Modular People

In our research and preparation for Circa 1979, we spoke to David Studdert of Tactics. David talks about growing up in Canberra, his disdain for the term 'post-punk' and the challenges faced when recording his musical ideas to tape.

What was the musical environment like in Australia when Tactics formed in 1978?

Pretty dire - far as I was concerned - countdown was dominated even in 1977 by people in bay city rollers type uniforms. The little river band were having big hits in America which of course threw the cultural cringers into a foam of excitement "they like us. They like us. We aren't feral convicts at the far end of the world. They like us". Course LRB as they were affectingly known were singing songs about "ringing you from the Las Vegas Hilton". Yes, it was dire. AC/DC were about the only decent raw outfit. Dragon were huge bad boys I believe, the branch officer Rolling Stones of the moment. Molly would breathlessly nod and wink his way through every interview with them. But their music was dire - only the riff from "April Sun in Cuba" - a title of the sort de rigueur in those days - ever caught my attention.

As for the local scene in Canberra I recall one open mic night (first night of many) hotfooting it down to the local music den which was an upstairs in the Woden industrial mall. There to be confronted with cowboy shirts, cowboy boots and long very clean cowboy hair. It was funny because I hadn't seen any horses tied out front. The Buffalo Bill wild west show. After I played someone said my voice was ok but my guitar playing needed work. Later, oh maybe in the late eighties and nineties, I noticed the same people walking round in Newtown, dodging the cow shit and so on, saying "see you when the mud dries". The fact is music in Australia needs a period of cultural confusion before it can bloom and be itself, otherwise its just cultural cringe, cringe, cringing all night long. Actually even when Punk started, they all got it out of magazines especially NME.

Where did the musical ideas which for Tactics originate from?

I picked the musical ideas up everywhere in truth. Principally because the music was designed to serve a wider personal, political and social agenda. We weren't copying a particular band. The bands we liked inspired us but didn't control us. By knowing what we didn't like, Angus and I were able to discover what we did like. There was so much (there still is) just lying round waiting to be discovered. Mainly because the cultural cringers all poo pooed everything Australian. Now they wave plastic kangaroos but in their hearts they're still slaves.

I just picked up the guitar and started playing. It was as simple, positive and confident as that. I didn't write anything in G because I'd read in NME that everyone did that. I refused to learn what a 12 bar was. I sung high because I didn't want to sound like Dylan which everybody else did and then it just fitted. Occasionally I'd pick up some sheet music and learn an interesting chord change. I loved minor second changes, minor sevens, sus's and so on. Anything people didn't do frequently. Otherwise I just leapt straight in. One time at the music shop in Woden, I discovered "Downtown" by Neil Young and Danny Whitten. I couldn't afford it so I just scribbled down the chords and went home and made up my own version. I often went into music shops with a pen and paper in me hand. That was a paradigm for how we operated.

What motivated you to start a Post Punk band?

I didn't start a post punk band I started Tactics. By its very terminology post punk is teleological (backward looking; after the event). Did you know that the term feudalism wasn't even invented till the 19th century? Post punk's like that.

Did growing up in Canberra influence the band's unique interpretation of Post Punk?

We had no unique interpretation of post punk for the reasons outlined above. You need to think seriously about the fences you're putting round your mind. Yes, Canberra influenced me a lot: all those lush green lawns, the white marble and the empty streets, the imposing soulless government buildings, the political zone. That whole small, white Australian mind-set, the dependency mentality which Canberra exhibited in all its fruitless glory. They all influenced us one way or another. In Canberra in those days (and I'm sure now) you could actually see the straight line where the lawns stop and the country began. I used to sit and stare at it.

In your opinion why did Tactics become acclaimed for their live performances?

There's three reasons - one, because we were great, night after night and even when we were bad we were so over the top bad, stage arguments, screaming fits from me and so on, it was entertaining.

Second, acclaiming us for live is a protection against having to confront the records and allows people to dismiss us and concentrate on whatever paint by number, imported opus is 'hip' this week. White Australia thrives on success, it's the migrant ethic in part and the cultural cringe on another. No record that doesn't chart can ever be considered a success in neo liberal Australia. But all the same people love us. How to solve that conundrum - praise the live performance.

Lastly we were clearly superior to most of our competition - we trained hard and practiced till our fingers bled. We never brought into the pick up and play thing that punk had, not once we got started. We were serious fuckers. We could play four songs in a row without stopping. And we didn't care. We didn't hang out with other bands or compare ourselves to them, except to discover what we didn't want to do. Live is about the moment, that's all. We thought clearly about it and we implemented what we thought.

Did you see live performance as a way to experiment with music and challenge the audience?

Everything we did challenged the audience. Our very existence made them think outside the square. Our titles, our stance, our difference, the voice, the Neil young song, the rolling stones song, we made up our own versions - everything we did challenged the audience.

The Post Punk era was supported by a strong community of fans and musicians that frequented gigs in the inner city. Was there less pressure the perform the same music, as most of the audience had seen you perform many times before, encouraging you to experiment more frequently?

I never felt that sort of pressure, never at all. It was fun. I felt we belonged and we were doing something great. In hindsight however, I really appreciated how smart and tuned in the audience was - especially after watching audiences get dumber and dumber over the course of twenty years of neo liberalism. There was music everywhere in inner Sydney back then. Before the yuppie squares from Castle Hill moved in and destroyed it. I do wish I'd been more giving and supportive of the audience back then though.

The member's of Tactics changed quite frequently did this feel natural in a time when bands formed and dissolved over night?

It's a bit of a myth that the members changed. The only person that I didn't want to leave was Angus. Most of the stray members listed endlessly on Wikipedia and so on, were either members of failed versions of the band who only played live or live guys roped in for odd gigs, because since 1986 that's all we've played. The only record we didn't have a stable long standing line up for was Great Gusto and that tells its own story. Though even there, two or three of 'em had played before in previous versions. The line ups were stable enough for the first three albums. As for those people, who are the only people I really acknowledge as members, well - there's bills to pay and life's going on. It can't last forever. I was grateful for their enthusiasm and commitment

What were some of the challenges you faced recording your albums?

Shitty dumb white Australian engineers who wouldn't let me record my guitar how I wanted it. Insufficient knowledge on the band's and my part about the recording process. Dubious financial arrangements to pay for it, which meant I had to continually humour idiots with ridiculous, naive ideas about the world and their place in it. Listen we were cutting edge, not just in Oz but everywhere, and we needed a cutting edge Australian engineer and we couldn't find one. We probably should have gone with Tony Cohen we tried, but he was well - incapacitated.

The first idiot (My Houdini) wanted us to sound like Talking Heads, the second (Glebe) wanted us to be commercial. We loved Mark Tinson who we found finally, not because he really got what we were doing because he didn't, but because he loved the energy and the difference and he got the shit down without any personal issues intruding. He was a sympathetic pro. That was a big step up. He actually listened to what we wanted and tried to get it. Wouldn't let me play my guitar though.

The truth is, when you're doing something in Australia that's different and you don't give a shit about what anyone else thinks, you'd be amazed how middle class white Australians react. They don't like it. It challenges everything they believe in. It's like telling them Santa doesn't exist. They have a tendency to get furious and nasty very quickly. Try it sometime.

When you meet Tom Ellard it's hard to ignore a resonating desire to forget about the past. His groundbreaking ideas as a musician came about from a contempt for rock 'n' roll and guitar oriented bands. It was a formula Tom had seen for years, one that felt tired and repetitive as the seventies drew to a close.

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