Bad//Dreems image by Ian Laidlaw // Cash Savage image by Naomi Lee Beveridge 

A chin wag at the pub.

Ever wanted to sit down and have a beer and a yarn with Bad//Dreems’ Alex Cameron and Cash Savage? Well this is about as close as you may ever get*. Out on the road at the moment as part of the Doomsday Ballet National tour, the two bands have had plenty of time to get familiar with each other.

Both acts have released some of the most poignant music of their careers in recent months; Bad//Dreems’ LCD Soundsystem meets Eddy Current tune ‘Morning Rain’ is a feverish take on pub-punk, with a clip perfectly matches the dystopian lyricism. Meanwhile the latest from Cash Savage & The Last Drinks, ‘Found You’, also paints a picture of a bleak future, albeit one where love still exists. Complete with a thumping rhythm and a truckload of vocal hooks, we can only imagine how well this one is going down around in the pubs and clubs of Australia.

*You can catch both these acts on the Melbourne, Fremantle and Adelaide legs of the Doomsday Ballet tour over the next couple of weekends (dates and tix here). For now, check out what Alex and Cash had to say about music, pingers, and Richard Wilkins below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uj76W1Q7qI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO-K5OGHHh8

Cash – I’m good at nicknames.

Alex – Maybe you could think of one for me.

C – We’ll see how we go, by the end of the tour I will see if I can think of one. I came up with one that actually stuck, Five Bucks, this guy came up to me and said I beat your wife in Two Up, and I said how much did you win, and he goes, five bucks. So from then on I called him Five Bucks. Now that’s his name.

A – I think I have coined most of the names in my band aside from one that was pre-existing. I call our singer Ben, Young Ping, which is a long story. I used to be in a band with Darren Cross and at the time he was drinking heavily at the time. We played a show at The Curtain, and we were loading out and the singer’s girlfriend was getting harassed by these guys in the alley way and we were trying to talk down the situation in a reasonable way. Darren was loitering around in the background, drinking a long neck, and just smashed it on the ground and thrust it in these guys faces and they were all freaking out. And he just put his arms out in a Christ pose and yelled out ‘I AM THE PINGA’!

C- Ahahhahhahahaah oh my god! Was the bottle in his hand when he did that?

A -Yeah! And in those days pinga being a very common euphemism for ecstasy.

C- That would have been really confusing to those guys.

A – Yeah they were all freaked out and just ran off. Darren and I have this older brother / younger brother relationship, so I started calling him Old Ping. And then when I met Ben Marwe, I took on the Old Ping and he became Young Ping. And that has stuck.

C – I just find in a fight you are best to act as crazy as you can.

A – We last crossed paths in the airport, you were going to Europe, how was that tour?

C- Fucking awesome. We went to Germany a few times, but this time we played this great little festival called Orange Blossom Special, and got a record deal, so it was really good. The Festival is run by the record label, so they put us one and we knocked it out of the park and then they gave us a record deal.

A – What other records do they put out?

C – They put out a lot of bands, but there is one called Sixteen Horse Power, do you know them?

A – Nah.

C- Well they have broken up now, but when The Last Drinks first started we used to drive from Melbourne to Sydney to play and we would listen to a lot of Sixteen Horse Power. They are American, but like super heavy country, a really heavy rock band with some country. It sounds shit when you say it, but they are really good.

A – Like you guys?

C- Kind of yeah. But the lyrics are heaps gody, so that was a little bit of a drawback.

A – Hillsong Hillbillies?

C – More along the lines of everyone needing to repent. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back for the band, one guy was really gody, and the rest weren’t so they split. Anyway how did you guys go over there?

A – Yeah really good, we played two shows with Midnight Oil.

C – You guys must be big Midnight Oil fans.

A – Yeah we are.

C – Do you get asked that all the time?

A – Nah, but we are fans of theirs. I am not an aficionado of Midnight Oil, but it was awesome to play with them. Since we first played with them, in Adelaide last year, I have delved deeper into their story. And I watched that doco 1984, about the year that Garret ran for the senate the first time in the Nuclear Disarmament Party. And I also read a book by Andrew McMillen who wrote the history of their tour through Arnhem Land with Warumpi Band.

