BSIDE: Died Pretty have completed recording your debut album, does it have a name yet? BSIDE: Is the much mooted overseas trip still happening? RON: Late July we're going over to New Zealand, and in August we're probably doing a National tour, just doing the capital cities, we're going to Perth which we've never done before. That [tour] will probably take most of August and early September we'll hopefully be going over to Europe. BSIDE: About your own musical history - before you were in Died Pretty you were in The 31st, what other bands? RON: I was in the Hellcats, that's about it - of any note anyway. They were a cover band formed at the end of '76. We actually started playing in early '77, we played at the Oxford Club, just covers, New York Dolls, Flaming Groovies. We did one Damned song, at the time I think they'd just released their first album. There's a song called 'Born To Kill' that we did. We did same Stooges song from 'Raw Power'. That was about it, no originals whatsoever, but it was a lot of fun. The 31st was original songs plus covers. BSIDE: So how did you get from The 31st to Died Pretty? RON: Well I was just bumming around doing nothing much in Gosford, I went back there after Brisbane. I was just going down to Sydney, going out to see bands and Brett, Frank and I just got together and decided to form a band, which was the nucleus of the Died Pretty. BSIDE: Had you known them all before? RON: I'd known Brett from Brisbane - him being in The End - a band I much admired at the time. He came down from Brisbane about the same time I did. I was just bumming around and The End were playing down here, not doing that much, they were sort of disintegrating, you could see it. And Frank was going to interview Brett for some magazine. Anyhow, we all just got together. BSIDE: Did you have any specific ideas of what you wanted to do?
BSIDE: What's the inspiration for the lyrics you write? Is it anything tangible? RON: No, I just write. They probably mean more to me, well obviously they mean something to me but whether they mean something to someone else... though I [seem to have] struck a chord with people lyrically, I don't know why. BSIDE: Often live you change the words to songs? RON: Yeah. I do it all the time. Say, a song like 'Desperate Hours', I still change that. Depends on whatever mood I'm in. Obviously it's very spontaneous, and it's great. Though they could be just plain gobbledy-gook to most people. BSIDE: I heard an interview with Brett before 'Next To Nothing' was released and he said they were waiting for the test pressing to find out what you'd sung. Does it go that far? RON: Probably, probably, but whether that means a great deal to anyone... I sort of like the idea of people trying to decipher. BSIDE: Often certain phrases come across but it' s impossible to decipher the rest of the lyrics... RON: When they're recorded, if a chorus comes through or two words in a row come through - they're meant to come through. BSIDE: Your performances vary a lot... RON: I still remember that review of yours about me standing there with my hands in my duffle coat pockets. RON: I liked the review. It was true. I thought 'God, I can't do anything else but stand here with this duffle coat on, it was too big for me anyhow, probably why my hands were in the pockets. Sometimes I like to move, some nights I don't. I just like to stand there, and if that means putting my hands in my pockets and just singing, that's all I do. I don't want people to come along and expect, 'Oh, let's see him do an Iggy Pop, let's see him crawling around the stage!'. I don't like that. Some nights I just stand there and sing, and people go, 'God, you must have been pissed off, you looked like you were really pissed off', and I wasn't pissed off at all. It's just people coming along expecting you to dance around, and if you don't they think, 'Fuck that I'm not going to come along next time'. They don't come along next time, and they miss out on me dancing around. BSIDE: What is it that inspires you in a live show? RON: A whole lot of things probably, the audience, the music, my mood. RON: Myself, personally, no. I don't feel any rapport at all, I don't say anything between songs, I don't crack funnies, I don't crack jokes, I don't talk between songs, I don't introduce songs, I don't believe in that, why bother. BSIDE: Do you need to get 'psyched up' before going out onstage? RON: I get nervous before I go onstage. It doesn't matter whether there's three or three hundred people out there, I still get very nervous. I hope I never lose that. I hope I never become too confident. I'd never like to think of myself as becoming over-confident - 'Next To Nothing' is such a great EP, we can go out there and kill them now, it's great, we can play anything we want, we've got it! - I hope I never ever get to that stage. That nervousness is great for me. The minute I get cocky, over sure of myself, I think that's the time to call it quits, as far as performing live. I always want to be nervous. I always want to be unsure. BSIDE: What is it that makes you want to perform? RON: It boils down to the music, I like the music. Why do I want to perform? Why does anyone want to perform. Go and grab anyone off the street and I'm sure they'll perform. BSIDE: It's been stated that you don't like your voice? RON: No, I can't stand my voice. There are little bits that I do that I think, 'Yeah, that's great. But overall I don' t think I'm much of a singer. Not a good talker, even worse as a singer. BSIDE: I think most people see you as being genuine... RON: Try to be, try to be extremely genuine. BSIDE: Whereas others are involved in music for 'the scene' - the wine, the women, whatever... RON: No, we knew we had great songs, not great songs, we knew we had songs that we liked doing and it was as simple as that. We didn't get pissed off. BSIDE: You thought it would come? RON: No, not really, it didn't matter to me personally. As David Tamsitt said, I guess we're the flavour of the month, that's all it is, 'This band called The Died Pretty, they're getting popular, they're getting played on Triple Jay, they're getting Best EP of blah, blah, blah in such and such magazine, they must be worth going to see'. It never really mattered to me. Building up an audience has been very slow for us. We did it ourselves and we did our original songs right from the start. BSIDE: Do you have other musical interests outside of Died Pretty? RON: There's things that I would like to do, just different forms of music. BSIDE: Solo recording?
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RON: I've always been fond of the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger would have probably been my first childhood hero. When I was growing up there were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and I went for the Rolling Stones. The Beatles had some good things at the time, but they were very poppy. The Stones were more rebellious and a lot tougher.