{"id":27771,"date":"2015-09-06T15:30:49","date_gmt":"2015-09-06T05:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=27771"},"modified":"2015-09-08T21:21:50","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T11:21:50","slug":"richie-lewis-of-tumbleweed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2015\/09\/richie-lewis-of-tumbleweed\/","title":{"rendered":"Richie Lewis of Tumbleweed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>\u201c\u2026it also takes you back to a time, you know, so it sort of unlocks the flood gates and all these other memories come out, so I suppose in relation to losing Jay last year, it was a really nice experience in I suppose having those wonderful memories again and I suppose remembering him as well as a part of this, so that was nice\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

From release: Buoyed by the sleeper success of their debut album\u00a0Tumbleweed<\/em>\u00a0in 1992; a period that saw the band tour the US, Europe and the UK, infamously support Nirvana on their 1992 Australian tour and criss-cross Australia playing countless dates – 1995 saw Tumbleweed release the epic\u00a0Galactaphonic<\/em>\u00a0album on Polygram. 20 years on the album enjoys a strong legacy \u2013 with\u00a0Galactaphonic<\/em>-era tracks making up a big portion of the band\u2019s incendiary live shows.
\nNow in 2015 –\u00a0Galactaphonic\u00a0<\/em>becomes \u2018SuperGalactaphonic<\/a>\u2019 with a reissue on August 7th, accompanied by the Galactaphonic 20 tour. The reissue collects the original 13 track album and expands it to a sprawling 34 track celebration.<\/p>\n

Sitting at Wollongong University in a darkened room we chatted to Richie from Tumbleweed about the twentieth anniversary of Galactaphonic, the reissue as SuperGalactaphonic, the tour to accompany, as well as amazing stories from the past including opening for Nirvana here in Australia\u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for a celebration as Galactaphonic turns 20! So here we have a tour and a reissue \/ super edition of the release, so let\u2019s break it down and talk about each of those.\u00a0<\/strong>Firstly, the album, in putting together this SuperGalactaphonic package did you have an idea of how you wanted it to come together when the idea for the anniversary came up?
\n<\/strong>Yeah it sort of happened the other way around, after the first recollection of our songs \u2018In The Waterfront Years\u2019 that we did a few years ago, we thought yeah next thing we\u2019re gonna do is a reissue of \u2018Galactaphonic\u2019 and concentrate on that period with B-sides and whatnot, and that idea kicked around for a little while, and when we approached Universal with the idea because they inherited the rights to the stuff, we found that the guy in charge of the back catalogue there happened to be a big Tumbleweed fan when he was a kid and now he\u2019s got himself a good job, so it\u2019s wonderful how the world works. So he was one million percent behind it, so as soon as that happened the idea just snowballed and it grew wings and flew, and Steve our drummer, he\u2019s a great collector of things and his garage is full of old tapes and recordings over the years, live stuff, he just collects everything, so there\u2019s all these boxes covered in dust and we\u2019d never gone through any of it. So he digitized it all and gave us all a listen to everything and we all picked out what was the best and eventually sort of just whittled it away to what we got on the record.<\/p>\n

Was it a great experience going back and finding all these B-sides and live footage etc?<\/strong>
\nYeah it was pretty amazing, it was like looking into an old photo album or something, very nostalgic, remembering a lot of things you\u2019d forgotten, and the thing about playing music is that you tend you get yourself into a\u00a0 space where it\u2019s kind of timeless, and one of the things about that is you forget that moment, so it\u2019s awesome going back and hearing things again that you\u2019ve forgotten about, just little ways that you used to do things or like Lenny, he used to go crazy on the wah-wah peddle, that\u2019s one thing that we forgot, because the last few years he hasn\u2019t been playing the wah-wah peddle very much at all. So there\u2019s little things like that but it also takes you back to a time, you know, so it sort of unlocks the flood gates and all these other memories come out, so I suppose in relation to losing Jay last year, it was a really nice experience in I suppose having those wonderful memories again and I suppose remembering him as well as a part of this, so that was nice\u2026<\/p>\n

