X Marks The Spot: Steve
Lucas interviewed
X were a seminal
Sydney punk band who set a benchmark for Australian punk during a stormy,
erratic career.
X were born in Sydney in 1978. Bass player Ian Rilen was looking for a new
gig after quitting Rose Tattoo (because they weren't hard enough!) He connected
with a powerhouse drummer in Steve Cafiero, a dynamic and raw young guitarist
in Ian Krahe and a raucous vocalist named Steve Lucas.
X instantly gained a reputation for primal intensity. Few contemporaries could
compete. Krahe attacked his fretboard, while Rilen was king of the downstroke
with an incredibly loud bedrock sound. Cafiero's rock solid beat anchored
the ship. And when pushing the envelope, Lucas sounded like he'd been gargling
razorblades.
It was a frightening, volatile combination. And X lived the rock and roll
lifestyle, perpetual outsiders.
The death of Ian Krahe
saw Lucas assume guitar duties just as the band was going into the studio
to record an album. "X Aspirations" was a classic, as raw and uncompromising
as anything released in this country in the last 30 years.
Three more albums followed.
Cafiero left to be replaced by a woman, Cathy Green, who was to become romantically
involved with Rilen. X moved to Melbourne, signed to a major label and lost
direction. Band members all went on to other projects, but a couple of different
combinations of X re-surfaced over the years.
X never really went away and were last sighted in 1999, doing a support to
Rose Tattoo in Sydney and a brief run of Melbourne dates.
The thing that is X is re-surfacing, albeit only on vinyl at this stage, with
the release, in the US, of an EP of early material, "Home is Where the
Floor Is" (Rocknroll Blitzkrieg/Slander Records) and the re-release
of their debut "X-Aspirations" album (Rocknroll Blitzkrieg/NOW!
Records).
The Barman tracked down X singer Steve
Lucas in late 2000 at the Sydney animation art gallery he runs for this interview.
Barman: How did the American release of the early X tracks and the "X
Aspirations" album come about?
Steve: There was a release of "X-Aspirations" by Amphetamine
Reptile on CD over there. It found its way to Mark Murrmann. He thought
it should come out on vinyl. He got in touch with Amphetamine, got an e-mail
address for me, e-mailed me and said he really dug it and wanted to put it
out.
I said, OK, if you do that, why don't you do a tester or a teaser and put
out an EP of the songs with Ian (Krahe) and Steve (Cafiero). They were on
the "Why March When You Can Riot" compilation but it was with a
whole lot of other stuff, and we tacked it onto a re-release of "At Home
With You". It really deserved a release of its own because it was the
only recording of the original X.
He said, send it over. I did and he loved it. He put it out. We've started
getting reviews back of it now. It's going really well.
B: Those tracks were done at the Australian Film and Television School.
How did that come about and how far into the life of the band was the session?
S: That was really early in the life of the band. We hadn't been going long
at all. I was going out with someone whose brother was doing a course at the
Film and Television School, and as a project for one of the assignments they
had to do something. And he said if he could make a film clip of X, he could
make sure we could go out and use the 24-track recording studio out there
and put some tracks down. Cool!
There was a film clip for "TV Cabaret Roll" and that got aired on
Sounds (Australian music TV program). It was pretty funny - they put it right
at the end with all the credits rolling over it, with the chorus "Morons,
morons" playing behind it. That was pretty funny. I've tried to track
down the master of it, so I could issue it to some of the TV stations. I've
never found a good copy, only a crappy old VHS of it.
It was really cool. It was filmed while the NSW Police Headquarters building
was being constructed overlooking Hyde Park; they were actively using some
of the lower floors but the upper floors weren't finished, so we went up there.
There were ceilings and stuff but no walls, so you could look out over Hyde
Park. So we took the flim crew up there. And all our gear.
Did three takes - tried to mime it a few times to the sound track but it wasn't
working very well. Part of the reason was that Ian Krahe and myself were tripping
off our heads on acid and it was a very paranoid experience! (Laughs) So we
ended up plugging everything in and playing live, and filming it while we
were playing live. Then we just superimposed all the takes over each other,
so it was just this thing spinning round and round and round with all these
takes of the band walking into each other. It looked really cosmic.
B: And ironic you were filming it at Police HQ!
