Down Under
syndrome

>> Are Australia’s Airbourne dumb
enough to save hard rock?

SAUCY AUSSIES: Airbourne

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

“What’s that word,” asks Airbourne guitarist/singer Joel O’Keeffe over the phone, with a thick-as-mud Australian accent, “where the mama bird upchucks the food so the baby bird can eat?”

When I offer up “regurgitation,” he earnestly says that the role of his band is essentially to puke chunks of rock’s glorious past into the needy beaks of the denim-clad, acne-ridden youth. Completely oblivious to the supremely Spinal Tap quality of his remark, O’Keeffe’s lack of irony only confirms what I already suspected—Airbourne is real-deal rock ’n’ roll.

Although the “return of rock” tag has been bandied about ever since grunge’s death knell, we’ve seen nothing but vapid bands like the Darkness or Buckcherry swinging at the rock ’n’ roll piñata, only to quickly be jettisoned back into obscurity by their major-label handlers. Melbourne’s Airbourne actually do have what it takes to put classic rock back on the map. They are passionate, well versed in the majesty of rock’s past, road hungry, talented and, most importantly, dumber than a bag of hammers.

As the rock ’n’ roll history books have firmly taught us, being a knuckle-dragger is a true gift. Just look at the combined lack of brain cells in all of rock’s greats, like Motörhead, the Ramones and rock ’n’ roll’s ultimate idiot savants, Airbourne’s fellow Aussies AC/DC. In this sense, Airbourne is near perfection and destined for greatness, with lyrical pearls that go great with quart bottles of Labatt 50. Just check out the tender couplets of “Stand Up for Rock and Roll,” “Cheap Wine & Cheaper Women” and their ode to oral sex, “What’s Eating You.”

“I guess me and my brother [drummer Ryan O’Keeffe] got into music from our uncle, who left us his record collection to look after. We were listening to all this great stuff, like Priest and Maiden, and I guess that kind of turned us into outcasts at our school. We have really loved rock ’n’ roll for as long as I can remember.”

Throughout hard rock’s glory years of the ’70s and ’80s, nobody could hold a candle, in terms of the honesty and purity, to the Marshall stack blast coming out of the land of koala bears and convict blood. So how did Australia’s staple balls-out sound get neutered? “Australia is really not what it used to be. All the radio there has gone soft, and most pubs that used to feature live music are now full of poker machines, so it’s gotten a lot harder for new bands to find places to play. Things are changing everywhere, though, because we get a lot of younger people at our shows who just want to see a good rock band, and as we tour more, there seems to be more and more of them.”

If Airbourne’s simple-minded message of “Standing Up for Rock And Roll” doesn’t hit you right in the gut, their high-energy live show will leave little room for accusations of tongues planted in cheeks. “This is what we really live for and what we really love,” says O’Keeffe. “We really don’t know how to do anything else.”

With Endeverafter and Stone
Rider at les Saints tonight,
Thursday, April 3, 8 p.m., $15