How this Brisbane band remains strangely relevant, 30 years on
It’s a bit like naming a bridge after Mediators.
opening gala The opening of QPAC’s new Glasshouse Theater in March was an intellectual affair, featuring classical music, ballet, Shakespeare, Indigenous dance and literary readings from Trent Dalton.
At the end of the night came pop music. Known for covering hit songs, The Little Red Company launched into a medley of Queensland’s greats including the Bee Gees, Savage Garden, Bernard Fanning, Sheppard and more. And it started with a number in its name ! (Formerly Song).
Hearing Regurgitator’s funky, narcotic, anti-corporate, anti-consumer music played to pollsters and corporate donors at the opening of a $184 million theater — well, it’s head-turning.
Quan Yeomans and Ben Ely had no idea.
“It’s lovely. I mean, you hear this song in the weirdest places,” says Ely, the band’s Brisbane-based bassist, in a café in Ashgrove.
“This is so sweet, so sweet,” agrees Melbourne-based guitarist Yeomans.
“This song instantly reminds me of: Unit There are records in that abandoned house, which was demolished about three weeks later.
Yeomans has mixed feelings about this, due to the copyright fiasco regarding the samples used in the song. !
“But it’s still one of my favorite songs to play live and everyone loves it. It’s a big party song.”
It’s been a 32-year journey from music outsiders to storming the establishment’s doors, but Yeomans and Ely can rest assured of their place in the musical firmament of the city and country.
They’re currently in the midst of the biggest tour of their career (55 dates across the country) and playing their longest set yet (two hours of their biggest hits).
music box The tour kicked off in Brisbane last October with the 4ZZZ 50th Anniversary show at Roma Street Parklands. They have visited each state and territory several times and will return to Queensland in April, playing shows in Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Brisbane and Toowoomba.
They are thrilled with the warm welcome they have received in places as far away as Port Lincoln, Ulverstone, San Remo and Dunsborough.
“I thought we went all over Australia but clearly not,” says Yeomans.
The band only plays on weekends (and only on Thursdays) because the Yeomans, who are divorced, have children on the other days.
“I’m a dad four days a week,” he says, smelling the cold he’s caught from one of them.
“The best thing about this tour is seeing young faces. This is the first time we’ve seen such a wide range of people: old fans with their kids, but also kids in their 20s showing up on their own.”
“Old fans [are coming] with their kids, but also kids in their 20s showing up on their own.
Quan Yeomans
Alongside long-time drummer Peter Kostic, the tour also includes Melbourne multi-instrumentalist Sarah Lim, who played on Regurgitator’s latest album 2024’s. Invader.
“He’s such a great person to hang out with that we want him in the band now,” says Ely.
The band was formed in 1994 as a side project of three founding members who were already serious Brisbane bands: Pangea (Ely), Zooerastia (Yeomans) and Brazilia (original drummer Martin Lee, who left in 1999).
As alternative music became mainstream after Nirvana, Regurgitator signed directly with Warner Music.
The famed label had expressed interest in signing prog-rocker Pangaea, but found that she preferred hook-laden, rap-heavy metal pop on the B-side of her demo tape.
This drive bore fruit with a string of hit singles as well as a clean ARIA sweep for the 1997 album. Unit.
It was released the same year as Radiohead’s album. OK ComputerAnd Unit It feels equally prophetic now. Anticipating today’s electronically produced pop and rap, it also captures the existential angst that has only intensified in the quarter-century since the millennium: the unnerving sense that people are products, society is a farce, and disaster is imminent.
Among the fan favorites !, I Like Your Old Stuff More Than New Stuff, and satirical gum Polyester GirlThe hit song these days is Ely’s Black Beetles. Turning a video game boss battle into a dark omen, the chorus asks: “What’s at the end of Satan’s rainbow?”
The band’s cyber-schlocky style of absorbing influences and repelling them (it’s in the name), of course, foreshadowed what is now killing human creativity.
“The problem with AI,” says Yeomans, “is that it’s run by a bunch of tech bros who don’t really care about creating anything, they just want to make money… There’s a reason you call it a work of art, right? There has to be involvement.”
“I tried, I struggled a bit, and now I’m totally against it.”
“I’m hoping there might be a pendulum swing,” Ely says, “where people sing, you know, I want to hear music that’s obviously made by people.”
I would like to see an algorithm emerge for their latest album. Invader. On the one hand, it is a virtuoso display of pop art, and on the other, it deviates from 80s pastiche. Cocaine Run Hitchcockian rap mix (with saxophone solos and pizzicato synths) Epic challenge punk music Wrong People.
There are also collaborations from electro-clash star Peaches, First Nations rapper JK47 and Indigenous philosopher Tyson Yunkaporta that produce visions of drowned worlds and apocalyptic colonialism. Plus a few cheeky laughs.
“I’m not often proud of my records, but I think this is the best album we’ve made since then. UnitYeomans says:
My personal journey with Regurgitator reaches its peak with their 2019 children’s album. Regurgitator’s Pogogo Show: Really Really Really Really Boring Album. They recorded it in a single day with singer Jerico Rose Wallace of Perth band Boys Boys Boys..
I played this to my kids endlessly in the car. We even saw the band live at the Princess Theatre; The support act was a puppet show.
Like Joe Brumm and BluishEly says her daughters’ youth inspired these songs: Farting is a Part of Life And Pull Up Your Pants, Mr. Butt.
“I was driving down Hardgrave Road in the West End and there was an old man and his Lycra trousers were coming down. My daughter said: ‘Oh! Pull your trousers up, Mr Butt!’ So I quickly said, push the record, this is a great song.
Yeomans admits he found it difficult to remember not to swear and to relate to child audiences. Unlike the band’s drummer. “I got to see how great Peter is at acting and improvising. He’s really talented at those things.”
Ely returned to Brisbane in 2014 as his mother was dying. She stayed to raise her family: in addition to her two adult children, she has an eight-year-old daughter.
When the discussion turns to the 2032 Olympics, it’s perhaps understandable the reaction from a band that released the song. Crush the losers As the Sydney 2000 anthem.
“I don’t think we need this,” he says.
“I think it’s a shame to lose Victoria Park. Of all the cities in Australia, Brisbane has the least amount of green space. It was a special place for First Nations people…
“Old shopping centers are not being used, why not put them there? Or what’s wrong with the old QE2?”
It would have been surprising to anyone living in Brisbane in 1994 to think that Regurgitator was still together and still relevant here at the end of the Devil’s rainbow. Saints and Custard still perform occasionally, but Powderfinger, Savage Garden and the Go-Betweens are long gone. Not to mention the Bee Gees.
“I guess if we were a middling rock band or something, we would have broken up 20 years ago,” Ely says. “But I think because we have that playfulness and we play all genres and styles as long as it has a weird playfulness to it…
“That’s the nature of the Regurgitator and why it works.”
Regurgitator’s Jukeboxxin’ tour It continues across Australia throughout April and May.
Get instant alerts for important breaking news. Sign up for our Breaking News Alert.