S: Yeah, yeah. I wasn't real impressed (because) the guy (filming the clip)
had come to pick me up at seven in the morning or something and I'd only gotten
to bed about 20 minutes before, trying to come down off this bloody acid..
And he said: 'You've got to come with me - you're the only one I can find'..
I ended up getting into the elevator with all the police and stuff like that
- bright red hair, full-on punk regalia - and hanging around waiting for the
other guys to arrive. It was a great day!
B:
Do you remember much about the sessions for "X Aspirations"? All
five hours of them?
S: Yeah, that was pretty easy.
B: Not for the engineer!
S: Oh no, that was Lobby Loyde. Ian (Krahe) had died and we tried another
couple of guitar players but we weren't happy, so Ian (Rilen) and Steve insisted
that I start playing guitar. And, during the rehearsals - this was about three
months after I'd started playing guitar - Lobby turned up and said: 'It sounds
really cool, I have to record you guys'. I went (doubtfully) 'Oh yeah...OK",
so he sent up a session at Trafalgar (legendary Sydney studio). And we were
going to do a demo for a single. So we got there and because I was really
new at it and didn't think it was complex, we decided to record all the songs
that I knew how to play and then pick the single.
So we played all the tracks that appeared on the album, and it sounded really
cool and we couldn't make up our minds. So we decided, bugger it, let's put
out an album. They were all pretty much one take. We pretty well ran the tracks
back and I re-did the vocals. That's why there are little bits of talking
and shit between tracks that you can still hear.
B: What's that multi-tracking of the vocals on "I Don't Wanna Go Out"?
S: Oh yeah, that was something Lobby felt really clever about. He said: 'Oh
look, I can do this'. It sounded really cosmic. It was just some switch thing
he flicked. And that just stayed there forever. Some sort of chorus thing.
B: Ian Rilen's history prior to X is fairly well known [Band of Light, Rose
Tattoo]. What about yourself, Ian Krahe and Steve Cafiero?
S: Cafiero had been around for quite a while. He played with lots of bands.
I think he started his career as drum roadie for the Easybeats. And he was
very industry-orientated. There was a band called the Creatures and he was
part of that. He was an ultra-professional sort of drummer. Very serious about
it.
Ian Krahe and I had been to school together and the only thing we had done
was hang around, wagging (cutting) school and playing guitar and singing and
that. And he and another couple of guys from the same school used to occasionally
hang around and practice in an old school hall. We did a few little parties.
We'd done nothing. It was our first band.
B: This party band was Evil Rumours?
S: Yeah, we were looking for a bass player and Rilen turned up. And everyhting
kinda went to shit. Ian (Krahe) and Ian (Rilen) went off one way. And Geoff
(Holmes) and Ed (Fisher) went another way. And I was going to go back to the
country for a while. Yeah, I went to Armidale. Then I got this telegram from
Ian (Krahe) saying they'd found a really good drummer, come down and have
a look. And I did and we called it X.
Only about three weeks later, we did a gig at the Bondi Astra. Then not long
after that we did Paris Theatre with Cold Chisel and Rose Tattoo and it just
went Boom!
B:
Where did the name X come from?
S: Ummm...couldn't think of any names that were cool and Ian Rilen really
liked the idea of having a name with X in it, because there were a lot of
bands around at the time that had that. And Ian Krahe, I think it was, said:
'Well, why don't we just call it X, because it would look really cool on a
poster, a big red X'. It was a sort of non-name. It was a sign. Like the Christians
had a fish. So there it was. It was easy to spell (laughs). Problems arose
with it because you'd send it in with band listings and, of course, X is the
symbol for a printer's error. So there were some plusses and some minuses.
B: Were you pissed off when the LA band X surfaced?
S: No, we thought it was funny, but I think we got out first so we really
didn't care. We really didn't care much about any other kind of music. We
were really much into ourselves, wanting to be different.
B: I know you weren't part of that clique but were you aware of the Birdman
thing happening in Sydney that pre-dated you guys?
S: Yeah, Ian Krahe, I think he quite liked Radio Birdman. He used to tell
me about them. But I was up bush. I never saw anything. They used to come
and see us heaps. I think it used to give us a bit of credibility when we
were playing a shitty pub like the White Horse or the Unicorn and they'd walk
in. People would say we must be cool because they were here. So that was good.
