The Beasts and their Black Milk
Legendary Australian blues rock band The Beasts are set to play a one night only show in Melbourne at the Forum. This exclusive show happening on the 12th of September will be the band’s chance to celebrate the 35th anniversary of their iconic album ‘Black Milk’. With The Beasts of Bourbon set be joined by special guests Cash Savage, The Johnnys and Ezra Lee plus more this a once in a lifetime chance to experience some of the best Aussie rock music ever crafted live. We had the absolute pleasure of throwing some questions out to The Beasts guitarist, Kim Salmon, so we asked him about the magic of ‘Black Milk’, the upcoming “once only revisitation of a very specific never to be repeated time” event and if we can expect new music from the iconic band.
Firstly, Congratulations on the 35th birthday of your Black Milk album, does it feel like three and a half decades have passed or does it feel like yesterday that you released this iconic LP?
Thanks! Well 35 years is a bit over half a lifetime for me! It does feel like an age ago. Certainly doesn’t feel like only yesterday!
How did the band celebrate this special milestone?
At the time we just did what bands do when they make a new album. We went on tour - round Australia and Europe. I guess this upcoming show at the Forum is us finally celebrating it ha ha!
“To be honest I think Sour Mash was the game changer”
Would you say that Black Milk was the album that changed the trajectory for the Beasts Of Bourbon?
To be honest I think Sour Mash was the game changer. It was a shift away from the psychobilly cow punk of ‘Axeman’s Jazz’ which charmingly marks that album as a product of its time. But possibly that’s just my perception. I’d say the results of that ‘game change’ were much more manifest on ‘Black Milk’, so to everyone outside the band it must have seemed like a huge shift.
4. What made it different from your The Axeman’s Jazz (1984) or 1998’s Sour Mash? What made this album special?
The idea that “we can do whatever the fuck we like”! This was something that Tex was trying to instill with all the ideas and influences he brought to the previous album, ie ‘Sour Mash’. The idea had well and truly sunk in with ‘Black Milk’! That this totally unschooled punk rock entity The Beasts ( as everyone including ourselves called the band ) had the audacity to think it could play just about any kind of music and set about proving it was an outrageous idea in itself! The fabulous ‘conceit of it! Whether we did or not is a moot point. What we ended up with startled everyone and we came up with gold in the process!
But the album is particularly special for me for the effect it had on my writing and the opportunity it gave me! Up to that point, song-writing was a means to an end – I wrote to create content for the Scientists and after that The Surrealists. I was always working to a conceptual framework. With The Beasts Of Bourbon on ‘Black Milk’ that M.O. had really shifted as I was basically given free reign to just keep writing songs and music for the hell of it. ‘Cool Fire’ was Jazz, ‘Blue Stranger’ – Doo Wop R&B, ‘El Beasto’ – Tango, ‘Hope You Find Your Way To Heaven’ - C&W, ‘Words From A Woman To Her Man’ and ‘I’m So Happy I Could Cry’…they were all completely different styles of songs. It was the same for Spencer. He wrote ‘A Fate Much Worse Than Life’ – practically Klezmer! And ‘Execution Day’ and a bunch of other stuff that remained in his solo set to the end! As for Tex the journey from ‘Black Milk’ to ‘Rest In Peace' via ‘Finger Lickin’! That’s really going places!
“Most of my great memories are in the creation of the material.”
What are your standout moments or memories from when you were recording Black Milk?
Most of my great memories are in the creation of the material. I’d fly over from Perth to Sydney and stay in Tex’s room in Darlinghurst while he’d go and stay with his girlfriend. He’d come to visit, we’d talk about music and exchange ideas. He definitely had some kind of overarching view about where he wanted the band to go musically, but he was open to new ideas that could be incorporated in that. It all gave me an opportunity to think in different ways. Hopefully I had a similar effect on him. We’d practice with the band, do some shows and take the stuff on the road. By the time we got to record ‘Black Milk’, a lot of it was well and truly ‘run in’ and it was just a matter of going in and banging it down. We did have the budget left for a fair bit of experimentation on top of that and it’s probably that combination that allowed us to pull the whole thing off.
