Regular John guitarist Brock Tengstrom remembers one family gathering where he was primed to meet his cousin’s boyfriend: “He’s in a band,” Tengstrom’s folks told him. Turns out the weird skinny guy with big sunglasses and black fingernails was Grinspoon frontman Phil Jamieson, pre-Guide to Better Living. “He gave me a copy of that Green EP,” recalls Tengstrom, “and I taught him how to play a few Nirvana songs.”
Whether or not Jamieson remembers that particular lesson today is hard to say, but one thing is very clear: Over the next few months the Grinspoon frontman and anyone else in a hard rock band in Australia will become very familiar with Regular John teaching them a thing or two.
The Sydney foursome’s debut album, The Peaceful Atom Is A Bomb – which Rolling Stone magazine has already dubbed “the perfect distillation of everything good that’s happened since rock found a heavy, fuzzy imagination in the late Sixties” – is the culmination of two intense years of hard living, hard partying and – more than anything – fucking hard work.
Tengstrom, fellow guitarist Ryan Adamson, bassist Caleb Goman and drummer Ryan “Macca” McDonald relocated to inner-Sydney from their country N.S.W. hometown of Griffith in early 2006 – four Fugazi fans clad in RM Williams boots and black jeans who landed right in the middle of a fluoro-flavoured dance-rock disco.
Armed with nothing more than J Mascis’ songwriting smarts, Bill Hick’s sense of humour and a shit load of hallucinogenic drugs, the foursome spent the next few years carving themselves a psyched-out, punk-inspired niche in a Sydney rock scene sick from its own self-indulgence. Regular John brought an honesty and intensity back to venues that had endured shoegazers and sythns for too long, and the fans responded immediately – by the end of 2006 the band had bulldozed its way into the public imagination and onto bills like Homebake and Soundwave.
Along the way, Regular John shared stages with a spectrum of artists that definitely reflects their own diversity – The Bronx, The Hard-Ons, The Scare, Birds Of Tokyo, Helmet, Dinosaur Jr., Louis XIV, You Am I, The Datsuns, Nashville Pussy, The Mint Chicks. As Goman explains, “We don’t really fit in with a particular scene or sound, which means that we can play to all sorts of different people. That’s definitely a virtue.”
Proof of that broad appeal came in 2007, when the band dropped a much-lauded EP called Marrickville 2204. It was the first hint of what Regular John was capable of, a slice on fuzzy, melodic noise rock that appealed to cardigan-clad indie kids as much as the seediest punk rocker to crawl from its namesake suburb. Triple J was playing songs from the disc before it had even been released, with one track, “Who we are” clocked as the fourth most added track to alternative airwaves in the week of release. Radio also jumped on the double A-side single, “The Devil’s Melody”/“Easy Rider”, which followed Marrickville 2204 in late 2007, dishing out a double-dose of punk vitriol that further expanded the Regular John horizons.
But, as good as all that was, it was only the prelude. “It’s always been about making this album,” says Goman of The Peaceful Atom Is A Bomb. “This is what we wanted to do, this is who we are.” Produced by Tim Powels – drummer from the Church – the new record somehow finds the common ground between At The Drive-In, John Lennon and Sonic Youth. It also shows an experimental side to the band that might not always be obvious from their explosive live shows. “We had to find that balance between capturing the energy of what we do live and expanding our sound in the studio,” says Goman. Adamson agrees, noting, “That was especially true for me – Caleb bores his girlfriend with endless talk about how hallucinogenic mushrooms can save the world, but I bore my girlfriend with in-depth descriptions of how to patch various effects pedals together.”
The band are the first to admit that Powels had a big hand in helping them realise their vision, with the producer’s hard-earned rock ‘n’ roll wisdom proving the perfect foil to their own explosive enthusiasm. "Tim is like the rock 'n' roll Ghandi," says Goman. “He managed to capture the energy of our live sound and still bring to life the noises we hear in our heads. He brought a much-needed calm to our storm. I think we might have burnt out without him.”
None of which isn’t to suggest Regular John have lost themselves in a mess of prog-rock navel-gazing – anything but. This is still rock ‘n’ roll, delivered with the same fuck-the-man spirit that Iggy Pop and the Asheton brothers summoned in Detroit all those years ago.
“A big part of us is all about that intensity,” says Tengstrom. “It has to kick you in the guts, but that doesn’t mean you’ve gotta be stupid about it.”
And so stupid it ain’t. But the fact remains – it’s been a very long time since the acid-fuelled apocalyptic fantasies of four smart guys have had so much primal punk rock appeal.
“Yeah, well, we wanted to make a record that we would like,” says Goman, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t want other people to like it as well. This album is definitely about doing both.”
