam. The whole point of the masks is that the masks are bullshit. The masks immediately give you a position which is one of being in this situation, this theatre, this industry, and out of it. When you�ve got a band with a mask on, you can�t treat �em like you do the guy from Radiohead. There�s a difference between wearin� a mask, where it�s all boom-boom funny Sideshow Bob and wearin� a mask because you don�t want... There�s a sycophantic TISM fan, granted, but there�s also a sycophantic Radiohead fan, and I�d rather have the TISM fans for all their illiteracy.
AF: The interesting thing about the masks is - the few times I�ve seen you guys live, the one that springs to mind more than any is the 1992 Push Over.
RHB: Oh, yeah.
AF: I think you guys came on before..
RHB: Oh, yeah. John... John, er..
AF: John whatsisname from Noiseworks
RHB: Yeah, John Whatsisname was probably his name. What was his name...?
AF: I think it was you and possibly two others from the band got down into the mosh pit and you immediately had your masks ripped off, but as soon as the masks come off, they give them back to you. Once they�ve got it in their hands it�s just a�mask.
RHB: I know! Big fuckin� whoopee! It�s like the same question you get asked, �Who are you?� and you think, alright, I�ll tell you my name. My name is John Cavanagh, I live at Lot 46, Smith Street, Templestowe. I could tell you anything. Who gives a rat�s arse who we are? Big deal. The whole gig with TISM is, take one step to the side or drive fifteen twenty k east or west of North Fitzroy or St. Kilda, and that�s where TISM are. It�s fuckin� irrelevant who we are. It�s our stance that�s important.
AF: So leading on from that, do you think that TISM is a parochial band?
RHB: Yeah. Parochial in the sense of... There�s no problem with being parochial.� There�s a certain universality about it. You know, deep... deep... This is turning into an extremely serious interview, Adam. I was ready to crack some one-liners about Pauline Hanson, but who gives a shit? (laughs) I think there are universal themes to be found in parochialism. I guess there�s universal themes to be found drinking lattes in St. Kilda, but fuck me if there aren�t universal themes to be found doing a right-hand turn into Heatherton road in Nunawading. I don�t mind being parochial if that means talking in the language that most people talk.
AF: More people live out there than they do in the inner city, anyway.
RHB: More people live out there, me fuckin� included! I live and work out there, I was born out there and I�ll fuckin� die out there. Some people are lucky enough to be born in Oxford and they join a band called Radiohead, but other people are born out in the suburbs, and they join a band called TISM because they�re not pencil-necked geeks like Radiohead. I�d be disappointed if... Oh fuck, they�re telling me I�ve gotta end this interview! (aside) A few more minutes? Yeah, that�d be good. (back) Nah, I told �em to call back, fucking cunts, who cares? It�s probably NME or something, pommy bastards.
I don�t know, I�d be disappointed if I Might Be a Cunt, But I�m Not A Fucking Cunt, if those swear words were seen as naughty schoolboy TISM saying naughty words in class. I would like to see it as TISM using words and phrases and concepts that everybody fuckin� uses. I�ve got no problem if I�m in an Australian rock band in 1998 using the Australian idiom. I fuckin� can�t see why that�s fuckin� seen as all of a sudden you�re a poo band. We could all go around and sing about rarefied pencil-necked Oxford aesthetes, but I�m not a pencil-necked Oxford-educated aesthete, so fuck that. They haven�t won the Ashes since about fuckin� 1985, so fuck �em. When it comes to Tricky and Mezzanine and Portishead, my answer is fuck �em.
AF: What�s your response to the claims that you released Cunt and the pornographic videoclip that went with it in order to get off commercial playlists and restore some indie cred to the band?
RHB: Nah, that�s crap. If there�s a downside to releasing I Might Be A Cunt But I�m Not A Fucking Cunt, it�s that we were trying a touch hard to have a cause celebre there. But we liked releasing it, one, because it�s a shit stir. We just sat around and thought wouldn�t it be great to be in a band that release a single called I Might Be A Cunt But I�m Not A Fucking Cunt? I mean, there�s worse things to do than that. At least it�s not a twenty-minute trip-hop single. First of all, we thought it was quite funny, and secondly, I quite like the music and I quite like the lyric. It�s one of the songs I quite like from the album, but you can�t have your cake and eat it too. You can�t release a song called I Might Be A Cunt, But I�m Not A Fucking Cunt and then start complaining that JJJ don�t play it. I�m a bit with JJJ there, if you can�t play it then that�s fine. It sorts the men from the boys, really, the word cunt.
I�ve got no problem with commercial success. This �TISM are a masked bunch of guys who disdain commercial success� is bullshit. I couldn�t give a rat�s arse about artistic purity. Commercial success equals, to me, a big audience, and I love big audiences. Our job as a band is to talk directly to audiences so that they understand what we�re saying. I�m not into this shit where you hear people saying �our lyrics of course could mean anything, people can take them as they like.� I fuckin� mean exactly the opposite. I would hope as a lyricist that you take from our songs exactly what we deliver. We hope to hit you right between the eyes, or whatever part of your anatomy we�re aiming for. I�ve got no problem with big audiences. The problem of course is how to do that without dumbin� down. If you�ve gotta connect with a mainstream audience and to do that you�ve gotta sound like the Screaming Jets, well, there is a bottom line. Like Billy Hughes said, �You can join every party but the Country Party.� There are some things we will not put up with, and that is dumbin� down to the extent that you have to sound like the Screaming Jets. That can go fuck itself.
