It\u2019s a bit like naming a bridge after the Go-Betweens.<\/p>\n
The opening gala<\/a> of QPAC\u2019s new Glasshouse Theatre in March was a highbrow affair featuring classical music, ballet, Shakespeare, Indigenous dance, and a literary reading from Trent Dalton.<\/p>\n At the end of the night came the pop music. The Little Red Company, well known for covering beloved songs, launched into a medley of great Queensland tracks \u2013 Bee Gees, Savage Garden, Bernard Fanning, Sheppard. And it began with a number by the name of !<\/i> (The Song Formerly Known As)<\/i>.<\/p>\n To hear Regurgitator\u2019s funky, narky, anti-corporate, anti-consumerist music played to the pollies and corporate donors at the opening of a $184 million theatre \u2013 well, the head spins.<\/p>\n Quan Yeomans and Ben Ely had no idea.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s lovely. I mean, you hear that song in the weirdest places,\u201d says Ely, the band\u2019s Brisbane-based bass player, at a cafe in Ashgrove.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThat\u2019s cute, that\u2019s very sweet of them,\u201d concurs Melbourne-based guitarist Yeomans.<\/p>\n \u201cThat song reminds me instantly of the Unit<\/i> recordings, in that abandoned house that was demolished, like, three weeks afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n Because of a royalties fiasco over samples used in the song, Yeomans has mixed feelings about !<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s still one of my favourite songs to play live, and everyone loves it. It\u2019s a big party song.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a 32-year journey from musical outsiders to storming the gates of the establishment, but Yeomans and Ely can be confident of their place in the city\u2019s \u2013 and the nation\u2019s \u2013 musical firmament.<\/p>\n They are currently in the middle of the biggest tour of their career (55 dates across the country) playing their longest ever sets (two hours of their greatest hits).<\/p>\n The Jukeboxxin\u2019<\/i> tour started in Brisbane last October at the 4ZZZ 50th Anniversary show at Roma Street Parklands. They have gone on to visit every state and territory, some twice, and in April, they\u2019ll return to Queensland playing shows in Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Brisbane and Toowoomba.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n They are thrilled with the warm reception they\u2019ve been getting in places as far-flung as Port Lincoln, Ulverstone, San Remo and Dunsborough.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought we\u2019d been everywhere in Australia, but clearly not,\u201d Yeomans says.<\/p>\n The band is only playing on weekends (and the odd Thursday) because Yeomans, who is divorced, has his boys on the other days.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a dad four days a week,\u201d he says, sniffing from a cold caught from one of them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe great thing about this tour is seeing young faces. It\u2019s the first time we\u2019ve seen such a broad spectrum of people: old fans with their kids, but also kids in their 20s just turning up on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOld fans [are coming] with their kids, but also kids in their 20s are just turning up on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n Quan Yeomans<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Alongside longtime drummer Peter Kostic the tour has added Melbourne multi-instrumentalist Sarah Lim, who played on Regurgitator\u2019s most recent album, 2024\u2019s Invader<\/i>.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s such a cool person to hang out with, we kind of just want her in the band now,\u201d Ely says.<\/p>\n The band famously formed in 1994 as a side project for the three founding members, who already had serious Brisbane groups on the go: Pangaea (Ely), Zooerastia (Yeomans) and Brazilia (original drummer Martin Lee, who left in 1999).<\/p>\n With alternative music going mainstream in the wake of Nirvana, Regurgitator were signed directly to Warner Music.<\/p>\n Famously, the label had expressed an interest in signing prog-rockers Pangaea, but found it preferred the hook-laden, rap-infused metal-pop on the demo tape\u2019s B-side.<\/p>\n The impulse paid off in a string of hit singles as well as an ARIA clean sweep for 1997 album Unit<\/i>.<\/p>\n It was released the same year as Radiohead\u2019s OK Computer<\/i>, and Unit<\/i> now sounds equally prophetic. Anticipating today\u2019s electronically produced pop and rap, it also captures the existential angst that has only intensified a quarter of a century since the millennium: the unnerving feeling that people are products, society is a charade, and disaster is imminent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Among fan favourites !,<\/i> I Like Your Old Stuff Better than Your New Stuff,<\/i> and the satirical bubblegum of Polyester Girl<\/i>, the track that hits hardest these days is Ely\u2019s Black Bugs<\/i>. Turning a video game boss battle into a dark prophecy, its chorus asks: \u201cWhat\u2019s at the end of Satan\u2019s rainbow?