I knew from their songs they were a political band, but I never realise just how intensely political they were. In their peak of fame, the band agreed for Garret to run for this political role which had to put the band on the backburner. And it also put them in an awkward spot where suddenly they were the subject of mainstream Australia’s attention, saying who are these pub rockers getting all involved in politics. It was quite remarkable that they became that big and essentially they were campaigning about anti-nuclear conservationist politics.

C- It’s amazing!

A – So we played with them and then did our own headline shows.

C – I heard you flew first class and the rest of the band flew economy?

A – Ahahahahahahaahahaahahaha! Not first class, jesus!

C – Oh sorry Business Class.

A – Well there might have been an upgrade and I have copped a lot of wrath for this, the band were calling me The Sultan, because we were flying Etihad.

C- Did you upgrade with points or did you pay for it?

A – (silence)

C – It doenst matter, we had a big discussion in our band about the ethics behind that.

A – Hahaha, what did you decide?

C – So a couple of tours ago, I was offered an upgrade and I took it. But that is like the lottery essentially. And we talked about the difference between that and paying for an upgrade.

A – I am a big reader of band biographies and I think it was the Stone Roses or one of those bands who were talking about the last straw for one of their members and it was when he decided to fly instead of drive with the rest of the band to somewhere, and they were like you are out mate! But I am an old man now you know.

C – But aren’t you all old me?

A – Nah they are all younger than me.

C – Are they? I didn’t think you were that old, how old are you?

A – 36.

C – I’m 38. But look, when you are on a long haul flight with a band you are looking for things to talk about, so you gave us a subject to talk about ahahahahahah.

A – How did you even know that?

C – Your band! You band dobbed you in.

A – For fucks sake! Ha.

C – I think someone noticed you were there and we were like, you are missing a guy. And it turned out you were in business class. Ahahaahahahah .I think the consensus from us around the ethics was that it depends on the circumstances. But, I am a big fan of all for one, one for all. There is no judgment here though, it is not an attack on you.

A – I just love it up there, it is awesome.

C – Well look, when they said to me, I see you are in a group but if the opportunity arose to get upgraded to business class would you take it? I was like absolutely!

A – And you got it?

C – Yeah and it was great because we were all squished up. They had over booked the flight and I was originally sitting next to our old bass player who had these massive shoulders, so it was always bad sitting next to him. Then they got this little old lady and she had to sit next to him and I went up to business class. It was a wonderful thing! Hahaahah.

A – What beer are you drinking?

C – Whatever.

A – Should I get a jug?

C – Sure let’s do it.

A – So tell me about your relationship with The Old Bar – where we are now.

C – We played our first show here. Right now my wife is in a meeting with one of the owners at one of their other bars. I guess I feel entangled here. For a long time the guys here were bastions of the Last Drinks.

A – Did you grow up in Melbourne?

C – Yes and no. I grew up in South Gippsland, but spent my teenage years in Melbourne.

A – Do you think if you grew up somewhere else, like say Adelaide, your music would still sound the same?

C – Absolutely not.

A – What do you think it would be like.

C – I don’t know.

A – Do you think you would still me a musician?

C – Yeah I reckon, I reckon it would be harder. There is a real comradery in the Adelaide scene, just a lot of people leave. There is a big punk scene there.

A – For me, I grew up being really interested in music, I played classical music on the violin.

C – Oh right, really? Do you still play?

A – Yeah, a little bit. But I had no entry into band music until I moved to Melbourne. And then it was so in my face. I don’t know if you ever went to 161, Shakes and Action, those Thursday nights in a horrible night club.

C – Yeah south of the river.

A – Yeah and they had three bands playing each night. And in the first three months I went there I saw My Disco, Eddy Current, their second ever gig, Ground Components, Cut Copy, and I was like Oh God, this is amazing. I met so many people there at those nights who I am still friends with, who were all in bands, and then all of a sudden I felt like I could be in a band. But when I was in Adelaide, I was only interested in playing footy. If I hadn’t moved here I would never have met those people.

C – You know I used to coach the Old Bar Unicorns, for seven years.

A – In the pub footy league? Tell me about this!

C – I was actually sitting at that table over there when Joel came up and said I heard you used to play footy in high school, do you want to coach the Unicorns? It was before the team had started. The great thing about it back then was that it was heaps of musicians so it was a wonderful mix of two things I really loved, football and music.

