PENNY IKINGER PART TWO

JM: What was the feeling when Louis said he wanted to go solo, or had the Wet Taxis already broken up at that stage?

PI: I think what happened is that Nick Fisher had been approached by the New Christs and I remember him coming around to tell us that he'd been approached by them and that he wanted to start playing with them and that was where he was going to devote his time. Louis at that point thought well if Nick's going to leave then he doesn't want to get another drummer so he might as well go solo.

JM: On that first solo album, there's "Dream Well" which you co-wrote and "Dead End Street In The Lucky Country" which was co-written by Rod Howard [bass player in final line up of Wet Taxis] and a few other songs that the Taxis used to do on stage, so there was some continuity.

PI: Yeah, just different musicians.

JM: You played on the first two of Louis's solo albums and I remember that the band played around a fair bit in Sydney at the time as well, as the "Ego Trippers" for the first album ("Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell") and then as the "Aspersion Caste" for the second album ("A Cast Of Aspersions"). I believe you also toured Europe with Louis at that stage. How was that tour?

PI: We played Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Greece - loved Greece! It was great. Louis was playing to good crowds. That was his first tour with the full band and I don't think he's done that again. After that he's done heaps of tours, but solo or with Charlie Owen, or with just Jim and Nick.

JM: I know he's very popular over there, so presumably there was a much better reception there than here. Although he was pretty big around Sydney at the time of those first two albums as well, wasn't he?

PI: Yeah, we were doing pretty well. It's hard to work all these things out. Certainly with Europe, Louis has had a lot of support, with record companies and stuff as well, which all helps things. He has done well here too in a way, but over there he's had a lot more support from record companies, which translates into getting your music across to more people and his music is very European in a way, whereas in Australia we have this rock tradition for alternative music and he doesn't quite fit in there. Also there are so many more people over there, like in Germany there's what, sixty million people? Even if you're selling "alternative" music, you are going to sell to a lot more people than you are here, even if you're only selling to a small percentage. Does that answer that question?

JM: I was wondering what it was like to be in a big touring band overseas.

PI: Oh, it was excellent! You got treated so well, compared to how you get treated here, because we were an international band, not just the shitkickers from down the road.

JM: So after those first two albums, you moved to Melbourne?

PI: Yes and then Louis did "Letters To A Dream", which I loved but which had no guitar on it. Then he did some "Louis and Charlie" stuff for a while. I think "Cry Against The Faith" was the next one and I did most of the guitar on that except for maybe one song, which Charlie played on. That was the first album that I've done with Louis where I've done the bulk of the guitar playing. On the other albums, I didn't do a lot; Charlie did the bulk of it really.

JM: How do you find working with the two guitar setup when you and Charlie both play with Louis?

PI: With Charlie? It's great. I love it, because I learn a lot and he's a great guitar player.

JM: Do you have to adjust your own playing, compared with when you play with Louis on your own?

PI: I've never really had any problems, because I've done a lot of work with other guitar players. In Wet Taxis there was Simon Knuckey and then there was Jason [Kain] and then I've done a lot of work with Charlie, so I've never really had any problems, either slipping into the role of "first guitar" or "second guitar". To me it's all just music and it's just another challenge and I like trying to fit my style around the music and into the song. I try to create a theme or a sound for the song, so if you've got another guitar as well you just sort of work around what they're doing. For me that's just part of the whole process and it's fun and it doesn't worry me if there's another guitar, or there isn't, as long as I like the guitar player. I mean Charlie is fantastic, but I wouldn't be playing with any guitar player if I didn't like their playing.

JM: Can we talk about some of the other bands you've been in, because I've seen a lot of names and some of them I just don't know the band at all. One that comes up a fair bit is Kings of the World.

PI: That was initiated by Janine Hall, who used to play bass in the Saints years ago and then she went on to play with Weddings, Parties, Anything. I can't even remember what year that was, maybe '88 or '89. Mary-Ellen Stringer, who sang some of the backing vocals on Louis's records, was the singer.

Another girl, Karen Stanton, played keyboards and we'd have changing drummers. We only did a little bit of recording, but nothing really got released. The only thing that was released was something on the Triple J or Double J, whatever it was then, "Young Blood" compilation. That was it, just one song, but we did do demos and stuff.

JM: What about the Skolars?

PI: Never played in them. That is in one of those rock books, but it's not true.

JM: Red Dress?

PI: That was initiated by Cathy Green, who played drums in X. She started Red Dress with Mary-Ellen Stringer. I played guitar and we had changing bass players. First bass player was Rodney Howard, who played bass in the second line up of Wet Taxis, and we did an album called "Tight".

JM: Do you remember what label that came out on?

PI: I think it went out through MDS distribution; I don't know if there was a label.

JM: Blush?

