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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: 2010 already has a few decent gigs lined up for you guys including the World Cup in South Africa. Congrats on that! Is it going to be like a mini concert or…
Venom: As far as I can tell it’s two shows. The Fanatics are the tour group that’s organising all this and they have done a lot of tours – all the world cups, soccer rugby, the cricket…but this was a very big one. Wazza (promoter) is a big fan of Electric Mary. He’s been trying to get us over there. They’ve got that big compound where it’s like a meeting place for the tour group – they’ll have thousands in it. They do get quite big numbers. And I think before the first match I guess they’re going to have a concert. It’ll be us, Powderfinger and Fatboy Slim on afterwards. We have another gig in Cape Town and that’s with Powderfinger as well. It works in well for us because we’re going to Paris straight after that to do Hellfest.

Access All Areas.net.au: That’ll be a great experience for the band.
Venom: Yeah. I mean originally Wazza (being a big fan) was trying to find a way of getting us there. Then he thought, well I’ve got to get a bigger band on and that’s when he got the Powderfinger thing going. He was trying to match a band, not that they really match with us, but they’re a great band for the demographic that’s going to be at the soccer, whereas we’re a bit heavier. Hopefully they’ll like it. It’s great for us because it’s an audience that we’d probably never get to. On our part, we’ve got a big thankyou to Wazza because he’s the one that’s organised all this and put it all together. It gets us to South Africa, which I thought I’d never ever make it to in my life.

Access All Areas.net.au: He’s definitely the type of fan you want. Are you soccer fans or will you be teaching the foreigners about AFL footy?
Venom: I grew up in Sydney, so I liked soccer when I was young. Pete’s (guitarist) from Queensland, so he would have played a bit of soccer, more so than the Victorians in the band. When I was growing up, we all played soccer. But down here, they mostly play AFL. Rusty’s a big fan of the premier league. We all have our favourite English teams, so we’re not aliens to it. Irwin (guitarist) and Alex (bassist) are probably the only ones…although Alex is Austrian. You’d think he’d have some sort of soccer background? Rusty and I are quite big sports fans. I have a favourite hockey team in ice hockey, and that’s ridiculous.

Access All Areas.net.au: (Laughs) Supporting Deep Purple is also on the agenda for 2010. I’m aware that’s Rusty’s all time favourite band. How did you score that?
Venom: That came about from the Alice Cooper tour. It was through the same promoter. Alice Cooper quite enjoyed us on the tour and talked quite a bit to the tour promoter about us being on the bill. He enjoyed the fact that we warmed the audience up for him as apposed to a lot of bands that go on (as support) who are picked for the wrong reasons. They might be the same record label or it might be a favour to some manager or something like that. I guess with us, we’re a heavy rock band and Alice Cooper is like that. He’s a bit more 80s, but then I guess you could question whether we’ve got an 80s sound as well. From the feedback from Alice Cooper we heard that he enjoyed the fact that we were a good band and worked hard to sell ourselves to the audience. When we did the Judas Priest tour a year earlier, that was quite a difficult audience to play to because a lot of the fans bought tickets thinking another band was playing. So a lot of people bought tickets hoping to see them and they got taken off the bill and we got bumped up the line and they put another band on before us. So we got a lot of hate mail.

Access All Areas.net.au: Really?
Venom: Oh, yeah. People wanted to throw stuff and kill us. It was a bit of a war. Especially up in Queensland and Sydney. Every night before we went on, people just yelled at us. I remember once as I went out to start playing this guy went, ‘Who the fuck are you mate?’ (laughs) That was just part of it. There were a number of people out there who weren’t happy. It wasn’t even our fault. But we had to eat it.

Access All Areas.net.au: Did you win any of them over?
Venom: It worked. In the end people went ‘Oh well, they’re not that bad.’ There’s some people we’ll never win over. But for a crowd who a lot of them were going, ‘Who are these guys? Why are they on the bill? I’ve never heard of them…’ We did alright. We sold a lot of CDs and got a fair bit of feedback afterwards through the websites through a lot of people who saw us and quite enjoyed the show. But the best thing we got out of it was we learnt that you can’t just go out there and play the songs and think that everything’s going to work. I mean how many times do you go to concerts and you see the first band and just feel sorry for them?

