Cookin’ with The Beefs
The Beef’s Sammy Smith on how he accidentally wrangled Australia’s pub-pop-rock supergroup.
According to The Beefs’ bandleader Sammy Smith, what makes a song an Australian Classic is its ability to capture the people who call this sunburnt country home.
“We’re a funny, comedic-at-heart, factious bunch,” he explains over the phone from his place in WA. “Australians are really good at coming up with nuanced words...we’re just so good at slang. And we’re a rough-house kind of country – the music needs to reflect that.”
Since 2018, The Beefs have been dropping songs chocker-block with cheeky colloquialisms and country heart, taking cues from the Aussie rock ‘n’ roll bands that were big in the ’80s. They’re true blue tracks – ones that remind you of sticky pub floors and sunburnt shoulders. And with song titles like ‘Shins Up, Tins Up’ and ‘Rubber Arm’, The Note reckons The Beefs could be on to writing the next national masterpiece.
Born and bred in Port Lincoln, Sammy’s been making music since he was a little tacker, penning songs with his brother or jamming in acoustic bands. But his music career under The Beefs didn’t start until he made the move to the seaside suburb of Bondi in 2010.
It’s here where he opened popular café Porch and Parlour with Matt Corby’s manager, Matt Emsell, and became
close with the now acclaimed multi- instrumentalist. Around the same time, Sammy decided to park making acoustic music. “I wasn’t super satisfied with [what] I was playing,” he says. “It didn’t really feel like me. I started writing these pub rock songs with a bit of a humorous twist as a joke and everybody was like, ‘Dude, this is you!’ I guess that’s when I realised, ‘Oh, now I’m writing from the heart.’
Matt liked the music so much he said he wanted to produce the first EP. “I think because he knew me so well, he was stoked I was doing something that came so easily: comedy and music. So, I went and hung out in his studio for a while. That was the start of [The Beefs].”
Title track ‘Country Member’ arrived late 2019, followed by suds-saddened pub anthem ‘Rubber Arm’ and the Country Member EP. It instantly struck a chord with listeners, especially those with roots in regional cities.
“A standout moment was showing it to my friends and the people I grew up with, and for them to be able to relate to lyrics like ‘Dead Roo on the side of the road it feels like home to me’. We’d all moved elsewhere from Port Lincoln. But the music is about coming back and feeling that nostalgia.”
When the pandemic rolled through, The Beefs were building towards their second EP, Feel So Good. This time round, Sammy teamed up with musos Kirin J Callinan and Julian Sudek to create the 170bmp beast that is ‘Red Bellied Black Snake’.
“I have a pottery workshop in Tamarama and next door, Kirin had a studio. We got to know each other really well. He grew up with Julian and those guys have a really good synergy. I love being in the studio when they’re thriving off each other.
“I took them the demos [for ‘Red Bellied Black Snake] and watching them bring it to life was almost scary. I was like, ‘Oh, this is the direction we really want to go?’ You hear DJs playing it at pubs now and it’s like, ‘Wow!’. It’s so surprising.”
It wasn’t until the song started getting picked up internationally that Sammy realised The Beefs were onto something big. “It clicked when people used it in surf movies. [US pro-surfer] John John Florence’s producers messaged me and wanted to use ‘Red Bellied Black Snake’. I didn’t realise how fitting it was for surf clips – it’s an upbeat track. That’s when we realised, ‘Ok, we’ve got a genre here. We’ve got something unique’.”
With ‘Red Bellied Black Snake’ in the bank, Sammy started to grow who The Beefs are. He enlisted Monty Tramonte from the Delta Riggs and Lucy Lucy [Peking Duk, Yuma X] to lend their time and talent to the band. Suddenly, The Beefs had become this music supergroup featuring some of Australia’s best artists. “Bondi is such a small town – everybody knows everybody. We were just plucking people who were close to us.”
While the lineup of who’s who in the band is ever-changing, Sammy is keen to showcase their catchy sound at their first Adelaide gig for Notestock on November 4.
“The Unibar is so nostalgic for me. I saw so many seminal acts there growing up, from Regurgitator to TISM. For me to be playing there now is really cool. I hope that South Australians know that I’m from Port Lincoln and that I’m one of them.
“Adelaide doesn’t scare me because I know Adelaide people are so accepting of any type of arts, and that community there has always been so strong – I reckon more so than anywhere else in Australia. I’m going to feel really at home at that show.”
As for what The Beefs are doing next, Sammy says the band has ‘a whole album’s worth of music’ they’re recording. ‘Ordinary’ – a song about pubs being the centre of our community – dropped in October, with a follow-up single expected in December.
“The audience helps you write your next song,” Sammy says. “And I don’t think we’ve written our best song yet. I’m excited to keep going up and up in the quality of music we make.”
See The Beefs play Notestock at UniBar Adelaide this November 4. Tickets available now.