PI: That band was with Astrid Munday; Clare Moore, who plays drums with Dave Graney; Rosie Westbrook, who's playing bass on my stuff; and myself, so it was just the four of us.

JM: The Sacred Cowboys?

PI: I played on an album with them called "Things To Come" and I did lots of gigs with them. They've had a few incarnations. That was a really great album actually. I don't know how well it did, but it was a really good album and then the singer left and now he's living in the south of France, so that was the end of that, but it was fun playing with them. I really enjoyed it, again with another guitar player, which was fun. In Blush and Red Dress I was the only guitar player, so it was fun to work with someone else again, with Terry Doolan.

JM: What about Kim Salmon?

PI: I played on a couple of tracks on his album "Ya Gotta Let Me Do My Thing" and in Melbourne sometimes we play duets together. I've done some guest appearances with him.

JM: Tex Perkins?

PI: Played on his first [solo] album, "Far Be It From Me".

JM: Have you actually done any live shows with him?

PI: No I haven't. For some reason the press pick up on that, maybe because of his name.

JM: Well, it's a pretty good name to have on your resume...

PI: (laughs) Yeah.

JM: What about Meera Atkinson?

PI: She was a solo artist. She's also a writer and a poet and she recorded that album ["This Is The Planet"] - I can't even remember what year, maybe 1986 - and Charlie played on that as well. Nick Fisher played drums. I think Ron Peno did something. Brett Myers did something on it. It was just her writing the songs and doing poetry on the album and calling in her friends, the different musicians, to provide the music. That was another really good album too; I don't know how many copies it sold. We did a couple of gigs, but it didn't go any further.

JM: You also played on Charlie Owen's solo album "Vertigo & Other Phobias" in 1994.

PI: Yes.

JM: Have I missed anybody out?

PI: If you look on my website , I've got them all there and I haven't left anything off it. There are no real embarrassments that I want to hide! I did also do a guest appearance with Hoss, singing with Joel Silbersher.

JM: Hoss, are they still together?

PI: I don't know. I don't think they've broken up, but they're not doing any gigs. I know that, but I don't know what it means. Joel's been writing and doing different things. I think he's probably at a crossroad at the moment, trying to work out what he wants to do, where he wants to take his music.

JM: He's been doing that Tendrils collaboration with Charlie, which started off as a duo and then they added a drummer and a bass player. You've got them supporting you in Melbourne shortly I believe. Will that be as a duo?

PI: As a duo and they haven't played for ages, so they're putting it together especially for my launch, which is very kind of them. So we'll see what happens, but they haven't played together for a very long time; at least a couple of years... as far as I know.

JM: Well, they did play a set up here earlier this year, supporting Tex Perkins. I think the original support act may have dropped out at the last minute, but they were pretty amazing together. I guess that brings us up to the present. You've had a pretty interesting career.

PI: Yeah, it didn't go the way I'd expected.

JM: Well, where do you see it going from here then, once the album comes out? Are you looking for distribution overseas?

PI: Ooh yeah, definitely. I think that's where I want to go. Everyone says that, but I certainly think that... I've got a lot of confidence in what I'm doing and in terms of the playing on the album and the production quality, it will be able to compete with whatever else is going on out there. So I just hope that somehow I can get a bit of support to help me do it. I myself am very happy with what I've recorded so far for the album. Sometimes you record things and you're just cringing, but I'm very happy about it and the guy I'm working with, Craig Harnath the engineer, we have a good... we have strengths in different areas and they complement each other. He comes from very different music to what I come from, so we don't step on each other's toes. I don't start bossing him around, because I'm not sure what he's doing and he doesn't boss me around because he's not sure what I'm doing, so we can get away with doing exactly what we want to do and somehow it's all jelling together very well.

It's been an interesting career because a lot of what's happened to me has happened by accident, like me getting my first guitar by accident almost and me starting to sing by accident almost and even when I moved to Melbourne that was good for my playing, even though I moved to study, because I had to stand more on my own two feet. In Sydney I'd done a lot of playing with other guitarists; in Melbourne I started playing with a lot girls and that was good for my playing too because I was in a position where I could assert myself more; maybe I felt more relaxed, but it wasn't a conscious decision to do that. It just sort of happened that I started playing with girls. I didn't really care if they were girls or boys but for some reason around that period, with Red Dress and Blush, they were both predominately female in the line ups and then I went back to the boys again, so that was good for my playing, with no one to feel second to or tell me what to do, I could do what I bloody well liked and it helped me develop my own way of playing.

Certainly when I started playing, I would go to those boys' places and they'd teach me how to play guitar and they'd always be listening to the blues. They'd always teach me something in E or A, twelve bar blues, and I figured very early on that I didn't want to end up playing guitar like that. I learnt what they had to teach me, but I thought, "I'll be stuffed if I'm going to play any of this shit". They'd all be playing exactly what the other person was playing, trying to play faster than each other, trying to play such and such a person's guitar lick and I'd think, "Why? What's the point? Why don't you play what you want to play?". So again when I started playing with these girls it helped in that way. Someone like Cathy Green, who's a great drummer, they don't necessarily follow the norm, so it gives you some sort of freedom. No disrespect to any of these other male musicians, I'm not saying that; this is not a huge issue. I'm just saying that that's something good that came out of it.