<\/i>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The band\u2019s cyberschlocky style of absorbing influences and spitting them back out (it\u2019s there in the name) of course anticipated the thing that is now killing human creativity.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem with AI,\u201d says Yeomans, \u201cis that it\u2019s run by a bunch of tech bros who don\u2019t really care about creating anything, they just want to make money \u2026 There is a reason why you call it a work of art, right? Work has to be involved.<\/p>\n \u201cI tried it, I dabbled, and I\u2019m firmly against it now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m hoping that there might be a pendulum swing,\u201d Ely says, \u201cwhere people say, you know what, I want to hear music that\u2019s obviously made by people.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to see an algorithm come up with their most recent album, Invader<\/i>. On the one hand a virtuosic display of pop craft, it veers from the 80s pastiche of Cocaine Runaway<\/i> (with sax solos and pizzicato synths) to Hitchcockian rap mashup Epic <\/i>to defiant punk jam Wrong People<\/i>.<\/p>\n Then there are collaborative tracks with electroclash star Peaches, First Nations rapper JK47 and Indigenous philosopher Tyson Yunkaporta that produce visions of drowned worlds and apocalyptic colonialism. Plus a few cheeky laughs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI don\u2019t often get proud of my records, but I think it\u2019s probably the best one we\u2019ve done since Unit<\/i>,\u201d Yeomans says.<\/p>\n My own personal journey with Regurgitator reaches its apotheosis with their 2019 kids\u2019 album, Regurgitator\u2019s Pogogo Show: The Really Really Really Really Boring Album. <\/i>They recorded it in a single day with singer Jerico Rose Wallace from Perth band Boys Boys Boys. <\/i><\/p>\n I\u2019ve played it to my kids endlessly in the car. We even saw the band live at the Princess Theatre; the support act was a puppet show.<\/p>\n Like Joe Brumm and Bluey<\/i>, Ely says his daughters being young was inspiration for songs like Farting Is a Part of Life<\/i> and Pull Your Pants Up, Mr Butt.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cI was driving down Hardgrave Road in West End and there was this big old fella and his Lycra pants were coming down. And my daughter was like, \u2018oh! Pull your pants up, Mr Butt!\u2019 And I was like, quick, push record, this is a great song.\u201d<\/p>\n Yeomans admits he found it difficult remembering not to swear, and to relate to child audiences. Unlike the band\u2019s drummer. \u201cI got to see how great Peter is at acting and improvising. He\u2019s really talented at that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n Ely returned to Brisbane in 2014 when his mother was dying. He remained to raise his family: in addition to two adult children he has an eight-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n When discussion turns to the 2032 Olympics his response is perhaps understandable from a band that released the song Crush the Losers <\/em>as a Sydney 2000 anthem.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think we need it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a shame to lose Victoria Park. Out of all the cities in Australia, Brisbane has the least amount of green space. That was a special place for First Nations people\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cOld shopping centres aren\u2019t being used, why don\u2019t you put it there? Or what\u2019s wrong with the old QE2?\u201d<\/p>\n It would have come as a surprise to anyone in the Brisbane of 1994 to think that Regurgitator, here at the end of Satan\u2019s rainbow, are still together and still relevant. The Saints and Custard still perform occasionally, but Powderfinger, Savage Garden and the Go-Betweens are long gone. Not to mention the Bee Gees.<\/p>\n \u201cI think if we were just like a middle-of-the-road rock band or something, we would\u2019ve broken up 20 years ago,\u201d Ely says. \u201cBut I think because we have that playfulness, and we play with any genre and any style, as long as it\u2019s got that weird playfulness…<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the nature of Regurgitator, and the reason it works.\u201d<\/p>\n Regurgitator\u2019s Jukeboxxin\u2019 tour<\/i><\/b><\/a> continues across Australia through April and May.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Get alerts on significant breaking news as it happens. <\/i><\/b>Sign up for our Breaking News Alert<\/a><\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/picture><\/div>
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