Lime Spider frontman Mick Blood is offended by the term ‘garage music’. An intriguing notion since the Lime Spiders have forever been linked with 60s ‘Nuggets’ style music and referred to as a garage band. Indeed, they were instrumental in helping the paisley rise from the underground on the back of a thumpin’ slice of flower punk called ‘Slave Girl’ – one of the biggest selling independent singles in Australia’s rock history.

Surprisingly it’s been a decade since any Lime Spiders product has been available but a compilation ‘Nine Miles High’ has recently been released on Raven Records. It coincides with a renaissance of interest in an era swathed in paisley shirts, suede winkle picker boots and impossibly high hair.

Do you still own a pair of winkle picker boots?
No, not for a long time. They don’t agree with my bunions.

What about a paisley shirt?
I hung onto my two best paisley shirts – one of which I bought in Melbourne many years ago – and I kept hanging onto them because I couldn’t part with them. But eventually I thought this is ridiculous, I never wear them so I gave them away to an op shop recently so hopefully they’ve found a good home. It’s very had to part with things like that. I mean I’ve still got things like my rock ‘n’ roll leather jacket with all my badges on it which I never wear and it’s just getting mouldy in the wardrobe. I don’t think I could ever part with that because it’s seen so many gigs and tours it’s like part of my history. It was a second skin for a while.

The time seems ripe for a Lime Spiders revival. There’s definitely been a huge renaissance in 80s Australian independent music with the release of your retrospective plus compilations like ‘Born Out of Time’ and ‘Do the Pop’.
I’m pleased you didn’t use the term ‘garage music’ because JJJ ran a whole J-Files on it (the Oz independent scene) and they referred to it as ‘garage music’ which I certainly don’t and I think it’s a real insult to a lot of that music calling it ‘garage music’ because a lot of it was very well thought out and well played. To me garage is a term that often implies people that really can’t play and don’t get out of the garage and play gigs and so on.

So you never refer to the Lime Spiders as a garage band?
No, I don’t. I do find it a little bit insulting. As I say there’s a lot of good musicianship within our band and we managed to have quite a successful career with three albums for a major label and touring overseas and so on and I don’t think many garage bands can attest to that sort of achievement. We were, for want of a better expression, a bonafide rock band.

That’s interesting because every article has you bowing to the altar of garage bands like the Seeds, the Moving Sidewalks and the Shadows of Knight.
The 60s punk bands weren’t our only influences. We were also influenced by a lot of major acts like Roxy Music and Alice Cooper and a lot of mainstream rock ‘n’ roll – AC/DC and blah, blah, blah. Not everything we listened to was obscure.

So is that the update you gave 60s punk rock?
The game plan was always to take that sort of influence and give it a modern rock sound. I guess it was kind of combining punk with the naivety and abrasiveness of a lot of that 60s psychedelia. It’s a real hybrid in a way of three things – 70s punk, 60s psychedelia and mainstream loud rock. We all loved Midnight Oil and things like that.

Obviously ‘Nine Miles High’ is one higher than the Byrds classic ‘Eight Miles High’. Is it like Spinal Tap going one louder?
Well, it’s a bit of a parody on ourselves I guess. A play on words. But if you look at our history we were never far away from having a laugh at ourselves and hopefully that was part of our charm because we were never too serious an act. We like to have a bit of a laugh on stage.

When ‘Slave Girl’ came out in 1984 it was a very politically correct time and the track got mauled by a lot of people. Can you remember that reaction well?
Of course I can. But we got the last laugh. That song has prevailed and survived longer than those attitudes did. People still love it. The Goo Goo Dolls recorded it in ’96. Rather than dwell on those small minded attitudes, I mean that song was never meant to offend anybody. If people honestly thought I was serious about those lyrics it’s a bit of an insult to my intelligence. The whole thing was very influenced by a song called ‘Good Times’ – a 60s punk song that was very macabre. It was always meant to capture that caveman type thing rather than be a reflection of my views on society. It just made me laugh that feminists could be so fuckin’ serious.

What did you think of the Goo Goo Dolls version on ‘A Boy Named Goo’?
It was a pretty faithful version. It was pretty fast which got away from the more sinister feel of it. In fact I thought our original recording was a bit fast. We could’ve done it slower. But it was good. It wasn’t just a throwaway version. They were lovely guys, genuine fans. They’re a band that did at least one cover on all their early albums including a song by the Plimsouls called ‘A Million Miles Away’. They’re pretty much true believers despite the criticism they get.

I heard you asked ex-guitarist Richard Jakimyszyn to play with you? Is that happening?
It was going to happen but unfortunately he’s still not quite well enough to do it. It’s a shame because it looked like he was going to do a couple of songs in Sydney with us.

What’s the story there because Richard is always mentioned as one of the great losses to Australian music? He played with the New Christs, Hitmen and co-wrote ‘Slave Girl’ and other songs with you.
Well, he became a chronic schizophrenic and that sort of happened before our eyes which is really, really sad. I took him under my wing when he was 15 and he was always quite shy and retiring and that sort of thing, a genius guitarist and very good friend of mine. To see that happen was just really sad and a real insight into schizophrenia for me. He’s been having treatment ever since and unfortunately it’s a disease that doesn’t reverse.

So what new stuff can we expect from the show?
There is an Iggy Pop song we’re thinking of doing. I don’t want to spoil the surprise but it was the one he did on ‘Countdown’. Plus I recently got a bunch of bootlegs from some of our early shows and one cover we did was ‘The Train to Disaster’ by the Voice which is a killer. So we’ll probably resurrect that.

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©2002 Christopher Hollow

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