A – When I first started playing in a band I was still playing footy for Melbourne Uni, there are two different clubs, the blues and the blacks, I played for both at different times. I was embarrassed about that though because so much of indie music is a backlash against jock culture. I gave up football at that stage because it was the opposite of what I wanted to be involved in.

C – Which is why the Old Bar Unicorns were so attractive to me, because I had stopped engaging in AFL. And I used to love just going down the end of the street to watch whatever footy was on. Because I really loved football as a sport.

A – Its funny now because the community cup spread to Adelaide and we have been involved in that. And we have definitely talked about it in our band, how weird it is, because we met at a football club, and some of us played football at a high level, and it’s weird now for football to cross over to music because for us, music was an escape from that world.

C – I get that.

A – In an interview earlier today the journo was highlighting the dichotomy of what we talk about in our songs and the fact that we are a bunch of guys that like footy and the stereotype that comes with that. That’s the whole reason we felt awkward about it, because it does have negative connotations from anything from politics to sexism to misogyny. I think the start of the AFW has done a great deal to stop that.

C – I think that it probably has a lot to do with the bubble that I live in, but for a long time for me footy has not been about AFL. I’ve been able to completely disengage with the AFL, and in my time been able to indulge in my male friends club nights and been accepted in with those guys, and totally understand what you are talking about.

A – I look back and you start at a football club and obviously you want to fit in, and the culture around it is really bad and young men learn really bad habits from that.

C – I had a theory that that drug problem that VIC is facing is because of footy teams. And I don’t think anyone wants to engage with the reality of that. I was at a local gig on the border of VIC and NSW, basically a forestry town with one pub and a great motel that says For The Rest Of Your Life, which sounds like a threat! And there was this band playing and all of a sudden these super munted guys came in and we were like who the fuck are these guys, and they were like oh that’s just the footy team. The culture that is bred within those teams is just awful. Which is what is wonderful about the women’s team, it’s just different.

A – I have talked to people involved in women’s football and asked them if the same thing happens, and they said that it isn’t like that within the women’s clubs. Have you had a sympatico between football and music for a long time? Does the passion you have for both gel easily?

C – Yeah it has because for a long time I just disengaged with the AFL. And now the only reason I can engage with the AFL again is because I go for the Bomber and everyone thinks they are drug cheats.

A – Ahahahahhahahahahahahhahh.

C – So I think that gives me a bit more freedom!

A – I agree with you though, I feel a lot more affinity with local and country football than I do with the AFL. Of course AFL is great, but I think the life blood, and what I like about it, is at that grass roots level.

C – Absolutely.

A – At those good clubs at a grassroots level, you have that guy that has played 300 games at reserve grade level, is as important as the score board guy.

C – That’s what people don’t get about the AFLW league. There is something beautiful about that game, you go one step away and it is just a wonderful game. I love being overseas and being asked if I like soccer and then I show them a highlights reel of football and they are like what the fuck! There is something really special about the game itself.

A – I agree, I prefer to watch it at the higher amateur level because the AFL is so clinical now that it is quite different from how the game was designed because it is so fast and so skilful. I have never seen a more ferocious attack on the ball than in the AFLW! I think oooooh shit!

C – That’s right!

A – They go in with more courage in their heads and just totally exposed.

C – I think that will change, a lot of women stopped playing football after the age of 16. Maybe they had some kicks with their mates, but there was nowhere for them to play for a long time.

A – So your high school had footy? Was that unusual at that time?

C – I think it was yeah, there were only two other teams we could play in Melbourne.

A – Ahahahahahahahah – so you just keep playing the same ones?

C – Yeah we played them a couple of times year. I was the captain.

A – What position?

C – Well I was young and fit back then, so I would play either roving or mid or forward. And I used to tag as well, that was a long time ago! What position did you play?

A – Centre, that was my fav, but same, the years have taken their toll on my body.

C – Ahahahahahhahaa, it’s the city and being in a band and eating shit food!

A – Rock n roll fucked it basically.

C – We have a skipping rope in our van when touring and if you go to a petrol station you jump out of the car while you are filling up and just skip as much as you can.

A – In our band we just jump out and eat fried food.

C – hahahahahah.

A – Lets talk about the scene that you arose in, in Melbourne. When I first started listening to you guys I thought it was more in the country scene.