Maybe you can be all things to all people. - Dan Lander
The Peaceful Atom Is A Bomb: Out NOW
On Difrnt Music. Distributed by Universal Music.
Whether or not Jamieson remembers that particular lesson today is hard to say, but one thing is very clear: Over the next few months the Grinspoon frontman and anyone else in a hard rock band in Australia will become very familiar with Regular John teaching them a thing or two.
The Sydney foursome’s debut album, The Peaceful Atom Is A Bomb – which Rolling Stone magazine has already dubbed “the perfect distillation of everything good that’s happened since rock found a heavy, fuzzy imagination in the late Sixties” – is the culmination of two intense years of hard living, hard partying and – more than anything – fucking hard work.
Tengstrom, fellow guitarist Ryan Adamson, bassist Caleb Goman and drummer Ryan “Macca” McDonald relocated to inner-Sydney from their country N.S.W. hometown of Griffith in early 2006 – four Fugazi fans clad in RM Williams boots and black jeans who landed right in the middle of a fluoro-flavoured dance-rock disco.
Armed with nothing more than J Mascis’ songwriting smarts, Bill Hick’s sense of humour and a shit load of hallucinogenic drugs, the foursome spent the next few years carving themselves a psyched-out, punk-inspired niche in a Sydney rock scene sick from its own self-indulgence. Regular John brought an honesty and intensity back to venues that had endured shoegazers and sythns for too long, and the fans responded immediately – by the end of 2006 the band had bulldozed its way into the public imagination and onto bills like Homebake and Soundwave.
Along the way, Regular John shared stages with a spectrum of artists that definitely reflects their own diversity – The Bronx, The Hard-Ons, The Scare, Birds Of Tokyo, Helmet, Dinosaur Jr., Louis XIV, You Am I, The Datsuns, Nashville Pussy, The Mint Chicks. As Goman explains, “We don’t really fit in with a particular scene or sound, which means that we can play to all sorts of different people. That’s definitely a virtue.”
Proof of that broad appeal came in 2007, when the band dropped a much-lauded EP called Marrickville 2204. It was the first hint of what Regular John was capable of, a slice on fuzzy, melodic noise rock that appealed to cardigan-clad indie kids as much as the seediest punk rocker to crawl from its namesake suburb. Triple J was playing songs from the disc before it had even been released, with one track, “Who we are” clocked as the fourth most added track to alternative airwaves in the week of release. Radio also jumped on the double A-side single, “The Devil’s Melody”/“Easy Rider”, which followed Marrickville 2204 in late 2007, dishing out a double-dose of punk vitriol that further expanded the Regular John horizons.
But, as good as all that was, it was only the prelude. “It’s always been about making this album,” says Goman of The Peaceful Atom Is A Bomb. “This is what we wanted to do, this is who we are.” Produced by Tim Powels – drummer from the Church – the new record somehow finds the common ground between At The Drive-In, John Lennon and Sonic Youth. It also shows an experimental side to the band that might not always be obvious from their explosive live shows. “We had to find that balance between capturing the energy of what we do live and expanding our sound in the studio,” says Goman. Adamson agrees, noting, “That was especially true for me – Caleb bores his girlfriend with endless talk about how hallucinogenic mushrooms can save the world, but I bore my girlfriend with in-depth descriptions of how to patch various effects pedals together.”
The band are the first to admit that Powels had a big hand in helping them realise their vision, with the producer’s hard-earned rock ‘n’ roll wisdom proving the perfect foil to their own explosive enthusiasm. "Tim is like the rock 'n' roll Ghandi," says Goman. “He managed to capture the energy of our live sound and still bring to life the noises we hear in our heads. He brought a much-needed calm to our storm. I think we might have burnt out without him.”
None of which isn’t to suggest Regular John have lost themselves in a mess of prog-rock navel-gazing – anything but. This is still rock ‘n’ roll, delivered with the same fuck-the-man spirit that Iggy Pop and the Asheton brothers summoned in Detroit all those years ago.
“A big part of us is all about that intensity,” says Tengstrom. “It has to kick you in the guts, but that doesn’t mean you’ve gotta be stupid about it.”
And so stupid it ain’t. But the fact remains – it’s been a very long time since the acid-fuelled apocalyptic fantasies of four smart guys have had so much primal punk rock appeal.
“Yeah, well, we wanted to make a record that we would like,” says Goman, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t want other people to like it as well. This album is definitely about doing both.”
Maybe you can be all things to all people. - Dan Lander
The Peaceful Atom Is A Bomb: Out NOW
On Difrnt Music. Distributed by Universal Music.
No shows booked at the moment.
