Hoodoo Gurus

Hoodoo Gurus are back with a new album Purity Of Essence and a tour that’s taking them around the country. It’s another milestone in a career that seems to be destined to outlast most of their contemporaries and quite a few of those that trod the path the Gurus made. The always happy Brad Shepard has the last laugh

HHMM : Well congratulations on Purity of Essence. How do you think it fits in the Hoodoo Gurus body of work?

BS : I really think that its up there with our best work. If you pick your favorite Hoodoo Gurus album, whatever that may be – Mars Needs Guitars, Stoneage Romeos – and this one will go toe to toe with it. We are thrilled with the results of this album.  You always try to do your best, but sometimes you just have better songs than other times I guess, which is just the way it is for art and creativity. But we realised very early on in the piece that we had set the bar fairly high with regard to the raw material. The songs that Dave showed us…it was actually magical. We started playing these songs as if we already knew them. Whatever part an individual bought to a song seemed to fit perfectly with what the other blokes were doing. We really just had one day like that and in eight hours we did eight or nine songs. That day set the bar high and once we did that – even before we started recording – we knew that we had a great responsibility to make the best of these songs at every step of the process.

HHMM : In my review of the album I suggested that it was probably more understandable that Hoodoo Gurus could make more successful “comeback” albums that a lot of the bands of their era, because even at the time they didn’t sound like a band “of the era”. Does that make sense?

BS : I know what you are saying. In the eighties we weren’t really an eighties band because in the eighties we were already revisionist! We were influenced by bands that had come before us instead of trying to be contemporary – I think that’s kind of self evident. So I understand what you are saying – its more complicated than saying “Hoodoo Gurus were an eighties band”, because even in the eighties we didn’t fit into that category at all. We’ve never really been in fashion so it hard for us to go out of fashion.

HHMM : The other thing that strikes me about Hoodoo Gurus is that you still play in a band because you are genuinely still fans of music rather than being fans of being rock stars. Is that the key to the band being able to endure?

BS : I think that is unquestionably one of the elements. I still get a huge thrill out of playing in the band and exploring new songs. I still get excited about playing Bittersweet and What’s My Scene. It really excites me. I just love being able to live in  that moment and to stand up there on stage and be overcome by what we are creating. It’s an enormous thrill for me.  You will still see me rummaging through second hand vinyl and sniffing around record stores and buying back catalogue – excavating like an archeologist. I think that plays a part. We are just not that interested in being celebrities. A lot of artists play to that. I’m sure it started out being creative but then they fall in love with being in New Weekly and that kind of thing. Its just not interesting to me and I know it holds no interest to anyone else in this band. We just love creating music and I love being in this band. Whatever crap you need to go through, it is worth it to stand on stage with those three other blokes.

HHMM : Hoodoo Gurus are often put in a bucket of bands, at least internationally, with the likes of The Plimsouls, the Flamin Groovies and The Fleshtones – an its interesting that most of those bands have had a similar longevity – they all release records and play shows and there’s still a lot of talk about them vis re-issues etc.
BS : I was actually saying to Dave the other day that the other band that I feel a kinship with is Cheap Trick. They were not an influence on us at all but I think we have evolved into something akin to what they do. There’s an enormous power in what we do live but it comes with melody. It’s not just about the power, there’s also a “tunesmithy” about what we do. I mean, obviously we love The Fleshtones but they are very obviously rooted in the 60’s in what they do. I think they are one of the most under-rated bands ever and I know they like a lot of the same stuff that we like, but I think we allow ourselves to be influenced by more different things than what they do.

HHMM : What is the perception of the band in the US and Europe now? Judging by the Facebook page there seems to be a deep seated love for the band around the world.

BS : I cant help but feel that it comes back to our love of what we do, that we are still deeply committed to what we do. When we get up on stage and play a show, we never really do a terrible show. Some are better than others but even the bad ones are pretty good! So wherever the play the world over, people are genuinely surprised at how good we are live. I suppose in the back of their minds people coming to the shows  might think “oh that band, they’ve been around for 30 years, if I hear a couple of hits I’ll be happy”. What they get is a fucking atomic raygun blowing them to oblivion!! I think they find that surprising. But we have been beating the drum and flying the flag and I think that over the past few years the word has got out that we’re not just a bunch of old codgers, but we’re actually on fire!

HHMM : For this album you have really embraced social media and the internet. Has it been a bit of an eye opener for you?

BS : It’s been a steep learning curve! I suppose it’s been a bit of an eye opener because I didn’t really want to join up on Facebook and be an administrator on a page, but I’ve been genuinely surprised. I mean, I see it night after night. We get up on stage and there are people there and they dig the band, so I know people are interested, but when they when they get to tell us what they are thinking on a web page it does bring home how well regarded the band is.

HHMM : Has it changed the dynamic with the record company at all. Now the fans speak to you directly and you speak to them directly and its not being filtered through a record company.

BS: I don’t know that we ever really got our perception of how our fans think from a record company, but what’s interesting is that the record company are using that feedback as a tool themselves. It’s valuable information.

HHMM : On a completely different subject, what was your reaction to the death of Alex Chilton?

BS : I’m starting the get used to it Andrew.  Mick Cocks shuffling off, that took me by surprise because he was only a couple of years older than me. Thorpey, Ian Rilen, Pete Wells – I’m starting to get used to it which is really sad. The years that those chaps were born in is getting closer and closer to the year I was born in! It’s quite sobering. I was really saddened by Alex Chilton’s death and funnily enough it actually put me on a Replacements bent for about a week. I did play Big Star the night I found out while we were having dinner but really I was listening to The Replacements a lot. Make of that what you will. The Pleased To Meet Me album got played a lot.

HHMM : That scene that spawned The Hitmen and Died Pretty and Beasts of Bourbon – which was your original scene – a lot of members of those bands are still active in different capacities today. What was it about that group of people?

BS : I’m not entirely sure. That scene in Sydney in the early eighties was particularly creative and probably the equal of New York in 1975 or London in 1976. The Scientists and Radio Birdman a couple of years earlier initiated a lot of that stuff. Maybe it was just sheer dumb luck. There was a convergence of people from around the country, there was a lot of people from Perth and Brisbane and Adelaide. Melbourne had their own thing going on. Maybe we all grew up in the seventies when there wasn’t an internet, there wasn’t a mobile phone and so you had to make your own fun. That’s what was happening. Music was what was happening to us when we were  teenagers and all those people in Sydney in the eighties had grown up like that in the seventies and it really moulds your personalities.  It made us the people we are.

MAY
Sat 1 May – Yamba Bowling Club
Support : The Break

Fri 7 May – Governor Hindmarsh (Adelaide)
Support: The Break

Sat 8 May – Hi Fi Bar (Melbourne)
Supports : The Break and Gun Street Girls

Fri 14 May – Level One Newcastle Leagues
Supports: The Fumes

Sat 15 May – Waves Wollongong
Support: The Fumes

Thu 20 May – Oxford Art Factory(Sydney)
Fri 21 May – Oxford Art Factory (Sydney)
Supports: The Fumes