We find that the trick of it all is to have a large audience and not dumb down too much. It�s very easy to have your nice little exclusive Rhumbaralla�s audience if you�re releasing your jazz-based violin-influenced rock �n� roll, but for me that�s playing tennis without the net, that�s preaching to the converted. My job... no, not my job. My job is a boring outer suburban job. The thing, the challenge, the hard thing, is saying �I want to speak to as many people as possible, I want to say to them something that is meaningful to them without dumbing down.� And if we�ve done that with www.tism.wanker.com, more strength to our arm. And even if we don�t do it, I personally think it�s a worthwhile thing to try and do.
AF: How much dumbing down do you think there�s been of late?
RHB: With TISM? None at all. Some people say �you�re disdaining mainstream success� and then others say �with Machiavelli and the Four Seasons TISM got all this mainstream success�. I think if there�s been a challenge for us since that album, it�s that we now have a wider audience and we want to connect to that audience, not pander to them. Part of the trick is not to worry about it, to switch it all off. If I sit down and write a lyric, if I�m thinking of a large audience, I�d clam up. The trick with writing the lyric is to forget everything for a while, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn�t, it doesn�t. I think it�s the same with the band. When I�m sitting there and Eugene de la Hotcroix Bun is sitting there and J. Cheese is sitting there and someone�s gotta come up with a bassline, if you start thinking of anyone outside that room, you�ve fucked up.
AF: Speaking of gaining a wider audience, what is your response to those who have turned away from the band for selling out?
RHB: Look, Adam, I don�t know if there was a backlash. I personally didn�t feel that. It wasn�t like we were the critical darlings of the avant garde and suddenly we sold out. TISM have never been a cool and groovy band. I have never felt that there�s a whole lot of TISM fans disgusted with our success, like the Mavis�s fans seem to be. God knows why you�d be a Mavis�s fan and how you could be disgusted with anything they do is beyond me, but I haven�t felt - neither from the people I meet or the press - that there�s a sense that TISM have modified their art to play along corporate rock lines.
Sure, there might be some people to think that because it�s absolutely de rigeur for them that as soon as any album gets in the charts it�s gotta be bad. But I�ve got to say that I don�t feel a critical backlash because TISM are suddenly impure, because TISM have never really got a great critical response. The only response we get is that ten years after an album�s released everybody tells us that they love it.
AF: What was your opinion of the two comics that were released by Aaargh! Graphics?
RHB: Oh, well, the blokes from Aaargh! were nice, but there�s a certain kitsch cuteness about comics... The second one, I gotta say I liked it better, it was based on a coupla diatribes that I wrote. TISM and comics, it�s a sort of cutey kitsch clownishness that I�d think twice about before doing again. How can I sit here and whinge that people don�t take us seriously as artists and then we release a coupla fucking comics? I think it was a nice idea at the time, but it�s like the website or what costumes you wear on stage. For the band, it�s all nice and cute and stuff, but it ain�t the main game. The cake is the songs. The cream is the shtick. If the cake�s no good it doesn�t matter how much cream you ladle on it, it�s still shithouse.
AF: Very wise...
RHB: (laughs) �Very wise,� says Adam. Well, I�ve gotta go now, I�ve got another guy waiting.
AF: Okay, thanks. If it�s NME tell them fuck off from me.
RHB: Yeah, I�ll tell them and they�ll say �those arseholes from Frisbee magazine...� But don�t worry, if you�re a small unsuccessful struggling Aussie rag, they�ll say... Oh, actually they hate Australians. British people hate us. You go over there, Nick Cave said it too, you go over there and all of a sudden you�re this larrikin yobbo joke act.
AF: Jesus Christ. What�ll happen to you? You�ll turn into Radiohead or something. It�ll have the opposite effect.
RHB: Now that�d put the wind up your inner-city critics if TISM became the darlings of NME. Some people�d have to shoot themselves, they�d have no idea what to do. You�ve gotta like NME and suddenly you�ve gotta like TISM. My god, that�d be like Bruce Ruxton suddenly admitting he�s gay!
AF: Hey, how did you feel about Bruce�s letter decrying the use of language in I Might Be A Cunt But I�m Not A Fucking Cunt?
RHB: Well, you know, he�s gay and he gives great head. Nah, it�s all too easy to slag off your Bruce Ruxtons. That letter was very politely written. I don�t mind. He looks like a fun guy. He�s totally wrong in everything he says, but that doesn�t stop me liking him. He�s out there working for charity to some extent. The thing that shits me is I don�t like it when he co-opts Australian patriotism and the diggers into his own fascist view of the world.
I don�t wanna beat my own drum, but if you got a set of eighteen-year-old Australian boys charging up a hill in Turkey in 1914, the last people they�d be thinking of would be people like Bruce Ruxton. They were just being a bunch of larrikin Aussie yobbo blokes who would�ve belted you at the drop of a hat. We�re not talking conservative right-wing fascists, they would�ve just been out to screw a girl, get some stinkfinger and kill some Turks.
AF: And that�s why the British hate us.
RHB: Fuckin� Oath.
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