All
our interest in music was pretty much taking all the bits that we loved when
we were growing up and smashing it to pieces. That was Ian Krahe's and my
attitude, Geoff's to some degree. Putting it all together was Ian Rilen's
manic drive, Steve Cafiero's ultra-professional, never-miss-a-beat, diehard
attitude and we were just young idiots, Krahe and myself. We had no idea what
was going on at all. It was all fun. I mean, God knows what would have happened
if he (Krahe) hadn't have died. We were having so much fun up until then.
Then things started getting weird.
We were sort of obliged to carry on...to live out the dream, myself and Krahe
had, young idiots who wanted to be famous - or infamous - kind of vibe. That
with the sort of Rilen-Cafiero want-to-make-it sort of successful. When Ian
died, it threw all the balances out. We had other people coming in. We switched
drummers. We did all sorts of things trying to find the balance again..
B: I get the feeling it was a pivotal event (Krahe's death) in the history
of the band.
S: Yeah. It neither killed us or whatever. Then we put out "X Aspirations".
What made that work was the totally professional delivery from Ian and Steve
and really naive kind of innocent slap at the guitar sort of thing. I was
playing my arse off trying to be as good as possible. That contradiction musically
made us work so well. You couldn't fault that rhythm section. The rest was
so abstract and avant garde.
But it came out really well. You couldn't have planned to do it. If it was
deliberate I would have thought I was a real hero (laughs) but I was going
for it. Since then it's been listed as one of the top albums to have come
out of this county.
B: Bearing in mind the musical roots of the band, did the tag 'punk' bother
you?
S: It was fun in a way. Until the real industry punks started to come out.
All of us really felt we were a rock and roll band. We played rock and roll.
We used to write songs like "I Love Rock and Roll" [ED: Not the
Joan Jett tune]. So we got called punks and I suppose, depending on the mood,
we could act like punks. In our hearts, we were always rock and roll. Just
the new wave of rock and roll. We wanted to take all the stuff we liked, trash
it up, and make it faster and louder and all the rest of that.
B: The punk thing must have made it hard to get label interest. As an extension
of that, the band also had a heavy drug reputation.
S: Yeah, I've wondered this over the years. As far as a heavy drug reputation
goes, look at Nick Cave, and your Hugo Races and people. They were a reall
smack clique. They'd write songs about it, they were proud of it, you know.
That was their vibe. I don't see why it should have been detrimental to us.
We were pretty hard case. But then, in retrospect, no more than anyone else..
There weren't many straight bands going around. The Go Betweens and everyone,
they were all incredibly heroin-orientated.
No, I think what it was was our own bull-headed arrogance. We did really consider
going through (booking) agencies like Harbour, but then we thought why should
we? We can rent out Balmain Town Hall and get a thousand people there and
charge two bucks per head. Who needs Harbour?
I remember going in there (Harbour's office) once, with Ian and Ian and Steve,
and talking to (agent) Sam Rigghi. You know, chatting away. Steve was very
pro-industry and Ian (Rilen) had worked with all the booking agencies before,
in other bands he'd been in. And it was like: 'Watch this boys' when someone
rang up from a band. He put it on the loudspeaker so we could hear this guy
grovelling for gigs. He did the big pose and put shit all over him, and everyone's
sort of going: 'Yeah, that's cool, we're on the inside'. And we walked outside
and Krahe and I looked at each other and said: 'How do we know they're not
doing that to us, some other bunch of wannabes and they make us look like
fuckwits?' So Krahe and I said we don't really want to do that (go with an
agency). And Ian was pretty radical, he'd go 'Yeaaahhhh', (he was) anti-anything.
Steve (Cafiero) was pretty disappointed.
So we did our own thing. No record companies approached us, but we were pretty
unapproachable. People did try to manage us but (they were) usually idiots.
And if they were a friend who wanted to help us, (we'd say): 'If you want
to stay our friend, we wouldn't recommend it' (laughs). We really did go out
of our way to be separatists. We didn't want to be part of anything. We wanted
to do our own thing.