C – Oh we were.

A – What bands did you play with back in the day?

C – We did a lot of shows with Graveyard Train. Who our current base player, Nick Finch was in. The Toot, Toot, Toots, Brothers Grim, and a band called Little John. There was quite a big country scene happening at that time. I was quite happy playing country music for a long time.

A – Are you versed in Country Music?

C – I don’t know, I feel like I know a lot of music, none particularly well. My parents are though. What I really liked about country music at that time was that you could be heart on your sleeve and be real. And I had come out of this rock band and didn’t give a fuck about any of that music.

A – So you have been in a few other bands other than Cash Savage and the Last Drinks?

C – Oh yeah I have been in a few bands.

A – What band was that?

C – It was a band called Jim Dandy, you can still find it on Myspace! Again with Nick Finch, I have been playing music with Nick since I was about 15.

A – So Nick is like your Mick Harvey. Like your long-time collaborator who you have been in all these iterations with.

C – Well he is still in my band, he comes in and out and he has produced three of our albums so I guess he is yeah.

A – So what sort of music was that?

C – Just rock.

A – We are mid 2000’s here, so was it like Jet?

C – More garage rock.

A – Like the Casanovas? Like 67 Special?

C – We were never really that good.

A – Did you ever play at the Duke of Windsor?

C – We never got to play there but I ate a parma there once! Ahahahahah.

A – Ahahahahaha, were you the singer?

C – Yeah – I guess I was attracted to country because I just wanted to sing about something I cared about and try that on for a bit. Because I got jack of singing the same songs about nothing. And you know, that change has really worked for me as a human, I feel good about that.

A – I feel there is some tropes in your Cash Savage songs – one of them in Sundays.

C – Sundays, ha, yeah.

A – Why do you fucking hate Sundays so much?

C – I don’t like Sunday’s, at all.

A – Neither do I.

C – Ok so what else? Give me my other tropes?

A – Well you have two songs with Sunday in the title, Sunday and Sunday Morning.

C – Well I couldn’t call it Sunday Morning Coming Down because Kris Kristofferson already took that. Do you like Sundays?

A – No, I fucking hate them too. It’s my least favourite day of the week. That’s why I relate to that one so strongly, because in my life Sundays are a real time of existential crisis and doom. Not only due to what has happened the two or three nights before coming to a fore, but just the weight of the week pressing down on you. I always associate Sundays with darkness because you are often waking up in the afternoon and its dark.

C – Yeah but you have a really important job to do during the week so I would imagine it would be harder for you.

A – Well I am thinking back to my younger years more so. But the pressure now is more about that week ahead.

C – I always think about touring being like a Saturday island, where every morning you wake up with a hangover. Like it is never not Saturday, you are just on this island that is Saturday every day and the Sunday is the end of the tour.

A – The other tropes are coming down, alcohol and substances. I feel like in your albums up until Good Citizens, that was a real break from what I would describe as existentialism and introspective music. And all of a sudden you seemed to have made a break to write about stuff that was more universal. Do you see it that way?

C – Well yes and no. My most universal album was One Of Us. Unfortunately, because it is about suicide. And for whatever reason that album has resonated across the world, well I guess it is a really obvious reason. When we were making Good Citizens I didn’t make an album to resonate with people and I wasn’t really thinking about anything other than what I was feeling at that time. But I would imagine that is the same with you guys right? Or do you deliberately write about this is how people are feeling?

A – No, no I kind of try and shy away from that. I don’t think telling people things is a particularly good mode of song writing. I was thinking this watching Paul Kelly play at the grand final, he has written about so many political issues. But you never feel like he is preaching at you, it’s always like he is showing you.

And I think that is because he is seeing things and writing about them because whatever is on your mind you are going to write about in song. But your not setting out to tell anyone anything or trying to send a message. For me it is just about what is on my mind at that time, I will write about. And because we are humans living in a time where there are a lot things that are fucked up, those things are going to be on your mind.

C – Absolutely, yes.

A – And we talked about Midnight Oil before, who are the opposite and are really firm with their message and in some of our songs we are going to have an explicit messaged. But I don’t feel clever enough to have an explicit message.

C – But some of your songs have explicit messages.

A – Do you think?

C – Yes!

A – I guess some of our songs point out things that are fucked up. But they don’t provide an answer.

