Regurgitator: Bringing It All Back Up
It’s been 30 years since regurgitator started putting the ‘a’ in alternative. Ahead of a tour to celebrate their seminal album Unit, Quan Yeomans talks about the serious business of never taking things seriously.
Words by Miranda Freeman // Image by Stephen Sloggett
It’s the late ’90s and Regurgitator – who have established themselves with #3 ARIA-charting album Tu-Plang and frenetic single ‘Kong Foo Sing’ – find themselves growing weary of the “cock forest” attending their shows. So they decide to explore a new sound.
Inspired by their love of ’80s artists like Gary Numan and Devo, they bunker down for three weeks to experiment with synthesisers and vocoders and, without really trying, create an album that causes a seismic shift in the industry. That album is Unit.
“Were we actually ahead of the game?” asks frontman Quan Yeomans. “Or so far behind it we fooled ourselves – and a few friendly strangers – that we were ahead! At the time, we were inspired by classic ’80s tracks, The Beatles and Japanese Noise acts, and labouring under the belief that we were more or less capable of writing songs of an equal calibre. The result is a record like Unit, which is really an awkward pastiche of oddly-executed attempts and unique failures to ape our heroes.”
More than two decades later, Unit is treated with game-changing reverence. From the distinctive bass crunch of ‘! (The Song Formerly Known As)’ to the catchy existentialism of ‘Black Bugs’, the album continues to strike a chord with Australian audiences – earning the coveted spot of #14 on Rolling Stones’ Best 200 Australian Albums of All Time.
Now, Regurgitator are revisiting the album with a national tour supported by acts like DZ Deathrays and Custard. Kicking things off with a mini-festival in Brisbane, Yeomans reflects on “shoe-horning themselves back into vintage silver suits” and playing their iconic catalogue live again.
“It was a glorious evening, the crowd seemed very up for everything. Unfortunately, I found myself unable to hear anything at all for about five songs due to a major in-ear monitoring malfunction about halfway in,” he laughs. “So I may have appeared slightly dissociated as I watched my hands groping for familiar chords along the fretboard, whilst mouthing and grunting in the general direction of the tune. Thankfully the crowd seemed very nice about it.”
In 1997, at the time of Unit’s release, the charts were dominated by Aqua’s super-saccharine ‘Barbie Girl’ and Savage Garden’s ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’. And then you had these three punk dudes from Brisbane with an album that had songs like ‘I Will Lick Your Arsehole’.
“I still have no idea what the fuck that song is about! And that pretty much sums up the approach we took with the whole album in lots of ways,” he says. “We naively put our faith in the mid-90s transitional music technology, which inevitably glitches or loops in an interesting way, and just ran with it. ‘I Will Lick Your Arsehole’ does contribute to one of the most surreal live moments in my performance career on the regular, though: getting a crowd to sing ‘I will lick your arsehole’ along with you, night after night, is a constant reminder of the abstract chaos that clearly makes up most of the visible universe.”
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On the tour they’ll be joined by original keyboardist Shane Rudken – the man who kept things together when the band were at loggerheads.
“We haven’t played with Shane for over 20 years, and it fills me with fond memories to have him back on stage again,” he says. “By 1998, after a few years of endless touring, the band had reached that inevitable point of being unable to stand the sight of each other. Shane was the one ray of stage sunshine that often kept it from falling apart. His hands are like magical butterflies, you never know how or where they might alight on the keytar at any given moment. He’s like watching quantum theory in action. Is he a particle, or a wave, or both?”
On the 25 Years Of Unit tour, the ‘Gurge will be joined by fellow homegrown acts like DZ Deathrays, Custard, Butterfingers and Glitoris. How has it been to play with Custard again and the other guys?
“We’re super-stoked that DZ Deathrays are on this with us, and having Custard along for the ride is also amazing. It contributes heavily to the overall nostalgia and vibe,” he says. “We played with them a lot in the 90s and honestly, watching them perform lately makes me appreciate them way more. Butterfingers is still a great outfit, and Glitoris are a powerful band with a great, intense focus about them.”
Par for the course, Regurgitator’s live performance will have some wacky visuals cued up from lighting artist Ken Weston. Can we expect any 3D holograms?
“Ken’s visuals are truly a sight to behold. As far as holograms go, none of us has died yet, but rest assured when I do I will definitely be having a hologram made of me to continue playing with the band. There’s a hologram clause in my will. Of course, you and I know that we’re all just holograms anyway, right?”
Amidst their quarter-century yardstick tour, Regurgitator are also recording a new album which will feature their “usual, interesting bag of weirdness.”
“As far as themes, I can say it will cover the importance of hanging out with the wrong people, ’80s cocaine-fuelled mania, human pests, visual pollution and the epic nature of the difficulties we seem to be collectively facing at this juncture. We’ve also asked our original producer, Magoo, to mix this one, so it feels really nice to be finally working with him again.”
Back in the ’90s, Unit pushed the envelope for Australian rock-meets-synthesiser music. What instrument, or genre, would the band be eager to experiment with nowadays?
“I’ve been subtly pushing a white reggae agenda with the guys for some time now,” he says without skipping a beat. “It’s possibly the most challenging genre in the world, but quite a few of my peers have assured me that UB40 is one of the best live acts they’ve ever seen. So perhaps it’s worth a shot.”
Regurgitator will play at Thebarton Theatre on Saturday, May 27. Tickets available through Ticketmaster.
