On The Boys Next Door/Birthday Party

E: There was one question I wanted to ask you, which comes from an old interview you did, and I've never known the answer to it... you asked the interviewer if he'd like to now the reason The Boys next Door kept going after you'd left school, and you said it was an unusual reason... but the interviewer didn't follow it up... so, what was the reason?

M: The Boys Next Door?

E: Would you like me to dig the interview up?

M: It might explain something to me, yeah. Maybe you missed a word out, I don't quite follow what you're talking about...
rummage rummage rummage

E: It's in some old Adelaide fanzine... have you heard of DNA at all?

M: DNA? Yeah, they've been around for years. The group, you mean?

E: No... no, the fanzine.

M: Oh.

E: "Birthday Party, 16 Page Interview With Mick Harvey!"

M: 16 Pages!?!? God's Salt!

E: Yes, I know... date: September 1985.

M: Was that when the Bad Seeds were here, or... ?? Did they do that in England?

E: It was done on New Years Eve, 1981.

M: God. Hahahah!

E: It took ages, didn't it? Just ignore the page on your left.

M: 'Punk Metal? Punkmetal?!', Oh here it is. (mumble mumble) "Do you want to know what our motivation was for carrying on and taking it so seriously? It's unusual."

E: Yes, it puzzled me too.

M: Um, maybe I've forgotten!... not... I don't remember. I think I was making it up, actually. I might have been being sarcastic... "Do you want to know what our motivation for carrying on and taking it so seriously? It's unusual!!!" I was probably going to say something like "Money!", which is something that never quite worked out.

E: D'you remember playing in Adelaide in '82?

M: Yeah! It was so hot! Some barn out near the beach, the... Shandon?

E: That's right. It was quite funny, half the people crammed up the back and tried to ignore you 'cause they were suburban yobs, and the other half were up the front going 'WAUGHHH!'.

M: Yeah, no, I remember those concerts... and then we played at some... The Governor Hindmarsh, is that it?

E: You're correct. It was extremely hot, and nobody could perform.

M: It was really SOOOO HOT! How can you play a sparkling energetic performance when it's like that? People were probably going, 'Oh, I paid $6 to get in here and they're all lying on the ground!' Fuckin' hell, you're only human!

E: Well, they didn't have air conditioning, I don't think, and it was 42 degrees Celsius in the early evening...

(later)

M: Y'know, that thing that used to be said about The Birthday Party, that we incorporated cliches, and used them and stuff, which we did do a lot of, we used deliberate cliches, and in the context of what we were doing, they were just like a joke; or sometimes by accident, they'd be made really effective or something...