Access All Areas.net.au: (Laughs)
Venom: It happens. I’m guilty of not even going in or I’ll pop my head in for half a song. So to be in that position, you think maybe I shouldn’t be so critical of other people. You shouldn’t throw stones in glass houses.

Access All Areas.net.au: You don’t sound horrible though. That’s the difference.
Venom: Yeah, but we could have. You don’t know when you’re on stage playing how it might sound. Anything could happen and you’re up there and you could never know. It’ll sound alright onstage and then completely different offstage. But I guess what I learnt is your fate’s not sealed. Just because you’re on and no one knows you, it doesn’t mean people are going to hate you. You can actually win them over. That’s what I learnt from Judas Priest and the Alice Cooper tour was much more enjoyable. I mean I loved Judas Priest because they’re my favourite band. I loved it in that regard. But playing was hard work and you didn’t know what the crowd thought. With Alice Cooper, we enjoyed ourselves more.

Access All Areas.net.au: When you do support bands like that, do you feel less comfortable on the big stage or do you play the same?
Venom: It’s quite uncomfortable, especially if you go out the front and see how tiny your gear looks compared to the main acts. You look at it and go, ‘My god, it just looks like ants!’ It’s probably uncomfortable when you walk out. But then when you start, you don’t really think too much about that. On the Alice Cooper tour, the show we did in Sydney, we started and it was quite empty. The place held about 3-4 thousand people and I remember it looked like there was about 100 people there and you just think, my god I don’t want to be here. Funnily enough after we started, people actually came in when they heard us playing. Towards the end it was half to three quarters full and it was quite a good show and people enjoyed it. So even though you feel uncomfortable, the place does fill up and you don’t think about it anymore. As in my position, I’m just trying to hold on to my drum sticks. But it does take practice to play on big stages as well.

Access All Areas.net.au: Obviously you’ve done the pub shows around Melbourne but you’ve also got your first east coast headlining tour coming up at the end of the month. Are you excited about doing your own thing and venturing to different areas?
Venom: I get excited at any gig. It doesn’t matter whether we’re on first or last or where we’re playing. It’s more a wondering how we’ll go. If it works and we get a good turnout, then I’ll be excited about going back. We’ve done Queensland before, but only on bigger tours. Sydney, I grew up there. I know the audience and the way that the city works. Just like how I know how Melbourne works. Brisbane is more a blank canvas for us. So it’s more a work thing. Let’s hope this works and let’s make it work. Once we’re up there and I’m about to go on and a few people turn up, then I’ll be excited. I don’t want to sound blasé about it, but at the moment we’re like, let’s see if this works. Because it does cost us a bit to do these tours. We need to go up there. We get a lot of fan mail and we need to really put our money where our mouths are I guess and try this and give back to the people that keep telling us to come up there.

Access All Areas.net.au: What’s been your all time favourite gig you’ve played so far?
Venom: I guess our best gig would have to be one of the two Whitesnake supports we did in Europe. Just because the French just loved it. When we went out the front after the show, just to walk around, we got mobbed by everybody who was coming out. It was completely unexpected to have that many people buying CDs and wanting us to sign anything they had on them. So that was quite a shock. Australian audiences tend to be more standoffish. They don’t want to impose. They don’t want to run up and pat you on the back. But you go to America and you go over to Europe and that’s not an issue. They’ll come up to you and go, ‘Mate that was great. Have you got any merchandise?’ And it’s good to get that from 20 or 30 years of playing in a country where you don’t. You get the same amount of appreciation, but people just don’t come up to you as much here. It’s weird after so long of not getting it, just expecting people to say hello down the line, and then to get it in one big huge hit.

