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Interview With: Brad Shepherd - Monarchs, Hoodoo Gurus
Below is an excerpt from the interview. EN. When did it get serious? BS. The Fun Things put out an EP but it still wasn't that serious. I'd met Ron Peno (from Died Pretty) who'd been playing in bands in Sydney like the Hellcats and was attached to the radio Birdman crowd. He just appeared in Brisbane one day - a real exotic creature who looked for all the world like Iggy Pop should look - and we struck up a firm friendship. He had a band called the 31st with Mick Medew and Mick Walsh. Ron coerced them into letting me join but you know, we just wanted to hang out together and be in our own gang. Ron and I came down to Sydney to try and organise some shows. I was 19 at the time and realised that I didn't want to go back to Brisbane, so I stayed. As a kid I'd been to see Chris Masuak's band, post Radio Birdman, when they played in Brisbane and I'd managed to ingratiate myself with the guys - Chris blew up his amp at the Jindalee Hotel one evening and as good fortune would have it I'd just been to a rehearsal and had the old 100 watt amp in the back of the car. So a couple of months later when I was down in Sydney, Frank Coxall of the Record Plant said 'You're that guy from the Fun Things aren't you? Chris Masuak is chasing you - the Hitmen have just lost a guitar player and want to know if you're interested." EN. And were you? BS. I actually ummed and ahhed for a few days because Rob Younger was getting a band together. He had a band called The Other Side post Birdman with a guy who had just become my flatmate - Clyde Bramley. Their guitarist was a geologist who had moved to north Queensland to work, so they were going to put a new band together and wanted me to join them, but I ended up with the Hitmen for a couple of years. EN. And what was that like? BS. The Hitmen were very much a hard rock band. It was a great band and I kind of view it as an apprenticeship. It was my dream come true. I was a huge Radio Birdman fan as a teenager in Brisbane and they had opened a whole new world to me. I'd never heard of bands like Blue Oyster Cult and the Stooges and MC5 but I discovered all those bands through Radio Birdman and then I started listening to the stuff those bands were listening to and discovered sixties punk - the Standells, The Leads, The Seeds and The Music Machine. Radio Birdman was a real catalyst for my musical education, so when all of a sudden I was in a band with these guys that had been there, it really was a dream come true. EN. Did they carry any of the Radio Birdman ethic with them? BS. Yes and no. There was a sort of 'backs against the wall' / 'us against them' mentality in the Hitmen, but Chris was also aware that Radio Birdman took itself very seriously and at heart the guys in the Hitmen were just goofballs. We related more to the Dictators than to MC5 in spirit. There was a lot of cars and girls and beer drinking silliness going on. We were really good mates and had a ball. I was only in the band for 20 months but we toured a lot - it was a good band and a lot of fun. The reason I left was something that came completely out of left field. We were having problems recording our second album. We weren't really happy with the direction the producers were taking it and were confounded a bit in the studio. Chris's response (from my perspective) was to take charge to the exclusion of everybody else in the band. I found that pretty isolating considering I'd written a fair proportion of the material with Chris. Although we were good mates - he was like a big brother to me - all of a sudden I felt like I had no control and was expendable. This happened about the time the Hoodoo Gurus had just started and I was a big fan of theirs. I'd seen them play a couple of shows very early on - 3 guitars, drums, no bass....
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