By Richard Burnett for Curtains Up! @bugsburnett
True story: I was chasing a bat in my Montreal apartment the very night that Australia’s legendary hard-rocking boogie band Airbourne was headlining Le National back in 2008. I missed that show, but the next time Airbourne came to town – opening for the nastiest, skankiest rock’n’roll sideshow of 2010, Mötley Crüe’s Dead of Winter Tour – I caught up with the band’s lead singer and lead guitarist Joel O’Keeffe, who embraces all the Airbourne comparisons with that other Aussie band, AC/DC.
“My guitar heroes when I was a kid growing up were four guys: Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix, and Angus and Malcolm Young [of AC/DC],” Joel told me. “I just loved their raw, wild power!”
I tell O’Keeffe, “I know you get all the AC/DC questions. But what I really want to know is, do you get more groupies than AC/DC?”
Joel laughed. “Nah, I reckon Bon [Scott] got his fair share!”
Joel and his brother Ryan formed Airbourne back in 2003 in the Aussie town of Warrnambool, Victoria. Joel had been playing guitar since he was 11 and Ryan drums since he was 15. Then Joel met guitarist David Roads when they both worked at the Hotel Warrnambool, jamming between shifts. Brother Ryan reportedly bumped into bass player Justin Street while stumbling home drunk one night.
The quartet packed their amplifiers and moved to Melbourne where they proceeded to become the biggest, hardest rocking bar band in Oz since the late Bon Scott and his AC/DC mates tore up Australia three decades years earlier. Butlike they say – and it’s still true – if you make it in America, the world is your oyster. So in 2006 Airbourne relocated from Melbourne to New Jersey where the shoreline isn’t exactly Australia’s spectacular Gold Coast.
“We were renting a house in Jersey,” O’Keeffe said. “But we were always on tour so we stopped in 2008. We don’t really live anywhere now. If there’s time off, we’ll go back [to Australia] and rustle up a few shows and have a few barbeques.”
Which reminds me of the year I spent Down Under a lifetime ago when I was roughly O’Keeffe’s age. I learnt three lessons pretty damn quick: 1) If a beach is deserted, there’s a reason for it (sharks); 2) You can’t outrun a crocodile; and 3) Aussies love beetroot on their hamburgers!
“I love burgers too!” Joel said. “There’s always McDonald’s, but if you go to the local fish-and-chips shop or burger shop, they’ll chuck every f–king thing on there! I love beetroot!”
That’s not all.
While this spectacular country has given the world some truly great artists – Dead Can Dance, INXS, Nick Cave and Midnight Oil (frontman Peter Garrett is now Australia’s Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth) among them – Australia is also famously home to many of the world’s most notorious, most glamorous and best-loved drag queens.
And, man, wouldn’t it be awesome to see Joel O’Keeffe in all his macho splendour strut centre stage in full drag?
“Yeah, mate!” Joel agreed, laughing. “Just like Bon Scott!”
Clearly, you can take Airbourne out of Australia, but you can’t take AC/DC out of Airbourne.
SPECIAL MONTREAL CONCERT NOTE: To celebrate the release of Airbourne’s new album Black Dog Barking, available everywhere on May 21, Airbourne fans in Montreal are in for a treat: Exclusive and very limited album sleeves were designed specifically for the band’s Canadian shows. Pre-purchase the album at the show and receive a limited collectors-edtion sleeve featuring the date, venue and city. These will be hand-numbered and signed by the band.
Airbourne headline Montreal’s Virgin Mobile Corona Theatre (2490 Notre-Dame West) on May 14, with opening act Bleeker Ridge. Showtime is 8 p.m. Admission: $22. Click here for more info and tickets.
Photo courtesy evenko