Access All Areas.net.au: Is this the band you always wanted to be in? Because you’ve played in a lot of bands and experienced a lot…does Electric Mary feel like the band you’ve always wanted to be in?
Venom: Yeah, this would be my favourite band to play in as well though. It’s strange but I wouldn’t want to be in Guns N Roses or Judas Priest or Deep Purple. I’d rather watch those bands than be in them. I’d rather be in a band like them or be in my own band that I love, but I wouldn’t want to be in my favourite band that I enjoy because I wouldn’t play the way the people in the band play that makes them the band they are. Whenever I look at being in bands…the first thing is you’ve got to do your job, which is to entertain. Then secondly, it’s the enjoyment factor of what you’re doing. It’s like any artist. You have to work hard and do the job properly. And then when you’ve done the job, you can look back and enjoy it. Painting would be painstaking. The enjoyment of painting is still there but it’s the effort that you put in that when you see it at the end of it you go, wow that was such a hard job but I love it. That’s the way I look at bands. The enjoyment of the band is what I get out of it when it all comes together. In saying that as well I actually do enjoy this band from a fan point of view. A lot of the other bands I’ve been in I’d love playing in them, but it wouldn’t be a band I’d go out and see. Drumming is number one and being in a band is number two for me. I was a drummer before I joined any band. That’s why I’ve been in a lot of bands – it helps me learn. Plus you meet a lot of different people and you learn to deal with the idiosyncrasy of other bands. It’s a fun being in a team. Playing drums on my own would be boring. I look at all those drum solo guys who travel the world doing drum solos and I think how boring their lives must get. It’d just be like being a tennis player or a golfer. (laughs) It’d just be lonely. So yeah, in answer to your question, Electric Mary is one of the few bands I’ve been in where I’m actually a fan of it.

Access All Areas.net.au: Electric Mary is very much about embracing old school rock. Has it been difficult to figure out where that fits in today’s industry?
Venom: We never really worried about that. Rusty and I had another band called Mr Brown before Electric Mary. It was very much pop-rock genre. There was a whole bunch of bands that were doing it. We played the game. We played the radio game: let’s put a single out and shop it to radio. We had meetings with Triple M and Triple J. Some people said if you put this song as a single, we’ll play it. They would try to make the decisions for you. You do things that you didn’t really want to do but you thought these guys have got power, so we’ll do what they’re telling us to do. It’s very frustrating. We didn’t have a record company and we spent a lot of time doing what other people wanted us to do and in the end nothing happened. We’d travel up and down the coast in the van listening to Deep Purple and that and talk about the songs and in the end we were like, well why aren’t we playing these songs where this is where our hearts lie? So Rusty went, ‘Bugger it. I’m going to do a band I want to do. If it makes it big, it does. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.’ That’s the big reason we haven’t shopped anything to radio as of yet. They didn’t really do anything for us in the past, except confuse us. You listen to the style of music we’re playing…hard rock and 70s rock doesn’t really mix when it comes to radio does it?

Access All Areas.net.au: No, not really. (laughs) People just have to go to the gigs if they want to enjoy it fully.
Venom: Yeah, well you know…who needs radio now when you’ve got the internet? I don’t know if it’s better or worse, but when I was young…not that I’m old or anything, the only way you found out about music was from your friends or if you went down to the import record shop. All the top 40 shops didn’t tell anything and TV played nothing but top 40. Same as radio. It’s such a big difference now. People can get on the net, download whatever they want…they can see videos of you. In the old days you had to go see bands live. That was the only choice you had. But it’s getting good again now. They can find out where you’re playing on the net too.