With these being your first shows since Jay\u2019s passing, which I was really sorry to hear about and I hope you\u2019re all doing ok, are there nerves or uncertainties at the moment about getting back out there?<\/strong>
\nI think that this is the perfect way of doing it, I think there was more apprehension in replacing him and making a decision to replace him fulltime and continue on in the same sort of way, but I think that by doing this that it\u2019s a good sort of toe back in the water, it\u2019s a real focused approach, we\u2019re doing the album from start to finish, so there\u2019s a real sort of direct thing about what we\u2019re doing, there\u2019s an angle to it, and I suppose that\u2019s making it fun, and there couldn\u2019t be a more perfect sort of replacement or person filling in on duties than Luke Armstrong because Jay taught him a lot of things when he was a young whippersnapper and he\u2019s been around the practise room since he was a kid and played with Lenny and Jay\u2019s brother and still does in a lot of bands, so he\u2019s done a lot of stuff, he\u2019s a really solid bass player, he\u2019s a quick learner, great guy. So that eliminates any sort of fear at the moment, it\u2019s just solid and so I\u2019m not worried about it.<\/p>\n

OK now onto the tour, I was going to ask about the set, you mentioned you\u2019re doing the album from start to finish, but have you got an idea of how these shows are going to shape up set wise and what else we can expect?<\/strong>
\nWell basically the show is going to be \u2018Galactaphonic\u2019 from start to finish, then after that it\u2019s going to be yell out what you want *laughs* but you\u2019ve got to yell it loud, but we have been practising a lot of B-sides from that era, all the covers from that era, but then again there\u2019s always the favourites like \u2018Daddy Long Legs\u2019 and \u2018Stoned\u2019 that people want to hear. So just yell out, we want noise at the end, and we\u2019ll be the jukebox.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s pretty much the best name for a tour, the \u2018yell out what you want tour\u2019\u2026<\/strong>
\n*laughs* We want people to do it.<\/p>\n

You mention going through the material before, but let\u2019s go back to 1995, what\u2019s your best memory from when \u2018Galactaphonic\u2019 was released?<\/strong>
\nHmm\u2026 that whole tour was pretty awesome, we did it with Spiderbait if I recall, and there\u2019s lots and lots of great memories, it was a sell-out tour, I became lifelong mates with Kram out of that tour and we went on to record. I suppose the one that\u2019s popped into my head, it\u2019s by no means the best but it\u2019s the first one that\u2019s popped into my head is that we did a festival in Geelong called \u2018Weed Fest\u2019 and we had about fourteen or fifteen local awesome bands on the bill including Spiderbait, Regurgitator in their very early days were on it, and we played this big basketball arena and it was just packed full of kids and it was just incredible. That\u2019s the just first one that comes into mind, but that period there were so many good memories, it was all sold out, people were hanging from rafters and it was just a wonderful time to be alive and a wonderful thing to be doing, and it was like the focus was just right on us and everything was just right at that time, all the planets aligned for us at that time. So it was good.<\/p>\n

I know you\u2019ve probably been asked about it a million times, so let\u2019s make it a million and one, but what are some of your best memories of opening for Nirvana on that 1992 tour?<\/strong>
\nThat was great, Nirvana were an amazing band, we were lucky enough to score that run of shows because years before we\u2019d toured with Mudhoney and Matt Lukin who was the bass player of Mudhoney was living with Kurt at that time and they were unknown and said \u2018my housemate is interested in coming to Australia would you be interested in supporting them?\u2019 and we didn\u2019t have the record because they were signed to Waterfront records \u2018Bleach\u2019 that is and it sold about six hundred copies. We said \u2018yeah cool\u2019 so I suppose it started from small things and then in the process they exploded into the biggest band in the world and that was another example of feeling like you\u2019re really in the eye of the storm, you\u2019re right there when things are happening and you\u2019re on the crest of that wave. So there\u2019s that exhilaration of being part of this moving natural force that was Nirvana at the time, and as far as the band goes they were absolutely amazing as a live band, they were unassuming people, they were down to earth and came in and shared Lenny\u2019s birthday cake with us and stuff like that, so I love them as people, I love them as a band and I loved being a part of that tour and it\u2019s something that I\u2019ll always remember. I also think it sold out months in advance because the whole tour was sort of scheduled and booked before that hit the big time and then they were still booked into places like The Venetian Club in Sydney, or the old Palace in Melbourne and so they weren\u2019t huge venues, ANU in Canberra, so they were wild times. In Canberra people smashed through the glass ceiling to floor windows all along where the gig was, and it was sold out and there was just as many people outside as there was inside and people actually smashed through the glass to get in, there was blood everywhere and we were slipping around on it everywhere backstage, it was disgusting. Yeah, it was wild, just really, really wild.<\/p>\n

