Hard On Peter Black Of The Hard Ons

portraits by Jo Forster.

In 1984, a group of high school students from Sydney’s Southwestern suburbs who wanted to be punk rockers played their first gig.

Those teens from Punchbowl, were the Hard Ons. The now legendary Australian band who may have represented their hometown better than any other band of the time, multicultural, youthful and looking like they just came from band practice. 

Forty years on the Hard Ons have just announced their fortieth Anniversary Australian Tour, their new single ‘Buzz Buzz Buzz’, and the release of their documentary, ‘The Most Australian Band Ever’ by Jonathan Sequiera, set to be released at Sydney’s SXSW on the 16th of October.

To coincide with the plethora of announcements, we hopped on the phone to Peter ‘Blackie’ Black, the band's vocalist and guitarist to talk about all things new music, the documentary, who he thinks are the ‘most Australian band’ and his 2016 solo project where he wrote and released a song a day for an entire year.

How does it feel having the record come out?

It’s both awesome and at the same time I’ve already moved on quite a lot from what the last record is. The timeline of a record is quite a while from rehearsing, writing, recording, to mixing. By the time Ray sends me the art he’s done; I barely even look at it. I always love what he does, so whenever he shows me, I’m always into it. There’s only one time in forty years, I’ve said, ‘Hmm… have we done enough kids’ stuff already?’ [laughs].

Are you guys trying to put out an album every year?

Yeah, I’d like to do two a year, but it doesn’t seem to be possible now. In the good old days of the sixties, think about how many records The Beatles put out. How should they be so lucky? Well, they were so ferociously talented as well.

It would be hard to put out more than two, it’s a good effort even putting out two.

Well, you’re talking to the fella who in 2016 recorded a song a day and posted it on his Bandcamp.

I was going to ask you about that! Let’s get into it, how did that project come up?

If I had a perfect job, what I would love to do. Where I would be whistling while my coffee is brewing and go to work skipping, would be to be an old songwriter in the Brill Building. I love grabbing a guitar and coming up with songs. My parents passed away, I got an inheritance, so instead of travelling the world, buying a house or doing anything sensible, I thought I am going to spend a whole year pretending that’s my job and record and release a song a day.

Were you writing a new song every day, or would you be a few days ahead?

I would be a week ahead. I was really lucky; I had my friend Joel who was the longest serving drummer in Nunchukka Superfly and every week he would come and drum on all the songs I presented to him. We have a real ESP connection, which you do when you work with someone you know so well. I have it with Ray too. He would be able to smash seven or eight songs in one hit and we would spend the rest of the week doing the vocals, guitar, flourishes, getting guest stars in and mixing it. It was shitloads of fun, trust me. It was stressful at times, but the fun factor overshadowed everything else.

Did you ever get to the point where you were over it or was it fun the whole time?

I was really into it the whole time. It was such a fun challenge.

Do you have a favourite song you did in the year?

Yeah, I have a couple, I think one day I am going to try and release a best of. There is a song in December called ‘Cherry Lite’, I really liked that one because it was me trying to disco and I’m really proud of it.

How were you coming up with the ideas for songs?

I never tried to write a song, but I would wait until something hits me. When it hits and if it has a certain level of energy, I know it’s time to write. I think this is something for every artist whether it’s a painter, writer, or photographer, they are all looking for that energy. For me it could happen at any time, first thing in the morning, just as I’m going to sleep or in the middle of the night and I hum something into the Dictaphone. It annoyingly can happen when I am training a client, but I can’t stop the session, so I try to hum the riff in my head while they’re probably hurting their back trying to do squats. Whenever it hits, I hum it and if I listen to it twenty four hours later and the energy is still there, then I start working on it.

That’s a good way to do it.

It feels more real that way. When you have written songs for years, you can force stuff out because you know how they are constructed, but it definitely won’t have the same energy. I didn’t feel forced the whole time. The only time I did something that I didn’t really like, was I had a riff that was stuck in my head, and I knew it was crap, but it became an earworm that wouldn’t leave. When that happens, it I have to demo it because it won’t leave my head. I did that with one song, I put it up and I went ‘Look, I know this song isn’t great, but I need to get it out because it is blocking me from having something else appearing’.

