Martin Bland is, well, anything but.
The long standing drummer for supergroup The Monkeywrench has played in a variety of bands for decades, and has travelled the world doing so. From his days playing the Strawberry Hills Hotel to steeping himself in American soul, the expat muso has seen his share of adventure. Now at long last The Monkeywrench are touching down in Australia for the first (and likely last) time. It could have happened much sooner, but I figure the other band members must have been put off by our reputation for containing the world’s most dangerous everything, and our oceans full of teeth.
“Ha! No, no. It’s just, well, we were never asked!” Bland chuckles. “But the last time we got together in April, we were supposed to do a festival in London and we were rehearsing for it, and while we were practising, Tim [Kerr] said, ‘Look, I’m just putting this out there. Is there any chance we could go to Australia?’
“Mark [Arm] and Steve [Turner] said, ‘Huh. Well, we’ll check with our promoters down there and see if they’re interested.’ And hey, we got the thumbs up! That’s all it took. The other guys have always wanted to come, but I’m pretty excited about it myself. I haven’t played there now in about 26 years, so it should be fun. I’ve been back three or four times over the years, but I’ve got kids now, and I’m obligated to take them back to the ancestral home on occasion.”
26 years is a long time between drinks, and the Sydney of today is a long way removed from the one Bland would have experienced back in the ’80s. The venues he once frequented have since closed their doors or dropped live music entirely, and not much remains of the Sydney independent scene from the days of The Scientists, Lime Spiders and Salamander Jim (which featured Bland, Kim Salmon and Tex Perkins). They were glorious, frantic days, but it wasn’t all wine and roses.
“I remember them being a real grind, actually,” Bland says. “I remember [playing in] Zulu Rattle in Sydney, it was very hard to get established. There were a lot of bands around at the time, and great ones, too. You could go down and see the Hoodoo Gurus or The Scientists at the Strawberry Hills Hotel for free. But it was a hell of a lot of hard work, just playing around. We never really gelled.
“Salamander Jim, that band only went for around six months: that’s another band that never quite found its identity I think,” Bland continues. “We were just starting to figure out what we were going to do. When we started, we already had songs that we were supposed to play because the band had already kind of been going with Kim Salmon. He’d written a bunch of songs, so we just played those for a while until we figured out what we wanted to play. By the time we actually figured that out, Tex had got an offer to head over to London, and the band just fell apart. But it was a great time. I have fond memories of those Salamander Jim days.”
In addition to whacking the skins in The Monkeywrench, Bland has also been keeping himself busy playing in both Tom Price Desert Classic and, more recently, as part of a soul band called Bonneville Power. Versatility seems to be the name of the game for The Monkeywrench crew.
“I’ve got a certain style I’ve developed over the years, and it suits some kinds of music, it doesn’t suit others,” Bland says. “I definitely feel like my role is different in every band. In the soul band, me and the bass player have to really keep it pumping along, otherwise it all falls apart. It’s really helping out with playing in The Monkeywrench, actually. But with The Monkeywrench, the fulcrum of the band is Tim Kerr’s guitar. He has this incredible sense of swing, and he’s very much rooted in the blues. He plays this fantastic swing-blues guitar that’s more like Hound Dog Taylor: it just drips off his fingers and he can’t help it. So I just play off him. In other bands, it’ll be different again, but I find that really stimulating. I’d find it really dull otherwise.”
As it stands, The Monkeywrench are something of a rarity these days. Coming together roughly every eight years for a new venture, the chances of them returning to Oz are looking rather slim. But as a great man once said, you should never say never…
“You never know, I would have thought years ago that there wasn’t [much] prospect of us getting back together. But then, interesting proposals come up. We’ve still never played South America, and if that came up we’d certainly do it, if Mudhoney isn’t too busy. It’s the initial getting back together and blowing the dust of songs that takes a little bit of effort. But once you get past that it’s actually pretty easy to get back together. If a couple of years pass, then suddenly it’s hard again. You’ve got to remember all of the lyrics!” he laughs. “None of us feel that old, but then, we try not to look at any old photos, either. We’re pretty full on – I think people will like it.”
The Monkeywrench play Newtown Social Club on Friday November 25.