You guys were a fresh vibe for Australia and really took off in a big way, but what was it like for you coming out at a time when nothing really sounded like you guys here?<\/strong>
\nWell I suppose like what I was saying, when we played with Mudhoney and Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth early on before it really cracked big time, it felt like a really happening scene, there was a good live scene going on in most capital cities where you\u2019d at least get a couple of hundred people to your gig on a weekend and it was a good sort of solid little live scene going on and we were just like everyone else I suppose. I think as far as our sound went, we sort of went through a major shift where we decided to slow everything down and heavy everything up a little more and that sort of happened as pretty much the same time overseas and Seattle bands were doing the same thing and it was more like drawing from a common well, I mean our early singles and stuff were mixed and produced overseas by Mark Arm from Mudhoney did Tumbleweed\u2019s first single, J Mascis did \u2018Proton Energy Pills\u2019 second single, so the people that we did work with when we were young, we were seventeen or eighteen years old at the time I feel like we were just drawing from that common well, we had similar interests, we loved The Stooges, we loved a lot of punk rock like The Damned, or Sex Pistols or a lot of stuff that was coming to America prior to that like I suppose all the LA punk stuff that was happening prior to it and it was a good underground scene. Sonic Youth were major influences on all that sort of world, but it was a mixture of sort of melody and heavy stuff, alternatively you had the LA hair rock stuff and I think it was a bit of a reaction to that too, you wanted distortion and heavy music and heavy rock and roll but sort of without that pretention and a little bit more just melody I suppose, so that\u2019s where that blend of stuff has a little 60\u2019s garage vibe to it as well. I don\u2019t know, it was great, it felt like it didn\u2019t feel contrived, it felt like we were making the music that naturally came out of us and it was as a result of things we were influenced by which were things that bands that were cracking the big time were influenced by as well. So this while movement just sort of grew up and got picked up by this wave and flung along, but I think when we began we didn\u2019t have any sort of possibility of commercial success, it wasn\u2019t something happening to bands coming from our world, so I suppose Nirvana was just a huge surprise to everybody that was in that scene at the time, I suppose that\u2019s what people that were in that scene prior to the big grunge explosion sort of recoiled against the word grunge and it being marketed in this way because they felt they had this ownership, this private little scene that existed before hand like everyone gets when they sort of jump on something early and all of a sudden people realize how good it is and it becomes really, really popular, it might be a little bit special because it\u2019s theirs you know and that\u2019s the same way we sort of felt about it.<\/p>\n

We of course did have new music back in 2013, but is there music in the works for a new album in the near future?<\/strong>
\nThere\u2019s no real plans but\u00a0 I mean we like keeping moving and I think we wanted to keep things interesting and that\u2019s one of the great mysteries of life, you never know what\u2019s going to happen, so it\u2019s just a matter of seeing what happens, we\u2019ll always try and make it interesting.<\/p>\n

So can we expect you guys to continue touring?<\/strong>
\nNo, we\u2019re just going to concentrate on this tour for now and then we\u2019ll weigh up on where to go from there. Take a bit at a time at the moment.<\/p>\n

Lastly, let\u2019s look ahead to the future, so finish this sentence for me, in 2016, Tumbleweed will\u2026<\/strong>
\nHmmm OK\u2026 In 2016 Tumbleweed will do something really amazing, and unexpected, we\u2019re gonna do something completely unexpected and something we\u2019ve never done before\u2026<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Catch Tumbleweed on remaining dates of their SuperGalactaphonic Tour<\/strong><\/p>\n

Friday 11th September 2015
\nManning Bar,\u00a0SYDNEY NSW<\/strong>
\nTix HERE\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Friday 18th September 2015
\nRosemount Hotel,\u00a0<\/strong>PERTH WA<\/strong>
\nTix HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

Saturday 19th September 2015
\nFowlers Live,\u00a0ADELAIDE SA<\/strong>
\nTix HERE\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Saturday 26th September 2015
\nWaves,\u00a0WOLLONGONG NSW<\/strong>
\nTix HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

Check out the Supergalactaphonic album and tour trailer\u00a0HERE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Essential Information<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> Wollongong, NSW, Australia<\/p>\n

Band members: <\/strong>Richie Lewis (vocals), Lenny Curley (guitar), Paul Hausmeister (guitar), Luke Armstrong (bass), Steve O’Brien (drums)<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong> \u00a0Facebook page<\/a><\/p>\n

Latest release: <\/strong>SuperGalactaphonic \u00a0\u2013 (out now-\u00a0 Universal Music Australia) – Get it HERE
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