Jax
from the Olympic Sideburns turned up at a gig, when we had Cathy playing in
the band in Melbourne once, and said: 'I've been trying to get you guys for
ages. I'm gonna offer you a record contract'. That's how we got "At Home
With You" out, which again is another great record that stayed on the
independent charts for yonks, 18 months or two years or something. We thought
someone would come up with something now, with two cult hit records, but once
again nobody wanted much to do with us. It was only Lobby, when he came back
onto the scene and wanted to manage bands and do all that kind of stuff, with
one of his agencies, and do an album with the "Dream Baby" (single)
shit....and that all got weird.
Cathy and Ian were having troubles at the time. Mushroom wanted to be a very
slick sort of record company. They were trying to package a punk band and
it all fell apart. Cathy did a runner, (we) made that horrible film clip.
Lobby and Ian got embroiled in some sort of publishing thing where, I think,
Ian took a big advance from Lobby and bought a car and gave his publishing
to someone else. And in order to recoup that, what did Lobby do? Made out
we had a big American producer doing a mix in New York for Mushroom, so he
could bill Mushroom and draw the money to get back from Ian. And if someone
was mixing us in New York, one of us should be there...oh, it was just the
biggest load of shit!
In the end, everyone was suspecting everyone else and trying to get anything..
I remember haggling over contracts with Mushroom. I just wanted to do the
straight lease deal and Ian and Cathy wanted to sign up to the ultra Mushroom
contract, which everyone I gave it to said you'd be mad to sign. So I was
having an argument with that, so I got hold of Lobby one day and said: 'Why
don't you and I see (Mushroom head Michael) Gudinski?' So I went in one day
and said: 'There's all this shit happening, I don't want to know about it.
Let's just pick the best 10 songs out of that recording session, put them
out, shake hands and forget the whole thing'.
B:
Were there some other worthwhile tracks from that "And More?" session?
S: Yeah! There was a blistering version of "Hate City" but Ian didn't
want that on there because it was a one-off, ultra blister and we'd never
be able to do it live without having a cardiac arrest. It was so fast it sounded
like we must have done something to it. There were a couple of songs like
that: "Burning on the Beach"...Lobby would have them all, under
his bed somewhere..
There were some good things there. Even halfway through the recording sessions,
Lobby and Gudinski were suggesting we get Cafiero back and re-record the whole
thing, which would have been interesting.
Seriously, you couldn't look for a bigger bunch of self-destructing idiots.
That's what we were. We just happened to play really well together when we
weren't being idiots. I've got a very, very practical outlook on it all now
(laughs). I'm under no illusions.
B: It must be easier looking back with some distance...
S: There were some hysterical moments. That song on the last X (studio) album
"Getting Wet"...that was one of the funniest recording sessions
I've ever seen in my life. Ian and I were laughing so much we were crying,
doing these stupid backing vocals and stuff. The only reason we wrote that
song was Ian came round my place, we bought a bottle of scotch and said let's
write a stupid song. And we did and that's what came out. We were pissing
ourselves when we were writing it (because) it was a total shitbagging of
what people expected of us.
B: It was certainly different to what was expected.
S:
Well, yeah, but it's one of my favourite songs off that album. Probably my
only favourite - oh, "Sad Day's Girl" was really good too.
Things were sort of moving. Ian and Cathy, because they were living together
they wanted to write together. So ideas they'd come in with (were) kinda removed
from what I thought we'd be doing. So that put me on my own. So then I'd try
and bring in my own stuff. When that sort of thing happens, it's hard to handle.
All the other things entered into the equation. I went and did things with
(Melbourne band) White Cross.
I was trying to go back to that "X Aspirations" feel. I walked up
to those guys and said: 'I want to do an album, let's rehearse for two days
with these songs and go and record it'. That's what we did. I wanted that
spontaneous thing. But those guys weren't Ian and Steve. They weren't as happy
to be spontaneous. They were a band, kind of thing. Some of that stuff I enjoy.
B: Can I ask you about Ian Krahe's death? There were conflicting stories.
S: Ian was a chronic asthmatic. He did have a really bad flu. Something was
in the air. That night, when we did that gig, he did make a point of searching
out the people that were close to him and. You know, afterwards it seemed
like he was saying goodbye. But...after the gig, I went home with someone
he'd been seeing for heaps. He said: 'Oh, you go home with her. I don't care
anymore'. I went: 'OK'. Then he went back with Ian, everyone was partying
around...they all had a little bit of smack and. um, Ian went up to bed and
died, just like that....you know, it was really dumb...really dumb.
