Aussie alt-rock heroes Spiderbait are ‘stoked’ to bring back some of their biggest hits

ALT-ROCK heroes Spiderbait say they’re excited about the prospect of bringing back some of their biggest hits when they tour the country.

Aussie rock heroes Spiderbait say they’re ‘very proud’ of what they have achieved. Picture: Supplied

IT SOUNDS more like a hoon down nostalgia highway than a trip down memory lane.

During rehearsals for their recent A Day On the Green tour with You Am I, Something For Kate and Jebediah, Aussie alt-rock heroes Spiderbait jumped in a car, slapped their 1996 album Ivy and the Big Apples in the stereo and tore off on a drive from Richmond to St Kilda.

Drummer, singer and master showman Kram jokes that they used to do the same journey to one of their early rehearsal rooms, but by tram, shortly after moving to Melbourne in 1990 from the tiny town of Finley, in southern NSW.

“We couldn’t afford a car then,” the father-of-two laughs from his adopted home town of Byron Bay.

A “turning point” for the band, Ivy and the Big Apples sold double-platinum, climbed to No. 3 on the ARIA album chart and produced two of Spiderbait’s biggest singles in bassist Janet English’s Calypso and Kram’s own Buy Me a Pony.

The latter became the first Australian song to top the Triple J Hottest 100, forging a path for future homegrown winners such as The Whitlams, Powderfinger, Jet, Augie March and Gotye.

“It’s a great feeling of pride,” Kram says of the win.

The ‘Bait frontman adds that Buy Me a Pony, with it’s record-industry baiting lyrics, was “a weird song to win the Hottest 100”.

Alt-rock Aussie heroes, Spiderbait. Picture: Supplied

Kram reckons Triple J listeners were feeling uneasy about major record labels latching onto alternative bands following the enormous success of Nirvana-in-pyjamas Silverchair.

“They were really worried their music was going to be stolen from them and butchered by the commercialism of the music industry,” he says. “That’s one of the main reasons that song struck a chord.”

Buy Me a Pony was also one minute and 44 seconds of pure rock’n’roll.

Ivy and the Big Apples, which Spiderbait will tour around Australia in March and April, was the band’s second album with major Polydor following their 1995 breakthrough The Unfinished Spanish Galleon Of Finley Lake.

Kram says the label didn’t interfere with their sound, forged by the dual songwriting partnerships of him and English (more pop) and him with guitarist Damian “Whitt” Whitty (rock jams).

“We’re still on that label today,” he says.

On that drive through Melbourne, Kram says the trio felt “stoked” about the prospect of revisiting Ivy and the Big Apples on tour.

Spiderbait will tour around Australia in March and April. Picture: Supplied

Spiderbait will need to relearn some of the tracks, originally recorded at Sydney’s old 301 Studios and Byron Bay’s defunct Rocking Horse Studios with the “double Mac attack” of producers Phil McKellar and Paul McKercher.

“Some of these songs on this record we’ve played a million times and some of them we’ve never played, so it’s going to be a really interesting trip,” Kram says, highlighting the six-plus minutes of When Fusion Ruled the Earth as one song he “can’t wait” to revive in concert.

He adds that Ivy set them up for the next 20 years and four albums, including the most recent, 2013’s self-titled effort.

“We’re really proud of it,” Kram says of ‘Bait’s classic. “Not blowing smoke up my own bottom, but we felt great and thought it was really awesome.

“It’s a bizarre life that we’ve managed to forge. A lot of people would not have expected it from us, and we might not have expected it ourselves, but we’re very glad that we persisted and we’ve very proud of what we’ve done.”

Originally published as Aussie alt-rock heroes Spiderbait are ‘stoked’ to bring back some of their biggest hits