C – Oh I didn’t say you provide an answer. Ahahahahah, everybody listen to Bad//Dreems they have the fucking answers. But you definitely have a message. I have noticed in a bunch of your interviews that you like to say you are not political, but that’s like saying circa 2000 that you are not a feminist but you are interested in women’s rights. I think you are political.

A – Yeah I think that is a bit of a cop out.

C – A little bit yeah, I mean I understand why you say it.

A – The main reason we say it, or we say it, is because we are a collective and our songs are part of the collective so for one person to project their political views as a froth for everyone is problematic. But yeah I can see why that is a bit of a cop out.

C – I get that.

A – The reason I really like music and song writing is that I find it really hard to express myself in speech. I am just not a natural orator. I tend to ramble and say things out loud, obviously with a song you can craft that and you leave it as you want it to be left. In an interview as example I would always be left worried that things will be misconstrued, especially in this day and age.

C – I think it’s interesting, it is very hard for me to understand where a band like Midnight Oil were at in their thinking when one of them ran for the senate. Maybe it’s a naive way of looking at it, but we are living in a different world, and people hang you now if you say something even slightly wrong. Which is why I think we are all scared to say we are political.

A – Do you think you are political?

C – Every person is political. Walking through the world how I look right now is political. I think walking through the world how you look right now is political. I think we all live in these political times.

A – I think the political system is broken and I fucking hate it.

C – I think being political and the political system are totally different things though. The political system, I struggle to engage with that.

A – I think the whole system of political discourse outside of straight politics into what is happening in the media, is really broken. I find it really frustrating that there is not a place where people can go and have conversations that are reasoned, informed and open. Hopefully that happens face to face everywhere, but in terms of in a broader context than that, I don’t know where people are supposed to have those conversations these days.

C – I think that the educated have become too good at negotiating and debating. It’s one thing to be educated and eloquent and another to actually experience it. Society isn’t gelling at the moment because there is a disconnect between people. I feel like I could argue my point to anyone, but it actually doesn’t mean anything because my lived experience is different to theirs. I mean you guys have written a bunch of songs that go with social commentary, where do you go from here? Where does this next album go?

A – Well I’ve been reading a few different books and one recently talks about how humans like to have a narrative, we are story tellers and song writing is storytelling and the way we understand the world is through stories. And in a political sense and outside of that, the story lines we had in the 20th Century politically were fascism, communism and democracy. And then liberal democracy. And them in the last five years, it is like fuck, democracy is failing, we have all this crazy shit happening and all of a sudden the narratives have come to an and no one knows what the next narrative is. And to my mind the world is in chaos at the moment. So I guess that is why we have these apocalyptic, pre apocalyptic themes.

The fact that Trump is the President of the United States is just totally absurd. If you told anyone that ten years ago, they would say it was a Simpsons storyline, which it literally was. So my reaction to that lyrically is just absurdist lyrics. In some ways the lyrics are just psychotic and psychedelic without trying to make sense of anything, just let it come out and try to revel in that and somehow find some catharsis in rock n roll, without trying to put any clear message or conclusion on it.

C – I get that.

A – In fact part of that is just growth as a lyricist, and sometimes realising you can say more with what comes from deep within without trying to over analyse that. A journo asked me about a lyric on a song called Salad – the lyric is ‘I had a bender for seven days, Richard Wilkins was there and his face melted off’ and they were like where did that come from. And I don’t even know, because I don’t really know much about Richard Wilkins.

C – Ahahahahahah. But his face does look kind of melted.

A – Well he is kind of an ubiquitous person on TV, and I thought maybe I shouldn’t put that in the song and then I though well fuck it.

C- We have a line in one of our songs that says ‘Saturdays going to be a good night and Monday morning is going to be rough’, and in the rest of the song is me painting a picture of how we see Australia at the moment. It is like parody, you exist in it but the people that you are commentating on will take that how they see it. Like some of my fans are like, fuck yeah, Saturday is going to be a big night, they chant it at me and throw their fists I the air. The other fans are well she is totally right, we have this culture that is based around Saturday nights, and these people who are defined by their Saturday nights, rather than their week days. Do you find that same thing with your lyrics?

