What’s the secret of playing the guitar so low?
I don’t know but I’ve got a fuckin’ back problem from it something shocking. I have put it up recently which took a while for me to adjust because it was like ‘fuckin’ hell I feel really unbalanced’.

It appears after splitting in ’94 and getting back together a couple of times that the Hard Ons are once again an ongoing concern.
Yeah, it’s an ongoing concern. I know when you have more than one band people want to know what’s the main one and what’s the side one and all that sort of shit. I don’t see anything as a side project. Everything I want to do and do fully. Out of all the bands – I’m in four now – Hard Ons is probably the hardest one to come up with stuff.

Why’s that?
Because we’ve been doing it for so long we’ve got to a stage where it’s harder and harder to challenge myself with the Hard Ons, to keep fresh and keep coming up with new ideas whereas with Nunchukka I will come up with five or six ideas to the Hard Ons one.

How do you decide what is a Hard Ons song or a Nunchukka Superfly song?
It’s normally really obvious. Almost straight away you can hear which drummer that should be with and which group should be with.

So you’ve got it categorized pretty well?
I don’t seem to have too much problems there.

How would you explain the difference between the bands since they both share similar line-ups?
Well Hard Ons is still a heavy pop band in a lot of ways – it ventures every now and then into hardcore and a bit of metal but it’s still pop whereas Nunchukka is a heavy, psychedelic Led Zeppelin meets Black Flag type of thing.

How did getting on the Big Day Out bill come about?
I think that came about through Ray giving Dave Grohl a blow job and Dave Grohl telling the Big Day Out guys ‘hey, wouldn’t it be a good idea to include the Hard Ons’.

There was a very mixed reaction to the last Hard Ons album ‘This Terrible Place’.
The last Hard Ons album was a real mixed bag. 80% of the reviews were really glowing and 20% were like ‘what the fuck is this shit where are the Hard Ons?’ It was the same reaction from a lot of our fans which was why the band broke up in the first place when we released ‘Too Far Gone’ and it was such a different album. And we were like ‘if people are expecting us to hit some sort of formula then we’re not interested in sticking around’.

After being around over 20 years people have a strict idea of what you should be like.
It was perfectly summed up by this guy I met in Sweden who came up and did the ‘oh-your-my-favourite-band-in-the-whole-wide-world’ type of thing and then stops and looks me in the eye and says ‘but I hate your new album’. I’m like ‘that’s fine dude’ and he was like ‘can I explain it to you?’ and I was like ‘if you must’. He said ‘when I buy a Ramones album I know what I’m going to get. When I buy a Motorhead album I know what I’m going to get. When I buy an AC/DC album I know exactly what I’m going to get. That’s what I wanted with the Hard Ons.’ And I said ‘well that’s fair enough but I don’t buy those bands albums anymore because I know exactly what I’m going to get’. For me there’s no point I’m not really interested in being in a band like that.

Did you ever see the tribute band Suck ‘n’ Swallow in Britain?
No. Never. But I still meet a lot of people who say ‘my first band was a Hard Ons cover band’ and I do have a split French/Belgium 7” where four bands do four of our songs. It’s fuckin’ hilarious.

It must be a very strange to know there’s a tribute band doing your stuff with someone playing you as a character?
Yeah, you know, but it’s an excellent form of compliment that’s for sure.

And tell us about your very strict food rider.
What the fuck! Who’s been telling you that shit?

It’s just steam off the street.
Well, I’m a militant vegetarian and do not want to eat or put anything in my mouth that’s been in a 15 kilometre radius of any animal products except maybe eggs. I do eat eggs. But I just hate that fuckin’ shit where I go somewhere and it’s like ‘here’s your meal we’re taking you to McDonalds and you’re having French fries’. Fuck that. That’s not vegetarian – it’s cooked in lard. I had to make it strict because people don’t give a fuck about vegetarians and will just give you anything.

Does the rest of the band have the same strictness of diet?
No they don’t. But if they’re going to have a greasy hamburger and have all the juice run down their hands I’m very lucky that they’re nice guys and they actually will wash their hands before getting back in the van and driving.

Back in the day you copped a lot of flak for songs, artwork and being political incorrect.
I got asked not long ago, ‘why didn’t you do more to fight racism?’ It was like ‘for fuck sake mate what do you want us to do here’s the colour of the rainbow in one band getting together and doing it and not worrying about it so obviously it’s a natural thing to do’. Wouldn’t people see that and identify will it. So we did things really subtly and in other ways like the exact opposite. When we were criticism for sexism we couldn’t help ourselves in going and writing really blatant parody of sexist lyrics that fuelled it even more. We love to shit stir and piss take – some people are going to get it, some people aren’t.

Was splitting in ’94 the right decision?
Definitely. And a really liberating decision it was music wise. I know that sort of music was becoming really big when we broke up and a lot of people were like ‘you idiots’ but it was where we were at at the time. Me, Ray and Keish were in a band together for so many fuckin’ years that we had no idea what it was like to play with other musicians. Finacially it was an absolutely shocking decision but musically I don’t regret it at all.

What was the impetus for getting back together?
A lot of songs were getting chucked out because they were too Hard Ons sounding but after a couple of years of that it was like ‘why am I chucking all this shit out?’ We thought if we’re still writing Hard Ons songs why don’t we get together, jam and see if it works out. We broke the band up but it was like the band was tapping us on the shoulders here and there. It is a hard thing to give up – it’s been a part of our lives for twenty years. It’s a sentimental journey, buddy.

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©2002 Christopher Hollow