Ben has many nicknames. Some call him Benny BandSlut because of the sheer volumes of Brisbane bands Ben plays with. Hey what a coup for a fanzine writer to cover several bands in one interview ... well actually for this interview we'll call him Benny Blownose as we'll concentrate on his two main bands - Blowhard and Godnose. The offer of a couple of Czech beers is all it took to put Ben in front of a tape recorder for an interview. Here's what he had to say for himself :-

When did you start playing guitar ?

I started playing guitar when I was 13 years old.

What made you want to play guitar ? Was there a guitar around the house or anything ?

No, not really. My parents just offered to pay for guitar lessons and it just went from there.

How long did you take lessons for ?

I took lessons for about three years.

To what sort of level did those lessons get you to ?

I don't know ... guitar lessons are probably good for keeping you on your toes as far as theory is concerned. You can probably go as far if not further teaching yourself once you've been taught the basics...but you know the names of what you're doing.

What was the first band you played in ?

The first band of any consequence I played in was an Ipswich teenage Punk Rock band called Blot - featuring the awesome talents of Mr. Paul Bromley who now plays guitar in Pangaea.

So you're from Ipswich originally ?

Not originally but that's where I spent my teenage years - so I consider myself from Ipswich.

I've seen you playing bass and drumming for "Elvis and the Burger Kings" - what other instruments do you have a bash at ?

I played the trumpet from age 8 until ... I dunno ... I haven't played the trumpet in any bands or whatever since Grade 11 ... up to age 15 I suppose.

Ever thought of coming back and doing any trumpet stuff ?

Yeah maybe ... I wouldn't mind ... but I haven't let the idea manifest itself really.

OK, the big one ... What bands do you currently play in ?

Well there's Godnose ... I wouldn't say they are my main band ... but I write pretty well all the music for Godnose. We're a Punk Rock 4 piece and we have dual male and female vocals in the style of Nausea or something like that.

Also of course Blowhard which probably would be my main band. Which is a 10 piece that plays styles from Punk thru to Jazz thru to Ska thru to Reggae. But probably a good half of us have a Punk Rock background so that tends to come to the fore.

I play drums in a Sixties garage punk band called the Busymen - they're actually looking for another drummer but I said to them that I'd play whatever shows they get.

I play second guitar in Pangaea occasionally, whenever I get the time and they're in town.

I've also been known to play the occasionally Bass Guitar in Scrumfeeder.

Then there's also the Fred Band that I play guitar in and Elvis and the Burger Kings I've played drums in and bass.

That's about it for the moment.

You were in Anger in Motion - AIM. They had several line-ups at what point did you join ?

I joined AIM at the start of 1992 and then towards the end of 1992 the then drummer Steve left - he went on to play with Snappahead a bit. That's when Tim who plays drums in Godnose came along ... that's how we got to know each other. And right at the end of AIM we had Mr. Paul Bromley of Pangaea playing second guitar as well. We like to keep it in the family.

I really enjoyed the lounge version of AIM.

Yeah that was Anger in Slow Motion at the Fred Band CD launch.

Which recorded AIM songs do you play on ?

"I could have been a cop" single - I wrote probably two thirds of the music for that. On the second and third of Rollo's Freaks series of compilations. "That was then ... this is now" on the Freaksville compilation "Tell me that's sane" on Freaktones, which I wrote about two thirds of the music for. I also played on the second AIM tape.

When did you join Blowhard ?

I joined Blowhard, Easter 1995. I was sitting in my living room one night and they turned up on my doorstep and said "we've just kicked our guitarist out and we've got two shows in Lismore tomorrow and the night after. So you've got another 6 songs to learn.

What do you mean another 6 songs did you already know some of them ?

Because about a month before that Phlegm, the bass player was on Jury duty and they got locked in overnight to deliberate or whatever. I spoke to Rollo about just what time Blowhard were playing and he wanted to know if I would be prepared to stand in on bass if Phlegm was locked in overnight because I knew most of the songs. So I knew most of the songs cos I had already stepped in and played on bass. It was just some of the newer ones.

Blowhard must be the only band in Australia to do a TurboNegro cover ?

Well Godnose have been known to do a TurboNegro cover as well.

Which one ?

We did "Erection" before Blowhard actually... and we used to do "Bad Mongo" but we got sick of that. I think that TurboNegro are one of those bands that it's hard to do a good cover off. Although there is a band from Geelong called The Dancing Outlaws which features the vocal talents of Neil who used to be in Undinism and he's a big TurboNegro fan so it wouldn't surprise me if those guys did a TubroNegro song.

Late last year Blowhard went to Europe and Japan - what were the highlights of that trip ?