B: How hard did that knock the band around?
S: How hard?
B: You must have been devastated.
S: Well, yeah. I'd known Ian all through school, and he was my best friend.
I've never had anyone remotely as close as Ian in my whole life, not a male
anyway. And...no...it was horrible. In a way it didn't hit me till later.
I think, six months later, it really, really hit me. That wad the first time
I was able to cry. Up until then it was just shock. Continual shock and 'Oh
we can't let this stop us' kind of thing. We got Geoff, who was one of the
original Evil Rumours people, and we did gigs straight away. 'We can't let
what Ian was so proud of go because he died'. But it was horrible.
And then years later when Cafiero died (from medical complications stemming
from routine surgery), my God. He was such a lovely guy. He was the best storyteller.
He'd just come in with the most pathetic story but the way he'd tell it, you'd
just be crying with laughter. He was so funny. It was just getting to the
point where, we'd come up to Sydney with Cathy, and he'd hop up and do a couple
of songs and it was feeling like everybody was starting to grow up and be
sensible about things. No-one was jealous or possessive, it was just one form
of X.
B:
He left in '84 when you guys went to Melbourne. Was he just not willing to
move his family?
S: Well, he had family here but we only moved when Cathy joined anyway. Steve
was in the process of leaving us and we had some gigs booked just before Christmas
in Melbourne and Steve just said, nah, he'd had enough. He thought whoever
was booking us was a dickhead and he couldn't be bothered going down there.
So Gerard at Premier (booking agency) said he knew this girl: 'Don't freak
out that she's a girl, she's really good'. So we went down there on the off
chance and Ian had Doug (Falconer) from Hunters and Collectors on standby.
We did a rehearsal with Cath and it sounded pretty cool.
B: Different style of drummer, isn't she.
S: Totally different, but you don't replace Cafiero with another Cafiero.
If it was going to be anything it was going to be different. And I remember
saying to Ian after that rehearsal: 'She's really cool'. And he said: 'Yeah
she is good but I can't tell if she is good or if I just want to fuck her'.
And I said: 'Offer her this gig, and if you blow this one then I'm going to
quit too'.
And it all locked in and it was just great.
And then I met someone down in Melbourne, did the old "head over heels",
came back here and went back down there, did the album down there. I just
thought 'bugger it', Sydney was closing. All the good venues that we used
to call home were falling victim to licensing laws or fire restrictions, so
we thought let's jump ship and set up base in Melbourne. We had a really good
run down there.
B: How different was the scene down there then?
S: Much more social. Sydney tends to be factional. Melbourne was wide open.
It was cool. (Laughs) We kept getting invited to really good parties. We'd
go to a gig and play for six hours. One night at the Useless Club we played
for six hours straight. We just did the same set over and over because everyone
wanted more (laughs).
B: I have to ask one thing: whose idea was the 12-inch mix of "Dream
Baby"?
S: Mushroom.
B: I thought it might have been.
S: Mike Duffy did that. He was working for Mushroom and came over after doing
that Stock Aitken Waterman thing, he'd done Kylie (Minogue)'s stuff. I suppose
they wanted us to be like Duran Duran (laughs). If you put it on and listen
to it through headphones really loud it's got some really cosmic stuff on
it. But it's not really X.
B:
On the other hand the "Live at the Stagedoor Tavern" thing from
a few years back really captured the live energy.
S: That was pretty cool. Matt Dixon had a Walkman, taped it and really loved
that tape. He's got his own label and put it out.
B: So what about the live double album you guys were spruiking?
S: Ohhh...we've tried so many times to make that happen. No-one will put the
money into backing it. First of all, Timberyard were going to do it. I don't
know what happened to them. They procrastinated and procrastinated. Then (engineer/producer)
John Bee said: 'I've done all that work, dah, dah dah...no-one's going to
get them (the tapes) till they pay me x amount of dollars'. And whatever x
amount of dollars are, it must have been too much for anyone..
Every now and again we talk about it. Even six months ago I was trying to
get some cassette dubs of it so I could think about re-pitching it to someone.
