“WHAT THE FUCK’S GOING ON” shouts Garry Frost. It’s early March, ’89, and the location is the head office of WEA records, in the northern Sydney suburb of Crows Nest. Frost, the primemover behind the super-popular 1927, is noticeably pissed-off on a day when the record company expected him to be all smiles.
Only the night before, 1927 had won ARIA awards for the best debut single and album, with “That’s When I Think Of You” and …ish, respectively. But today’s another day, and Frost is sick of getting shafted. He’d arrived at the office in good spirits, but was furious to see the massive billboard that takes pride of place outside the WEA building being changed from the album-cover of INXS’s Kick to that of Bigstorms’s marginal Living In Exile.
“Why the hell aren’t we up there,” he demands to know in light of
the previous night’s success, only to be confronted with vacant stares, and half-baked excuses.
While Frost’s outburst fell on deaf ears, it was the first tangible indication that under the stonewash denim and Reebok exterior that is 1927, there lies some blood and guts.
For while the band has done its best to remain imageless, it has inadvertently created an image out of its damned ordinariness. Having consecutive Top Ten singles with “That’s When I Think Of You”, “If I Could”, “You’ll Never Know”, and what with ish sitting on top of both the album and compact disc charts for more than six months, selling, at the time of writing some 320,000 units and still going, ultimately some form of attention, even celebrity, was going to be accorded them.
And if the media too often looks to superficialities for the purposes of labelling a band, then 1927 certainly presented them with a rounded package. Their songs are well constructed, radio-friendly pop tunes; their clothing is straight off the rack of their local suburban boutique; their hair is cut without stylistic advice; their videos are simple and direct indications of the band’s normalcy; and the band’s frontman Eric Weideman, has the sort of good looks that inspire teenage swoons, adult affections, and yet don’t upset the males.
In all, the band appeared to be the living definition of the word ‘bland’ – the only thing one could find to dislike about them was that they were so inoffensive. But, as Weideman points out, that’s only looking superficially. The band certainly have a strong commitment to their music and their audience, he argues – for example, on their last headline tour where the band was selling out concert venues they kept ticket prices to a minimum in order not to fleece the fans.
“Too many people are too quick to right us off as a teeny-bopper band, which really pisses me off, “ he says, sitting with Frost and drummer James Barton at the board-table in the office of WEA’s Chairman, Paul Turner.
“The media’s not sure how to take us,” says Frost, in a more considered, almost mediating way. “I don’t know whether you’re sure how to take us. You’re probably sitting there going, ‘Ahh, I’m just having a conversation’, I don’t know. But certainly, professionally, I don’t think the media know how to take us.”
“Even a song like ‘If I Could’, though,” says Weideman, determined to get this off his chest. “If you look at it, if you actually read the words, it’s not a ‘With love to guide us/Nothing can divide us’ kind of song’.”
“Shshsh,” urges Frost.
“Sorry,” laughs Weideman
“I DON”T KNOW,” SAYS GARRY FROST thinking back to the barriers the music industry placed in front of him when he was initially hawking around his, and Weideman’s concept; 1927. “It would be easy to be bitter, but I’m not.”
“There’s no point in being bitter, you know, I just consider myself very, very lucky,” says Weideman.
“That’s probably us coming from different places,” Frost replies. “Certainly you don’t get any favours given to you just because you’ve been there before.”
It hasn’t been an easy road for Frost. Having played music when he was at school, and inspired, particularly, by the combined dieties of Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison, Frost joined his first band when he started university. It was here that he met Alex Smith, who ultimately invited the guitarist/keyboardist to joining the then fledging Moving Pictures.
Moving Pictures played the northern suburbs of Sydney to increasing audiences at the tail end of the Seventies, before scoring a major recording deal and releasing their debut album, Days of Innocence in 1981. From that album came the band’s national Number One single, the Frost-penned “What About Me?”. Excepting the pompous arrangement, that song, in many ways, charted the course that Frost’s songs would follow in 1927. The primary theme being things personal; relationships, the rights of the individual.
Amid the success, however, Moving Pictures went off the rails. Egos inflated, and the band found themselves with an unmanageable overseas recording contract. Frost departed the band in 1982.
“I was lucky enough to get out,” he told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “I didn’t think we had clear direction, and I think that no matter how talented a band might be, if you don’t have a clear direction, if you cant sit down and agree on which way you’re going to head, then you’re in a lot of trouble.
If that experience left a sour taste in Frost’s mouth, the ensuing few years were equally frustrating. His first post-Pictures venture was a duo, Roberts Frost, which, despite hard work, proved unrewarding, both for the artist and the audience.
Upon the duo’s breakup, Frost took to writing songs at home, in his and wife Felicity’s bungalow, in Mosman, just north of Sydney Harbour. So obsessive was his piano playing during this period that he developed tenosynovitis. Luck, it seemed, was not on his side.
THE TURN-AROUND IN FROST’S fortunes, and the event that was the impetus for 1927, however, is the stuff of legend.
Watching the “Red Faces” segment of Hey Hey It’s Saturday, one Saturday evening, Frost saw a complete unknown, Eric Weideman, perform a cover of the Police’s “Roxanne”. Frost was convinced that Weideman was just the vehicle he needed to transport his songs.
“When I went down to see him in Melbourne all I knew was that he looked great and sang great,” Frost reflects. “When I met him he was a wonderful guy. He’s a little bit younger, a little bit wilder and a little bit angrier than me. But if a band’s going to have longevity you don’t have to be the same people, but you have to compatible.”
Yet, finding a singer, who ultimately also became a songwriting partner, didn’t immediately take 1927 into the charts. “We knew each other for two years before we recorded … ish,” Frost explains. “People have this picture of me driving to Melbourne, picking Eric up and us recording. But we spend a lot of time working on the material in Sydney. We rehearsed for three months before Eric even sang, just sitting around in a room playing instruments, getting to know each other.”
