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 THE STABS bassist MARK NELSON tells JAKEB SMITH the Melbourne punks are not as violent, destructive or liable to arrest as we’d been led to believe.
The Stabs and Deaf Wish are somewhere between Melbourne and Canberra. All seven are on tour together for the next month, and sharing a 12-seat van with their gear. I anticipate tension.
“Everyone is reading,” Mark Nelson informs me over a poor telephone connection.
“So no violence?” I enquire – The Stabs are known to be a brutal punk band onstage, both musically and … physically. “I heard that was something you guys get up to.”
“Not so much. I think some of the stories exaggerate that.”
This is news, but it doesn’t invalidate The Stabs’ brand of deranged underground flailing. Indeed, they were asked by The Bad Seeds’ Mick Harvey to play at All Tomorrow’s Parties earlier this year – fine kudos. “It was a real hoot,” Nelson says down the muffled line. “A total pat on the back.”
“Did you get to chat to him at all?”
“Yeah, we’ve met him a few times now. We played a show recently with Roland [S.] Howard and Mick Harvey is drumming for Roland Howard. We got a really good photograph from the end of the night; Mick took off his shirt and squeezed into a size 8 girls singlet of The Stabs. He looks kind of like the Energizer man.”
Charming image, and not the only name Nelson could drop into conversation to impress people at parties (not that he would). The label owner recorded Sonic Youth live-to-vinyl in Melbourne – for his Saucerlike imprint – while the band were on tour.
“I’d dealt with Thurston [Moore] before when I put out the Menstruation Sisters album – he’s a fan and he got in touch with me to get a copy – so we’d talked before, but essentially I just asked if we can do this live-to-acetate recording and would they be interested, and they were.”
Nelson has no interest in releasing a Stabs record himself though. He likes the interaction with labels, and is “far too lazy” in any case. Crucially, it’s this boyish mix of lethargy, belligerence and sheer volume that makes The Stabs so captivating. It’s primitive and sexual, a wailing of brutal distortion and fuzz tones, set to stiff, bullying drums. I suggest something similar.
“Thank you! I’ve got a Big Muff that I’ve always used, Brendan [Noonan]’s got a shitty Boss overdrive pedal that he’s always used. That’s it … I guess there’s volume as well.”
“Apparently you blow speakers regularly?”
“Again, not as regularly as the stories would have you believe, but it happens. Actually it usually happens more when I’m borrowing other people’s amps.”
“Just because your input volume is so high?”
“I don’t know! I guess? I figure amps go up to 10 they should work on 8.”
Nearing the end of our conversation I ask Nelson about he and Brendan getting arrested on their New Zealand tour, and though he relates part of the story, it’s obvious he’s tired of it.
“Y’know,” he says. “That was a long time ago.”
And we leave it at that.
THE STABS and Deaf Wish play Rosie’s with The Seizures and Slug Guts on Friday May 22; then an all ages show at Browning Street Studios with Loomer on Saturday May 23 Their new album, DEADWOOD, is scheduled for release in September. www.myspace.com/thestabs
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