JM: I think that's the problem with the blues these days. In terms of white musicians in the early '60s, young players were genuinely trying to use it to express something of their own, but it didn't sound exactly like what a black musician would do, because they were white! Then "purists" latched onto it, demanded that it sound precisely like a southern black American musician would have played it in the thirties and forties and they drained the freshness and the life out of it; turned it into a museum exhibit.

PI: I've been influenced by all the music around me like anyone else has and I certainly love John Lee Hooker. He is one of my favourite guitar players, but he's not that sort of guitar player, he's more the sort of guitar player you're talking about [who plays to express something], rather than the learnt type. That music has permeated my consciousness like every other musician, because it's around you and you can hear it, but certainly the technical side of the blues hasn't rubbed off on me at all (laughter).

JM: It all started to become pretty distant and affected. Punk was a getting back to musical roots, to people going out and just having a lash at it because they wanted to.

PI: That was good, that early punk. You didn't need to be able to play all that well. Someone like me, who started playing late compared to the other people I was playing with... Like Louis started when he was four, Simon Knuckey I don't know when he started, but he was a really great guitar player. All these people had been playing a lot longer than I had, so it gave me an opportunity to get going at a later stage, however old I was then, twenty three or something.

JM: But wasn't that also the myth about punk, that it was all created by people who couldn't play? For sure, some people couldn't play and usually the records they made were awful, but a lot who didn't know how to play at the very beginning did learn to play pretty quickly, practiced and turned out to be good musicians.

PI: Yeah, talking about the Wet Taxis, like Simon could play really well; Nick the drummer could play; Louis... they were all very, very good musicians. (chuckling) Maybe it was just me...

JM: Are you doing much slide work on the album?

PI: I've done a little bit.

JM: On the first track on the EP there's a kind of wah wah as well.

PI: That's an E-bow through a fuzz pedal. On the album I've played slide on maybe three songs, but when I play tonight I can't do all the guitar playing and the singing, so Dave Morris from the Celibate Rifles is going to come and play on a couple of songs and he's going to play that E-bow part on "Kathleen", the first song [on the EP], because I'll be playing rhythm. There's another song that we're going to play tonight that I haven't done live before and he's going to play some slide and wah wah on that, which I showed him what to play. I played it on my album, which you haven't heard yet, but again I gave that over to him. I'll play rhythm, because I can't sing and play. So now I'm becoming my worst nightmare. I always wanted to be the guitar player, now I'm giving this away to someone else so I can do the singing and play the goddam rhythm guitar. Someone has to do it; I have to do that, because I have to be able to cue everyone with the chords because they'll all need some sort of direction from me and I can't do all this guitar stuff and sing, it's just not possible... It really pisses me off!

This is just for these shows that I'm having guest guitarists; I've never had a guest guitarist before. I might in Melbourne; I was going to ask Spencer Jones if he wanted to play on a couple of things with me. Otherwise I do all the guitar and I'll be doing all the guitar on my album. Charlie hopefully is going to play on a couple of things, but it's going to be lap steel and mandolin. I don't want any other guitar players on there. Live it's different matter. Some of my songs have three guitar parts, so what the fuck am I going to do?

JM: That's not a consideration then, while you're making the album - how am I going to do this live?

PI: No, no, no!

JM: The album will be what it is and then you'll work it out later?

PI: Exactly, I made that decision. So maybe with these songs where there's all this guitar going on, I'm just going to have to have different live versions where I cut the guitar playing and the singing into sections or something... I don't know, I'll work around it, but I decided that mostly the album would be as a three piece band, but there are certain songs where I've added more layers and that was again what suits the song. It's not what's going to suit it live, because sometimes I play just solo, sometimes I play as a duet, sometimes as a whole band, so I'm just recording the songs as I hear them and what I think complements them and then I'll worry about all that shit later.

JM: Louis has also done a lot of that too. Sometimes he plays solo, with Charlie, with a three piece, with a four piece, etc. So the songs on the album are the way they are intended and everything else is just a performance or an interpretation?

PI: Yep, exactly. A rendition of the song. The music shouldn't be tied down. But anyway, Dave's going to be doing the fun stuff tonight and I'll be doing the rhythm...

JM: I was looking forward to it already, but now I'm even more intrigued. Penny thanks very much for your time. Since we're in a Bar, what will you have to drink?

PI: Well I do like champagne...

For continuing up to date information about Penny Ikinger, keep an eye on her web site at:
www.pennyikinger.com

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