Access All Areas.net.au: As a band, you gel well on stage. What about off stage? What are you guys like? Are you good mates or is it just we’re in a band together?
Venom: We’re good mates. It’s a funny thing, again going back to all the bands I’ve been in in the past, I’ve done the band where you live together and you’re all for one, one for all and you’ve got no money. You’ve got nothing. I’ve done that one. I’ve done the ones where you fight and people punch on. I’ve been in bands with the drunks, the alcoholics and the drug addicts. And the surprising thing about this band is I guess we’ve all been in that situation, been in those bands. With this band, maybe 20 years ago if we were all together 6 months down the track we’d all be punching each other out. I’m not saying that we don’t argue. If we didn’t argue with each other it would mean there was a lack of some love in there. We don’t have to live in the one place together. And we’re not broke to the point where you put all you’re money together just to buy a bag of rice. In that regard, being a bit older has worked in our favour. Hopefully things stay the same…and it will. Everybody gives each other a bit of distance. We don’t just jump on each other and go, ‘What’s up mate? What you crying for?’ We understand each other and being adults we give each other a bit of room…and that helps. We’re all motivated for one goal and we need to leave that teenage baggage of being a musician (means) I’m cool. You’ve got to leave that behind. I’ve been in too many bands where that’s been the case. It destroys the bands from the inside.

Access All Areas.net.au: As long as you understand each other and enjoy the music, sounds like there should be many more good years for Electric Mary.
Venom: That’s it. And understanding when to be there, when to say something and when to not. I do know when to shut up. Well. I hope I do know when to shut up.

Access All Areas.net.au: Just sit there and drum!
Venom: Yeah…shut up and play the song.

Access All Areas.net.au: (Laughs)
Venom: (laughs) So we get on and we know when to leave. So we go out shopping…(laughs)

Access All Areas.net.au: (laughs) Well thanks for your time, Venom. I hope it didn’t take too long.
Venom: Nah, that’s my fault. I’m the one that can’t shut up. You would have just been going, ‘Alright mate, can you stop talking?’ Thanks, Danielle.

Interview by Danielle Ralph

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Electric Mary (formed after Rusty’s encounter with Studio Manager Mary Campbell and a visit to Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios) are a five piece rock band hailing out of Melbourne, Australia. Fronted by the smokey vocals of Rusty Brown, other members are: Irwin Thomas, Pete Robinson, Alex Raunjak and Venom on drums.

Often described as classic rock, Electric Mary cites inspirations from a number of bands and musicians from Deep Purple to David Bowie their sound encompassing a combination of rich guitar riffs, bass and drums.

In 2004 Electric Mary released their debut CD titled Four Hands spawning popular tracks such as Busted, Crashdown (On Your Head) and Slave. Their latest EP, The Definition of Insanity (2006) also includes - Let Me Out, Luv Me and One Foot In The Grave. Rusty has kept with the theme of Spreading the Electric Luv, occasionally distributing Demo(rama) CDs (between releases) that have included some of the aforementioned tracks.

Electric Mary often play the home circuit, garnering a growing fan base both locally and internationally. The band was formed in 2003.

www.myspace.com/electricmary

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MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

My Festival Experience
Funeral For A Friend

Well I guess the most memorable would be in 2005 when we played the first Australian Taste Of Chaos festival. It was the first night in Perth & the venue was like five or seven thousand & we were sure we’d be pretty unknown. We got up on stage & started playing & then we noticed the crowd & saw that pretty much everyone was singing the songs & we were like “did we sell all our cds in perth or something?”, so that was pretty memorable for me personally. Also playing the Warped tour in America, its like a 2 month travelling township or something, you play shows go hang out & then travel like a thousand miles & start over. There’s been other experiences, but those are probably the standouts for me.

Ideal Lineup?
Well for me I would have to say Nine Inch Nails who I saw at Redding the other year when they played before The Smashing Pumpkins. The set was just amazing & I’m not really even a fan of the band, but the set was just something they really play great. Also I’d probably say Killswitch Engage they are a great band & are good friends of mine, we toured Australia with them on our first tour & made good friends with them & yeah they just play great music & are great musicians I guess. There’s others I think but those would be the 2 I’d say off the top of my head.

Tips for attending Music Festivals?
Well I guess just drink plenty of water to keep yourself hydrated, stay out of the way of trouble & really just look after yourself & anyone who gets in trouble that you know & you should have a pretty good day.