interview with Bruce Hearn from Strange Tenants

Interview with Bruce Hearn of the StrangeTenants who are performing as part of the Melbourne Festival.

Hello Bruce

You've been part of the Melbourne music scene for some time some fond memories.

Strange Tenants were formed way back in 1981, so to have lasted 32 yrs is a fair achievement I guess.  Best still we've kept pretty much the same line-up together over all that time, which is pretty amazing.  We're family now, which is why we recently added my son Alex and our guitarist Johnny's son Dan into the band.

The best memories from the early days are about the energy and the oneness between Strange Tenants and our fans, who we dubbed "The Tenants Army".  We've always viewed ska as being peoples music, and something from and for the streets.  Without a record company or much radio station support, we still had thousands of fans flock to our gigs up and down the East coast of the country in the 80s.  From 1981 to 1986 we reckon we did about 1200 gigs and they were all great.  

Does ska still excite you?

Good music which is authentic excites me.  If it's got energy, is musically interesting and especially if the songs have something worthwhile to say, then I still get excited.  It doesn't have to be ska, but in all honesty, whenever I hear The Specials 'Ghost Town', it still sends shivers down my back.  

Ska has an energy about it, thoughts.

The danceability of ska is clearly what made it so incredibly popular.  When it's played well, its infectious, and its fantastic to be at a gig with hundreds of rudies or skins all skanking away with nothing but joy on their faces and in their hearts.

Can you tell us about the gig for the Melbourne festival.

Well, we were asked to participate in it, as something of a tribute to Melbourne's contribution to ska.  It's going to be held in the Festival Hub, a purpose built venue alongside Fed Square, near the Yarra.  We'll be doing a set as well as The Skavendors, who are a more recent local ska band.  There's also going to be a few old guys who left Melbourne in the very early 60s and ended up in Jamaica where they became session musicians on some of the earliest ska recordings.  Apparently they were in a band called the Carribs, so this will be an opportunity to honour these guys be getting them to perform alongside some local Melbourne musicians.  All in all it should be a great couple of nights.

 

Melbourne ska has a history going back to the eighties.

You've got to remember the early 80s was pre the internet.  the only way we learnt about new musical trends was from watching video clips on TV or buying vinyl records, so it's not surprising that it took a little while for ska to take off in Australia, especially as we did not have any significant Jamaican population, unlike the UK.  Ska had had a re-birth in the very late 1970s in the UK with bands such as The Specials, Madness, as well as the reggae band UB40.  But in Australia, there was a vacuum, until we came on the scene along with another band No Nonsense in Melbourne, while in Sydney there was The Allniters.  From our very first gig on 7 November 1981, we had a large audience who were clearly hanging out for ska music.  We then built this into a massive following all over the country.   

Do you think the Melbourne music scene caters to all types?

To be honest I'm a bit out of touch with the local live music scene these days, but there seems to be a bit of everything.  However, with the internet, Facebook, blogging, computer games, other apps and what not, I sense there are many more avenues for social connections these days, other than live music.  In the 80s, live music was by far and away the main way people made social connections.  A band like ours were able to do gigs 5 or 6 nights a week easily, playing to thousands of people.  I'm not sure that's so viable these days.