By John Tingwell, Australia May 26, 1998

That's the only difference between 'them' and us, and it is the variations of these of these reactions that we demand to be entertained by. The Simpler the reaction, it seems, the more commercially viable the ensuing entertainment, and the more obscure... well, you know what i'm on about.

BUT to drop this fluffing around with metaphor and four-schooner-philosophy, bands who experiment with their form of entertainment are not usually the wealthiest souls of the planet. Take San Francisco's Secret Chiefs, who, like The Residents before them, hold up a cracked and wobbly mirror to society rather then the rose-tinted version most chart-toppers promote. But, according to Secret Chief chief, Trey Spruance, theirs is not a deliberate reaction to the norm.

"IN America everything's so completely saturated at the moment," say Spruance, who also with Faxed Head and Mr Bungle. "In San Francisco at the moment, if you're no playing pop/punk you really don't fit in. Even though in America there is an audience for the kind of stuff we play, it's so difficult to convince promoters to do anything with it because there's no press for it and there's generally no support for it."

TO be very briefly put you in the aural picture here, the Secret Chiefs' latest album Second Grand Constitution and Bylaus is fuelled with a disparate cocktail of styles with bizarre surf music and Arabic and Hindi sounds being the basis of the mixture. The production is not always pleasant on the lughole and there is an overall sense that Spruance and Co have a healthier regard for the intelligence of their audience.

SAN Francisco, with it's small 'I' liberal political, social and artistic history should, you would imagine, take to the Secret Chiefs lovingly.

"IT'S so much better to come here to Australia because the audiences and press and promoters are so much more open. They're not so obsessed with the norm. San Francisco has been a liberal place in the past. Most of the people I know and work with in the city you would describe as extremists, but they've all been driven out in the last year or so. The whole place is changing so fast. It's becoming more of a yuppie playground which is okay but the downside of that is that so many people have had to move away. There are a few people holding out but they don't have much support. Actually, it's kind of lame all over the United States at the moment."

WHAT do you attribute that to? Are people more interested in the sexual prowess of the President, a flagging economy?

"I THINK in general the U.S. economy is really good at the moment, but it think it's only good for some people and really hard for others. We're lucky because we can travel and extend our audience."

THE fact that the three main Chiefs - Trevor Dunn, Danny Heifetz and Spruance - are also three of Mr Bungles boys would add to their notoriety. "Oh, sure, it helps but we try not to be too gross about it and we try to down-play it. Even though there is a huge difference between us and Mr Bungle I'm really hoping that people will like what we do who don't necessarily like what Mr Bungle does."

ALWAYS with music or art that nudges at the bounds of the standard, there is a fine line between providing an audience with meaningful entertainment and completely alienating that audience. When you think about it, The Secret Chiefs are performing on the same stage as Green Day or even Mariah Carey. Does Spruance ever enjoy being 'experimental' for the hell of it? "

"I NEVER feel like we're just being weird for the hell of it. I never think to myself, 'Gosh, how are we going to alienate half the world?'. We've just given ourselves the opportunity to be free with our music."