they re not exactly household names round these here parts but The Church can fill more pews on a Saturday night in Dublin than some parish priests manage in a month of Sundays. And under false pretences n all.
Steve Kilbey and Marty Willson-Piper are but two of the four-strong congregation who are The Church. The other two, Peter Koppes and Tim Powles, are holded up in a recording studio somewhere down under, putting the finishing touches to their latest album, as yet untitled. Meanwhile, Steve and Marty are skipping the light fantastic across the northern hemisphere, unpacking their 12-string guitars whenever the mood suggests, and gunning through an acoustified version of their back catalogue just for the hell of it.
Formed some 18 long years ago in the heady days of 1980, when Squeeze were french-polishing a truckload of three-minute gems and Spandau Ballet were working up to telling us that they didn t need this pressure on, man, The Church were Sydney s answer to Britpop nearly two decades before the Brits even thought of the question.
16 albums later, and they re still plugged into the same couple of amps, with a back catalogue that boasts some of the more perfect pop moments in time. Starfish, Priest=Aura and Sometime Anywhere are mere tasters of the haute cuisine they ve been known to rustle up, and each individual member s added to the menu with rakes of solo material to keep the customer and their own appetites satisfied.
Marty Willson-Piper s in spiffing form as he settles down beside a pint of plain to impart his words of wisdom on The Church s longevity.
We ve gone through the tail end of New Wave, Willson-Piper proclaims, through to New Romantic, grunge, hip hop, rap, trance, white soul, shoegazers, world music. Everything s happened and we re still doing it!
mum s blouse
Willson-Piper sees no contradiction in The Church s ability to weather the schizophrenic changes of the industry.
I see our music as being way beyond the shallow practicalities of what the music industry is all about, he declares with a sweep of his hand that renders any objections (were there any to be raised) null and void. We don t have a record company, we don t even have a booking agent. We ve made our own record on our own backs and that s the way we like it to be honest.
We re not prima donnas, but we re so experienced in writing and touring that it s really difficult for anyone to convince us that it s worth buying into the whole music industry thing. And, basically, we re not in this to be suppressed creatively, so that keeps us out of the mainstream thing straight away.
Have they ever regretted not jumping on one of those bandwagons Marty mentioned earlier? After all, they could ve been the queens of glam rock, the grungemasters of the Antipodes, if they d so desired . . .
Steve looks great in his mum s blouse! Willson-Piper, er, pipes up with a grin.
We just like being ourselves, I think, Kilbey soberly adds. It s like when you start a new job and you get a duty statement. We figured out our own duty statement by finding out all the things we hated. In fact, I think The Church are more united by the things we hate than the things we like. I mean, we all hate people like David Coverdale, and blokes stroking their crotches!
Two of The Church s 10 albums have been listed in Rolling Stone s Top 100 Australian Albums. Most of their reviews are positive and their websites are crawling with sycophantic proclamations from punters who seem more than content to prostrate themselves before the band. I wonder how such adulatory behaviour strikes these cooler than cool musos?
Yeah, having two albums in the top 100 is nice . . . Willson-Piper remarks, before Kilbey cuts in, without a sign of his tongue lurking in his cheek: I thought: only two? They should all have been there! n