Probably playing a big show in Amsterdam with Fishbone, Dub War, Flag of Democracy, Liberator. That was pretty good. There were probably about ten bands - it was a two room thing like an indoor equivalent of a 4ZZZ Market Day. The band in one room would stop and the band in the other room would spark up.

Did you get a good audience reaction ?

Yeah, we were actually were topping the bill in one of the rooms and Dub War were topping the bill in the other room. So by the time we went on in our room the crowd was pretty well warmed up.

Can you tell us about any plans for Blowhard ? You helped write that new Spice Girl oriented song - what's that called ?

That's called Herbal Boy. I wrote the Beginning and the end of the music. Phil the other guitarist wrote the middle of it and Rollo wrote the words.

We've just recorded three new songs for reasons that I won't go into here. Tour wise we might be going down south with Voodoo Glow Skulls if they come out in October and it looks like we might be doing a show with Citizen Fish in October as well.

Something slightly different, I hear you're a Vegan ...

I don't call myself a Vegan I just try to steer clear of animal products as far as my diet goes.

Why have you made that decision ?

I stopped eating meat and eggs and such like when I was 16. Cos I was listening to bands like Conflict and Subhumans who were putting forth a pro-Animal stand point. I was sympathetic to that. That was just after I joined AIM and they were all Vegetarians. I knew just from those guys that vegetarian food was quite palatable and I stopped eating dairy products the following year because I had really bad skin. My skin cleared up shortly after I stopped eating dairy products and haven't ever since.

How hard is it maintaining that regime on Tour ?

It's not so hard as it is boring. I mean how many packets of potato chips and small bottles of tomato juice can you eat on a road trip. It's just a matter of ... just make sure where ever we are staying I've got access to cooking facilities. Buy a shitload of food from the supermarket and quite often the time I've ended up cooking for most or all of the band.

I hear you don't mind the odd beer - what's your favourite brew ?

I've been giving the Guinness a substantial throttling of late. I like most dark beers as a general rule whether a Stout or an Old. I've yet to come across a dud Stout or a dud old.

You must have found some beauties in Europe.

Well Yeah! There was a really good dark beer we came across in a place called Oberhausen just outside of Essen. The beer is called Weizenbier which means "wheat beer" and it's a really thick chunky beer sort of like Coopers. It comes in light and dark and both were quite nice. I found the dark even easier to drink.

How long has Godnose been going ?

We actually started playing in August of 1995. But we'd been jamming since AIM broke up in one form or another. The members of AIM gradually fell away until it was just me and Tim and then we got Brian on bass who was an old friend of Tim's. We did our first gig in August 1995.

So has Jane joined GodNose full-time now ?

Yeah ... Jane who used to play in a band called Stan. Originally I approached her about singing on a future recording because over the last couple of years I've had a soft spot for girls singing Grindcore. She was quite acquiescent with that. Then at one stage Brian looked like he was going to leave the band because he moved up to Toowoomba cos he'd scored some nifty job up there. So I actually asked Jane if she wanted to play bass in the band and she was quite willing to do that. But then Brian didn't want to leave the band so we gave Jane a microphone instead.

Godnose played the Hardcore SuperBowl in Sydney in March this year.

Yeah, that gave us the opportunity to play with a good deal of our favourite interstate bands all at the same time. And meet a lot of other people and other bands from various states. There was even a band from New Zealand called Somerset who weren't too bad.

So the state of hardcore music is pretty healthy in Australia.

Yeah, I reckon it's pretty good. Well as evidenced by this partial SuperBowl - there were all styles of punk and hardcore from melodic stuff like One Inch Punch, Somerset thru to New York Style Mosh Metal Hardcore like Mindsnare, over the top Grindcore like Heads Kicked Off and Coach. We don't have any melodic leanings but I'd like to think we're right between the tough New York sound and Grindcore style and the traditional Hardcore style which we're all fans of.

What releases do Godnose have out ?

There's "Clubbed Senseless" on Brisbane Calling. We've got a song on the 4ZZZ Hot 100 and we've got a five song tape out. And we did some recording not so long ago which we'd like to release on CD sometime this year maybe with some live stuff that we're looking to record in the near future.

You must be pleased with the success of "SpitBoy Girl" - firstly making the 4ZZZ Hot 100 and then being on the 4ZZZ Hot 100 CD release.

Well I guess getting into the Hot 100 is a fairly monumental achievement so we can derive some satisfaction from that and then being on the CD which will probably find it's way to probably most corners of this country if not further afield. But my concern about that is that the two songs on the CD that I play on - the Blowhard song and the Godnose song are both Ska songs ... I just hope people don't get the idea that both Blowhard and Godnose are Ska Bands .. because we're not. Godnose happen to like Ska so we do one or two Ska and Reggae songs and like I say with Blowhard before we play all different styles.

Cheers

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