Warren Ellis is a living Australian music legend. He’s worked with Nick Cave for years, moving across projects in a consistent display of support. The latest adventure is Grinderman. No, it’s not a reference to the iPhone men-on-men ‘dating’ app, but rather a raw sonically charged thrust and grunt of monumental proportions. Ellis spoke to OUTinPerth about their upcoming appearance at Big Day Out.
What is Grinderman? It’s a smaller group. The Bad Seeds are loud, this is probably louder. The lean, lean machine, this one. Sonically it’s kind of explosive. We’re about as far from emo as you can probably get. If you like Muse then you won’t like us.
What’s your worst festival experience? I must say I’ve never been to a festival by my own admission, I’ve never gone willingly. I’ve only ever gone to play, basically because I’m not a big crowd kind of person. I was doing Lollapalooza in the mid ’90s, and I was having particular problems going on there, various levels with what I was ingesting and I was sorta caught in the heat of the day and I was on the stage and the sun was pounding down. I remember reaching around and throwing up, vomiting everywhere, all over the place like I had heat exhaustion or something and there was this girl I sort of fancied sitting behind my amplifier and I threw up all on the ground in front of her. About half an hour later after the show finished I went outside to the portaloo and I got locked in the portaloo and I couldn’t get out and it was about 45 degrees and I started panicking and I was smacking on the door. And the band was playing so loud so no one could hear me screaming and I kind of worked myself up into a state because I didn’t know if the thing was gonna tip over either and I was gonna be covered in all that blue fungal stuff as well and so I was kinda banging away and suddenly the door opens and there was this girl who I’d kinda had the crush on standing there and I was standing there covered in sweat and looking like a bloody idiot. So that was my worst festival moment: I’d failed to pick up a girl and I’d nearly died twice, all in the space of about two days.
Big Day Out happens Sunday Feb 6 at Claremont Showgrounds. Tickets are still available from outlets. For the full line up go to www.bigdayout.com/perth.php.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
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