The cassette dubs didn't turn up and I thought, bugger it. If we did that
(put it out) we'd have to do more gigs and the whole death cycle would start
up (laughs). Sometimes you think maybe it's better just to let it lie.
B:
Are you likely to ever play again?
S: Dunno. Cathy's just got back from overseas and she's in Perth. I mean,
if someone offered us enough money we'd probably do a gig. There's so much
history between the three of us. Not all of it's really nice. You kind of
dread the idea of doing another gig, but when you actually do it, it's usually
pretty cool and you have a good time. It's really hard. The cost of doing
it all was nowhere near the return.
If you're mentally, physically and spiritually up to it you can get together
and go bang and bugger off. Those stages come and go for all of us, but get
us all feeling that same way at the same time doesn't happen very often.
I don't have a great deal of faith in the industry here anymore anyway. I
think there's nowhere for a wide audience to get access to anything. It's
too filtered. There's too much of an Old Boy Network out there, in a way.
The radio stations are useless. Just because you hear something on Triple
Jay doesn't mean 20 people are going to turn up to a gig, if you know what
I mean. Then you could have 2000 people turn up to a gig and not get played
anywhere. It's weird out there; I don't pretend to understand where people's
heads are at now.
B: There's a lot of fragmentation -
S: Yeah, but when someone like Mark Murrmann comes along and says: 'I love
this. I don't care what anyone says, I'm going to put it out' then you think
'Good on you' and I'll do anything I can to help him. Anything at all. If
he said come to America and do gigs, I'd do it for him because of his attitude..
But the people who want to piss-fart around with little runs (of dates) here
and little runs there...it's like (they're) throwing out burley, and if they
get a real bit they'll throw a line in.
The entrepeneurial backbone has gone out of the independent scene. So that
gets really depressing.
B:
What about new stuff by your other band, A.R.M.?
S: Yeah, I'm just waiting to get in and do a mix. We're putting out a couple
more singles. I've kind of gotten into the singles format, especially now
I've got that X EP from America. I've got a big EP vibe (laughs). I've got
albums and albums planned, it's just a case of deciding if it's worth doing.
B: The other side of your life must take up a bit of time too.
S: Yeah, I take being a father seriously. That slowed me down too. I don't
go out gigging. I'm very protective and possessive of my daughter. I went
through a lot to have her with me. And I've got my own business of running
a gallery (Silcon Pulp at Annandale
in Sydney's inner-west).
B: How did you get into that? Tell us about it.
S: I got into it by accident. Like all the big things in my life, you're just
walking along and find yourself in the middle of something. 'Wow, cool! How
did that happen? (Laughs)
It's an animation gallery. We had a big room and thought let's make a gallery.
I don't like the pretension of fine art and it's so stitched up, there's no
access to get off and running unless you have very strong contacts. I like
animation. There's galleries full of Bugs Bunny and shit like that and we
thought we'd look for the Australian content, look for the independent animators
and present it in a fine art format.
We just recently did a big Japanese exhibition, "Ghosts in the Shell'
and 'Nikeira' and "Neon Genesis" and all that kind of thing. We
got a very strong response. Now we're just shifting the focus to very strong
animated content. It's just fun searching out things and getting into retailing,
bringing in knick knacks and oddities and presenting them. It's like being
a big kid.
We're into gradual growth. We're right on a busy road (Parramatta Rd) and
get 100,000 people driving past us every day, so it's pretty cool.
B: Since we're in a Bar, what do you drink?
S: What do I drink? Ahhh, depends on the bar. If we're in a pub it's Tenants
or Cafferys and I'll drink that by the gallon. If I'm in a pub that doesn't
have them, I'll drink the Reschs. I like my Scotch with a little ice, but
nothing else, and I prefer it to be a single malt. Jamesons or pure single
malt, I'll drink by the gallon. Or a good bottle of Merlot, if I'm at home.
The
"Home is Where the Floor Is" is out now on Rocknroll Blitzkrieg/Slander
Records out of San Francisco.
Grab your copy of the EP now before it sells out by dropping Mark
a line.
The re-issue of "X Aspirations" on Rocknroll Blitzkrieg/NOW! Records is
happening in the first half of 2001.
