Three piece band Regurgitator are now in their 22nd year, and clearly not keen to slow down any time soon, recently performing the Velvet Underground & Nico album with Seja and Mindy Meng Wang on the Gunzheng at the NGV for an Andy Warhol exhibition. Ben Ely chats with the AU Review about the performance and other projects that he is involved with, as they get set to return to the stage with an encore Velvet Underground & Nico performance at the Sydney Festival next month.
Hey Ben, how’s 2016 been for you?
I feel like it’s been quiet but I was talking to my wife and she listed off a heap of things I’d done, so yeah it’s good to have a break now until a few gigs early next year.
I understand that your cover of the Velvet Underground album evolved from an event at the National Gallery of Victoria?
Exactly. Our manager Paul has been booking the art gallery for about nine years. We’d never actually played it as Regurgitator, and when the Andy Warhol show came up, he said, ‘If you guys have an idea for that what would you do?’ I said, ‘A contemporary dance show with this Chinese instrumentalist (a friend of mine called Mindy) and do the Velvet Underground album’. It’s such a classic record and there are so many strong songs on it. Then I thought we could get Seja, and he presented it to the NGV and they really liked it and we did it. We put a lot of work into arranging it so Paul thought it would be a nice idea to do it again, so we presented the idea to the Sydney Festival and FOMO after as well, so that’s cool.
Are there any special challenges covering an album like that?
Some of the songs have lots of lyrics. I ended up doing “Heroin”; I’m the only person in the band who’s tried it, so I said I’d sing it. There are a lot of lyrics to learn. The music is quite simple, but lyrically there’s a lot going on. I guess in that way it took us a while to memorise all those lyrics. “Heroin”’s got ten verses I think.
Everyone knows that song but I don’t think many people analyse it.
It’s quite funny when you go to learn something like that and you do analyse it quite intensely.
How does an album show differ from a regular gig?
It feels really different. It kind of feels more like a performance. They’re all really strong songs, and being in the NGV with a good crowd it felt like a special event, but it’s a very different performance to our band because musically, we’re very different stylistically, so it makes you move and perform in a different kind of way. It feels like you’re role-playing, rather than being yourself. It had that theatrical feeling – that sounds really wanky, but that’s the only way to describe it.
I see that you covered Prince’s “When Doves Cry” on the day as well.
Yeah, we did on the night, because he’d passed away that morning. We woke up and we were all excited about the show and we thought we should put in a cover, so I’d learned how to play it for a solo gig that I did, so I knew the chords and the words, so we just did it. We turned on the purple lights and it was quite an emotional moment. It’s been a heavy year for music this year.
So you’ll be in the Spiegeltent for the Sydney Festival. Have you played a Speigeltent before?
We played one in Brisbane (for Brisbane Festival) but not that one in Sydney, but it was a strange industry gig. We haven’t played many industry gigs in our time, but they’re usually quite strange. But this one should be a lot different. They do feel like a nice venue to play in.
I missed your tour back in November in Adelaide but I heard it was really good.
We had a really good show at the Gov in Adelaide; we always seem to have the best show of the tour. Pretty much. It’s really fun; people there are really enthusiastic with a really lovely crowd. It’s cool.
I see also that you played the Reclink Community Cup in Melbourne.
Yeah, that was fun. We had a couple of special guests for that one, Waleed played guitar with us and Dan Sultan; Tim Rogers did a song with us as well, which was cool.
I’m also interested in your visual art side. I see you did a Weirdo! Exhibition at Lust for Life. Do you do art to expand your creative outlet?
Yeah the Weirdo! Exhibition was fun. I’ve always done art and when I was in high school I wanted to do art more than music. I’ve always loved making art and being in a band is pretty cool because you can make art for t-shirts or record covers or posters, so it’s a good vehicle to be creative on lots of different ways; if it’s a film maker for video clips or live performance or studio recording or lots of different things. I like making art because it’s a good time to listen to music and you can be still.
I saw also that you were part of a Woolmark campaign, how was that?
I did some music for that one. My wife is a contemporary dancer so I’ve made music for contemporary dance shows and that was for that Woolmark 50 year anniversary video thing.
You’ve played in a number of other bands too, Pangaea, Brokenhead, Ouch My Face as well as your solo career. Do you go into a different head space when you play with different bands?
I think whatever combination of people that you work with; it always creates a very different sound. The chemistry alters every time you pull out one person and put someone else in so it happens with bands. It’s its own thing so it depends who’s singing how the sound is influenced in that way. They’re all very different, like having different hats or an article for a different paper or artist even.
I do a solo thing with a guitar, which is also quite different, and I’ve been writing a record for that. Sometimes you’ll just write and songs will come up and you’ll go “Oh that’s for that band” because it has that sound. I guess when Quan and I write songs for a record, they do have a certain sound and we usually decide between us if that’s the one for the band or not.
One of your classic songs. “I Like Your Old Stuff Better Than Your New Stuff” hits on a chord with many bands. Why do you think people always want to listen to the older songs?
People get very nostalgic with music. We’ve had people who meet their wives at a gig, and when you listen to a song it can take you back in time to a good place in your past. Music has that ability to teleport you, like a time machine, which no other art form has so I guess that’s why people get attached to those older albums. We just push on making new stuff.
Sometimes on stage a band has to almost apologize for playing a new song.
Yeah it can feel like that. Strange hey.
As you get older have you mellowed in your songwriting? Would you still write a song like “I’ve Sucked a Lot of Cock to Get Where I Am?”
I think we still have our moments. Quan has written some pretty sweary new songs even though he’s a dad. We’ve mellowed a bit, but I guess we’re not as angry as we were, we’re not as shouty and sweary as we were. That’s just what happens, as you get older I guess.
I guess that’s what’s kept Regurgitator fresh over the years. I’m thinking of the Band in The Bubble event in Federation Square a few years ago.
Yeah that was fun. I guess we’re always looking for new projects and things to do. We’ve written this pretty wacky kid’s punk rock record. It’s a pretty funny record, trying to be as naughty as we can without being over-18, sort of. We’ve always been pretty naïve. Kids are the biggest punks of all.
Another thing that the band is noted for is the protection of the Great Barrier Reef.
Yeah, I guess we’ve always had a thing about corporate interest and the environment. We’re pretty left minded in that way.
I went to the Great Barrier Reef for the first time this year and was just amazed at how beautiful it is.
Yeah, it’s amazing hey. My brother lives up there and I’m going up in a couple of weeks. He works for the boating and fishing department and first hand accounts of coral bleaching and stuff, which is pretty depressing. Especially when the state premier got in the basis of stopping the coal mine and now she’s allowed it, which is quite shocking.
Regurgitator perform Velvet Underground and Nico at Sydney Festival on January 17th. For tickets and more details head HERE.
———-