One fond memory I have is Boris applying the “you can play what you like” principle to his bass line in ‘Cool Fire’ where he just fired off a bunch of random notes claiming, “this is jazz, you can just play any old shit” and miraculously, it worked!
You have announced a very special show to celebrate the anniversary with a bunch of special guests set to join you at the Forum in Melbourne on the 12th of September. What sets this anniversary apart from the others?
I really couldn’t comment, except to say that this album is unique, amongst other records and Beasts Of Bourbon Records. An anomaly even! You suggest that the record was a change of trajectory for us and I’d suggest the opposite. That it is the end of a bizzare line, a massive side-track taking us nowhere! But in a fantastic way! The album is a beautiful anachronism.
“This a chance to have some fun with some cool and crazy tracks that that might have fallen by the wayside for various reasons.”
On the night you will be playing Black Milk in its entirety, how long has it been since you’ve delivered the album front to back?
We’ve never played the album in its entirety nor in sequence. I think bands usually only play entire albums for their debut when they play their entire repertoire. After that with follow ups they usually keep to the ‘keepers’ and don’t bother with the ‘album tracks’ and ‘studio experiments’. Not to say our subsequent albums are made of filler, rather, we’ve been in a position to pick and choose using what works best in a live context. This a chance to have some fun with some cool and crazy tracks that that might have fallen by the wayside for various reasons. I don’t think we’ve even touched ‘You Let Me Down’, ‘Blue Stranger’, ‘A Fate Much Worse Than Life’ or ‘El Beasto’ since recording them!
What else can fans attending the show look forward to?
Well obviously this show will bring focus to our dear departed friend, mentor and drummer so fans can expect to, and have a right to see it as, a tribute to the legendary James Baker! His spirit and attitude is in all of those songs! He will be very present! Other than that they can expect to be entertained with the usual blend of anarchy, humour and energy that defines The Beasts!
“they can expect to be entertained with the usual blend of anarchy, humour and energy that defines The Beasts!”
With the band coming together again, any chance of some new material in the future?
We did just release a final work with James Baker called ‘Ultimo’ - James wanted to go out with a new album and now he’s gone I think we need to at least let that one sink in. We were all extremely proud of the album and feel it is a game changer! However in answer to your question I guess “never say never “.
After 35 years, what are your best memories of Beasts Of Bourbon? Do you have a classic story about the band/bandlife that fans wouldn’t know?
On the grounds that an answer to that might incriminate me and or my band mates I reserve the right to say ‘no comment’
- actually I do have one relatively mild story: one night in Graz Austria ( I think) I sprained my finger in an drunken impromptu soccer game in a parking lot with band mates after the show. I woke the next morning to tell the tour manager of this, only to be informed by him that Spencer had injured his arm in a separate episode of drunken revelry. Spencer had a broken arm and had to wear a cast for the remainder of the tour which he and our roadie Speedy utilised to great dramatic effect each night when Speedy would ‘reach around’ from behind him and strum the frenetic right hand part of ‘Straight Hard and Long’. Unfortunately for me my injury wasn’t as visually obvious, but I had a bucket of ice to plunge my hand into after the, at this point, excruciating shredded lead solo in ‘Chase The Dragon’.
“as well as being an endless font of improbable stories he was the roadie that made our rock roll”
Who in your crew or team deserves a shout out but never gets one? And what is it they do that keeps your world turning?
Well! In the old days that person was undoubtedly the aforementioned Speedy! As to his constant exploits I reserve the same right to ‘no comment’ as the previous question, suffice to say that as well as being an endless font of improbable stories he was the roadie that made our rock roll.
Sadly Speedy is long departed and now our ‘stage guy’ is one Evan Richards who till recently was also our ‘reserve’ for James Baker. He didn’t have to fulfil that role but he will now be taking over that position behind the band and the drum-kit and we have absolute faith in him to, not only fulfil that role, but bring a new dimension as well as a new story to the band!
Do you have a message for all The Beasts fans, supporters and Day Ones?
The Beasts is a still evolving entity but this show is a once only revisitation of a very specific never to be repeated time. You miss this show at your peril!
Tickets for this exclusive show are on sale now via destroyalllines.com