“Yeah”, adds Weideman, so to explain the time spent knocking both a friendship and a collection of songs into shape. “I mean, considering throwing away everything that you had back home, to go and work with someone you don’t know from a bar of soap, is pretty strange.”
Before too long Frost and Weideman recruited Frost’s younger brother, Bill to handle bass, and 1927 set off to secure themselves a deal – only to be unanimously turned down.
“We had faith in our material but faith alone doesn’t sell records. Other people must have faith in you as well, and that’s something that you cant organise or premeditate,” says Frost. “I thought we had really strong material and a strong, presentable, personable band, but every record company in the country knocked us back. We spent a year trying to figure out whether it was my taste and my concept, or the powers that be in the industry.
“Looking back, that process just made us a lot stronger as a unit, and that’s probably why I don’t feel bitter.”
“More importantly,” Weideman breaks in, “I feel for all the potentially very popular people that have been knocked back, because it’s not as if anything’s changed. It’s not as if the people that we approached aren’t there anymore, so you just hope that their taste has improved.”
Ultimately, and not without much badgering, Charles Fisher, of Trafalgar Productions, signed the band to a recording contract, and then a licensing and distribution deal was struck with WEA records. Fisher is an old friend of Frost’s, the two having met when Fisher produced both Moving Picture days.
“I was on the lookout for things,” says Fisher, from Rhinoceros Studios, Sydney, while demoing material for 1927’s next album, “and Garry showed me these songs and the lyrics were fabulous, the melodies were fabulous and Eric’s singing was great. And that’s what I tend to look for; people who write well, not so much play well. Right back to the old days when I worked with Radio Birdman that’s what I always go for, the songs. I meant, playing is something you can learn, you can practise, but songwriting isn’t.
“I was quite surprised that people weren’t initially interested in the band, cause the songs were there, but at the same time we really had no master plan, or grand design.”
“WE JUST THREW JAMES A ONE-LINER, and if he didn’t laugh he wasn’t in,” jokes Weideman, referring to drummer James Barton, who was the final piece of 1927’s lineup to fall into place.
“Yeah, he taught at our local music store at Turramurra, “ says Frost, “and someone said he was a nice guy. They’re going to pay for that.”
“I joined during the recording of the album,” Barton offers in reply, “when they decided they might need some drums on the record.”
This light-hearted exchange is typical of the way the members of 1927 interact. There’s nothing pretentious about them in the least, and drawing them into discussing matters serious is not easy task. Simply put, they are just a bunch of guys in a band. They aren’t beyond getting angry about a particular subject, but generally they’re just here to make some music.
They admit that the enormous success of the last twelve months has been a surprise, and has not come without its own particular traumas – primarily personal – yet they’ve weathered the storms. For a band that really only formed when they entered the studio, they had a lot to learn about each others idiosyncrasies, and they had to do it on the road, as their records were racing up the charts.
“When we initially toured together we were our own crew,” says Frost, “and we also stayed in the one room. The four of us all slept on mattresses on the floor in one room. And its just a really great way to get to know each other, ‘cause you’re starting at noon and finishing at three or four in the morning, and that’s every day. You spend a lot of time together and you’re working really hard, so things sort of break down …”
“We had three months to gain three years of experience,” opines Barton.
“Something that’s been really important as far as the band coping with the success, and the hard work, is just being normal people,” Frost continues. “You really know when you come off tour, because it’s been so hectic and so exciting and so abnormal. Like I nearly always don’t know the month, when I’m writing out a cheque or something. Who’s was the last birthday? Who’s did I miss? Fortunately the family’s forgiving.”
“Getting back to a normal life is really important,” says Barton, who, incidentally, still lives “with mum and dad” in Turramurra.
The major change that they’ve undergone is that as the members found their place in the band 1927 became a more democratic outfit. Frost had understandably taken the reins initially, because he was both more experienced and because they were his songs, but he now relishes the increased input of the rest of the band.
“I would only take control because the other guys couldn’t. I don’t like being in that sort of leader situation, I don’t feel very comfortable with it.”
“THE FIRST ALBUM TOOK A YEAR to record. We were still trying to find out little places, and I think we’ve got that worked out. I think we know what we want to do as a band, what we should play and what we shouldn’t play,” says Eric Weideman.
1927 are itching to get back into the studio and get on with the job. Considering that they hadn’t performed live until …ish was in the can, and “That’s When I Think Of You” was in the charts, they’re now charged with the desire to capture some of their live energy on tape. Since …ish, 1927 have also added keyboard whizz, Charlie Cole as a permanent member.
“I don’t think the album is all that representative of what the band is like now. It doesn’t have that edge,” says Weideman. “We’re going to try and capture that on the next record. It’s really had to transfer the vibe and the energy of playing live, into a studio environment, but we’re going to give it a go anyway.”
The only obstacle that may potentially stop them from recording is if …ish takes off in a major way overseas. Frost and Weideman had returned from a promotional tour of Europe and the States only two days prior to this conversation, and while things look promising they aren’t hyping it for more than it’s worth. Certainly the second album is the matter at hand.
“We’re going to work with Charles again. Its great,” says Frost. “The lesson you learn, you know, is to grab the people who do their job really well and you hang on to them.”
“We just all listened to our first high quality live tape, in the last three or four days, of one of the shows on the concert tour,” Frost spouts some time later, his enthusiasm almost contagious. “I think we were all a little bit stunned at how good we are.
“We have a certain standard that we like to aspire to, and that’s perfect,” he concludes. “If we can possible get it better, then we will.