Taste

But between checking in, queueing for shuttles and maintaining conversation with a journalist on the phone, it’s no simple task. Luckily for him, Taste are old hands at the realities of life as touring musicians. In the ’70s, the band was one of the most popular and promising acts in the country – not bad in an era that also gave us Skyhooks, INXS and AC/DC. After being approached to support Queen, their place in glam rock history seemed assured, but to bastardise Tennessee Williams, you can always depend on the kindness of family.

“Those were amazing times,” Murdoch chuckles. “You easily spent most of your life touring with other bands. We toured with Hush, Sherbet, The Sweet, AC/DC. We spent time with all those guys, so it was very much like a little club that you were very lucky to belong to. Hanging out with Marc Hunter from Dragon, drinking with Bon Scott. All those things that you look around now and think, it doesn’t really seem to exist anymore. That camaraderie. You could easily name all of the singers and guitarists from those bands, but I’m not sure you can do that these days. It’s a different world.

“Countdown did enormous good for everyone. It didn’t matter what level you were at, it put you through to everyone. It also brought us all together. We’d have to spend the whole of a Saturday together, someone would smuggle a bottle of Scotch in and as a result be the most popular. Having Ted Mulry and Bon Scott bashing on your door to get in. There were so many characters in those days. Marc Hunter was a wild man, just unbelievable. But they were all great people.”

It is clear when talking with Murdoch that his recollections of Aussie music throughout the ’70s are largely happy ones, even though each of the performers he identifies here has passed away. The members of Taste were only 15 when they were signed to Warner Music – the youngest artists on the roster – but they quickly became stalwarts of the scene. When Freddie Mercury came calling, they were on the cusp of signing to Sire Records with the world at their feet… until their parents showed up.

“Well, my parents were very supportive, and they didn’t question much,” Murdoch recalls. “They were just happy to see us on TV and hear us on radio. But the other three families, they were always saying, ‘Well, where’s the money?’ We bought seven Marshall stacks, a two-tonne truck and an eight-seater van. So we had debts! That’s why there was no money up front, but the idea was that eventually we’d be able to be independent. So that had a big impact.

“When those three parents got together, they had met a guy who owned a wine business and was very wealthy, and he said if he managed the band, we’d get paid a very nice wage and we’d fly everywhere, stay at the best hotels. And that all came true, he did all that. The only unfortunate thing was that he knew nothing about music. Just nothing. So all the industry contacts and promises, they all went. These recording companies deal more with managers than they do with the band, and they understandably just didn’t get this guy. We were just about to sign with Sire Records in America – I actually sat with [founder] Seymour Stein in Australia and he was all excited – and then we changed management, and could never get that door open again. I think that’s an important lesson for musicians to learn. They sign managers as much as they sign up the band.”

It spelled the end of Taste for almost 40 years, though no-one was sitting around idle; Murdoch himself has maintained a fruitful life as a piano entertainer. But in 2008 came Rock Is Dead, the band’s third album and first since 1977’s Knights Of Love. Today, Taste are gearing up for a resurgence across the country as their latest LP, Life On Earth, is spearheaded by lead single ‘I Am God’. It’s an unapologetic anthem to the band’s career, and though it’s catchy, the song is also quite political – in fact, it’s really rather dark.

“Life On Earth itself asks the question, ‘Why do we act like animals?’ Which might actually be a bit of an insult to the animals,” Murdoch laughs. “But ‘I Am God’ is imagining that God is up there playing games, and maybe that’s what it’s all about. Maybe God isn’t as nice as everyone thinks or hopes. ‘Let’s see what this tsunami does!’ I write short stories all the time, and I’ll often go back and have a look around there, see what I can find. ‘I Am God’ came from a story where the world is being played like a Sims game, with someone throwing down these disasters just to see what would happen.

“It does have a pessimistic undertone. It’s hard not to write a song like that at the moment. There’s a song on the album called ‘The Fatal Shore’, which is about the terrorist attack in Sydney. These things, they tend to make it hard to write a love song when you’ve got these other things on your mind.”