A – Absolutely. One of our most popular songs is called Mob Rule and it is delivered in a what I would say is a stereotypical pub rock fashion. The chorus is ‘mob rule, mob rule’ and in the audience all of the bloke are cutting sick, and they whole song is about the danger of mob mentality and how mob mentality is bad. And it was inspired by the Cronulla riots and the image of that, and I was like what the fuck! This is Australia and there is a race riot on one of the most beautiful beaches.

C – And being condemned, but not really condemned.

A – But the best part is when we talk to those people they do understand it, and they actually do listen to the lyrics and taking that message on board. There are so many examples of songs like that through history. Khe Sahn is one, that is an anti-Vietnam War song, and I don’t think a lot of the guys at the rugby club would be thinking that. And another one is Born In The USA, also an anti Vietnam war song, and a lot of people think that is a song about patriotism. But you have pretty much nailed the essence of our band, we are always worried how we will be interpreted.

Our sentiments are firmly anti boorish behaviour and anti-racist, the whole reason we do music is that it is a rejection of so many things we grew up with and it is a place where people who are outsiders can come together and exist together to make the world better through music. But we are always worried that we will be misconstrued due to the style of music we make and the way we look. And it certainly has been. Mainly through reviewers and on twitter.

Most recently, there is a line in the first single off this record, Double Dreaming that goes ‘they asked me for my pronoun, I said me, myself and I’, the lyric was about people being so self-obsessed in this day and age that they all take offense at someone else wanting to be identified by their chosen pronoun. But instead we were attacked because it was seen as a criticism of pronouns.

C – Yeah, look that is a tricky one, but I guess the thing about pronouns in 2019 is that people are working really hard to remove the binary within our society. So it is a tricky on when a bunch of CIS gendered white guys weigh in on it. And if you take that line by itself, without knowing any of you guys, it makes it tricky. I always say you can’t put a question mark in lyrics. I can definitely see where you are coming from, but I can also see why people would come at you for that. I am not saying you shouldn’t do it.

A – So how do we express our support, or should we not?

C- Absolutely you can.

A – It’s such a combustible topic isn’t it.

C- My wife is the founding editor of Archer Magazine which is Australia’s journal of gender and sexual diversity. I know how hard the queer community has had to work to get to a point where people are even just talking about this. And it hasn’t been at the hand of the CIS gendered white male. So for the CIS gendered male to come in now, it just like, I don’t know, I guess it is that thing, where I would never say don’t do it, but we all deserve to be questioned.

A – To be honest, if we are attacked and criticised for that and it leads to the conversation…

C – And you guys have to explain yourselves, that’s a good thing.

A – Well we are here to learn and the first thing that we would all say is that we come from a place of privilege on any number of levels and if we misstep, then we learn from that and other people learn from the debate that can only be a good thing. I am more than happy to be criticised about something like that in a forum where it can be constructive.

C – I am not raging on you in any way.

A – Even though I can’t lay claim to any of that, it is something I think about a lot because it is a really important issue.

C – The thing about all of this, is that it all comes down to how much respect we have for each other as fellow humans. Pronouns wouldn’t be as important if there was just a universal respect between humans, none of it would matter. But because there isn’t that, pronouns are important. But I feel like we should get back to talking about music and sum up this, we can continue drinking! Ahahahhaahhhahhha. Redacted and renege are two of my favourite words.

A – Anther R word is my favourite word at the moment – recalcitrant.

C- Oh fuck, you’ve got a lot of words. What does that mean?

A – It means resistant or stubborn. The way I have been using it in relation to skin cancers, so in patients where they are difficult to get rid of and they come back.

C – That is soooo depressing.

A – They are not life threatening.

C – I thought you mean as in you are standing up to the man, but you mean cancer.

A – I could say that bigotry in Australian is recalcitrant. I use it in letters to doctors because it gives it a personality, like that fucking little bastard won’t go away.

C- I had a lightbulb moment today actually, you know those things that you know when you are little and then as an adult you look at them subjectively? Rust Never Sleeps, I’ve grown up with that album my whole life and then today I thought rust doesn’t sleep! AHahahahahaha.

A – oh I know!

C – I thought that is such a great title because it doesn’t sleep.

A – The words themselves are good and then when you think about it, on every level it works.

C – It’s recalcitrant.

A – Ha, yes it’s also stoic! There are so many things like that.

END…/