After a year to forget, enduring punk weirdos The Meanies return for a one-off gig. TREVOR BLOCK speaks to Link Meanie ahead of a free gig at The Esplanade Hotel with SixFtHick, The Spazzys and The Once Overs on January 16.

This isn’t really a welcome back, because you never really went away.
Well yeah, 1998 was the first reunion show and since then we’ve never actually split up again. We had such a ball doing that one that we’ve kept going, off and on, ever since. We’ve never looked for any kind of big comeback, really, we’re happy with some low key fun. We’re much more relaxed these days, you know, there are no plans for world domination any more. I guess we’re not as competitive now as when we were young.

Is it meant to be a tribute show as well? [Dennis DiPianto (D.D Meanie) passed away from cancer in February, while Tasman Blizzard (Tas Meanie) died in a car accident in August].
No, not really, although in some ways it’s pretty much a direct result of what happened with D.D and Tas last year. We hadn’t played for a bit, and Ringo [Meanie, drummer] had been kind of umming and ahing about whether or not he wanted to keep it going. The guys dying, especially Tas, I think, seemed to give him a push towards keeping the band playing. You know, I could give you some kind of sweeping emotional statement about how bad it was for all of us, if you really wanted one, but it’s enough to say losing them was traumatic ... and I think it fucked us all up a bit. But aside from that motivation, there’s nothing deep behind it.

Wally [Meanie, bass player] works at the Espy, he rang and asked if I wanted to do a show, and I said yes. It’s that old $100 per show thing, you know. I haven’t had a lot to do with booking shows for us in the past. The few times I did manage to get bands that I liked on to play with us, it seemed to end up in grief for whatever reason, so I leave Wal to get on with it. And I think it’s a fucking great bill to be on too, and it’s free, which is great. The whole idea of a price structure for gigs leaves me bemused really. This is free, but most low level shows haven’t gone up in price for ages, prices have stalled at, you know, $10 or $15, while bigger bands and touring bands have tripled. The touring bands justified it when the dollar was weak, but now it’s recovered, prices haven’t come down. I don’t get it, but then facts and figures often confuse me.

It must have been a while since you guys played at The Espy.
I honestly can’t remember the last time The Meanies played at the Espy, it must have been a fair while ago. I’m really looking forward to this though. It’ll be me, Wally, Ringo and Jaws onstage. I may have some trouble: I broke my collarbone at the Evelyn a while back, playing with the Bakelite Age, and it still gives me a bit of pain. There’s a plate in under the bone, right under where my guitar strap usually goes, and it kind of catches on the nerves a bit. So I may need to take it easy for a bit. Though I’m sure after a few drinks I’ll forget about it and it will be okay till the next morning.

Ouch.
Yes, ouch. The bone was sticking straight up. One thing though, is that I hadn’t played any games for about 15 years. But then, sitting round with a broken collarbone, I got really bored and I thought, “Well, I guess I can twiddle my thumbs”, so I bought an Xbox. I got it mainly for one particular game called BioShock, an underwater thing with all these great art deco settings and background, and have been killing things ever since. It’s much more fun, and more therapeutic, than the stupid plastic ball thing that the doctors gave me to do physical therapy with.

Any plans for Meanies reissues, or to follow up the DVD?
It would be good for the Meanies to get some more stuff out soon. We had a project going last year where we were going to do a series of seven split 7” singles, with us on one side and two other bands covering Meanies songs on the other, but that seemed to stall after the first two, and may need to be kickstarted. Maybe we should just do them all at once, on a split album, with us on side A and other people on side B, which would be cool. Although 7” singles are cooler, of course. It would be good to see some reissues of the older records coming out too, though that may be more likely to come from the overseas labels, I think.

And your collar breaking band, the Bakelite Age?
I reckon the Bakelite Age had a pretty good year of it in 2008. I had some niggles with Return Of The Magical Molerat at first, but listening to it now I’d say there are 12 good songs on it out of 12. We played a fair few shows to support it, mainly through being asked to play by other people. I was booking shows for us, but it can get a bit tricky. It’s not really what I like to do, and I’d much rather leave that side of things to someone else, so I can get on with writing songs. We have a new album about 3/4 done at the moment, with Loki Lockwood producing again, and me annoying him with my back-seat producer’s ideas again.

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