The Hard Ons documentary is called ‘The Most Australian Band Ever’ how does it feel taking that title?

I’ll be honest, I’m not even thinking about it because the doco isn’t something that I’m making. I love Jonathan Sequeira, who’s making it. I loved his Radio Birdman doco, I’ve watched it four times, he’s made us film clips, so whatever he thinks is the way to go, I think it’s the way to go.

Who do you feel like is the Australian band ever?

[Laughs] Oh god. We are definitely Australian. We are very representative of where we grew up in Western Sydney because it was an extremely multicultural area. When you say ‘The most Australian band ever’ I think of bands like The Saints, Radio Birdman, ACDC, The Angels and Easybeats. There are very many bands that have that Australian flavour. Some of my friends overseas are like ‘Nah man, ACDC they’re basically Scottish’. Yeah, some of them are from there but they couldn’t have formed in Scotland, the fact they were brewed, percolated and formed here. They were influenced by here, it’s Aussie. They are Australian as hell. Especially albums like Dirty Deeds and Powerage that’s ferocious Australian rock and roll. It’s beautiful.

I’ve heard that you are a huge music nerd, so I wanted to stick on this theme and ask who do you think the most English band ever is?

Probably The Kinks, they were one of the first not to shy away from their accents and they told very English stories. ‘Waterloo Sunset’, is a song you can’t hear and not be flawed, and it is so English. Even in a lot of ways I thought Radiohead were really English. I also really loved English Post-Punk; I thought a lot of those guys were very English. There was a lot of English flavour to their sound. I am not really talking academically; I am talking more about how I experienced it. 

Yeah, I definitely think Radiohead and the Post-Punk scene captured the gloominess of England both really well and in their own ways.

Easily, easily. You have to look at it entirely, in a holistic way, which is big in health assessing everything. That definitely goes with art as well, you have to look at every element of them beyond the music too. Look at the Ramones, look at how Yank those guys are.

Would you say the Ramones are the most American band?

They’re easily up there. I think it’s great when you aren’t putting anything on. One of the biggest compliments that I was ever paid was someone said, ‘These guys looked like they just finished working on your car before they got on stage’. That is a part of our environment, it’s changed now but back when we were kids’ fashion wasn’t really a thing in Australia. All those bands we spoke about looked like they rocked up in their dad’s car, took the gear out the back and just started playing.

For sure. That is a cool way to look at it, being as honest as possible. You mentioned Radio Birdman earlier and the Hard Ons recently supported them on a bunch of their fiftieth anniversary tour dates. How did it feel supporting them on this occasion and did it make you reflect on your own legacy as you are now celebrating forty years as a band?

It didn’t make me reflect on our legacy because that’s not something I do. I am always really hungry for tomorrow thinking about what I want to do next. For me being asked to play with Radio Birdman was a massive honour, one of the first songs we tried to learn was ‘New Race’ and it’s pretty crazy that forty years later we are celebrating their fiftieth, one of the bands that shaped how we sounded and became. It was huge for us. The guy that they got to DJ live records on the tour, Frank Cotterell, was one of the first guys that me and Ray used to buy records off and we still know him all this time later. On the tour he would laugh and say, ‘You were eleven, Ray was twelve and we are 2023, still here doing it’. A tear came to my eye hearing that.

It must be so nice to be here, still doing it all this time later.

They were pretty magical nights, trust me.

I’ve heard that on your first tour of Europe, after each show you would take your JCM800 head up to your hotel room and you guys work out. How does touring these days compare to then?

I work heaps harder now. One of my ventures when I’m touring is not just finding the nearest vegetarian restaurant and record store near me but it’s also finding the nearest gym. I just love doing that. I’ll be in Italy, in a small town and I’ll find the gym, join up for the day and have a workout, I love it.

What’s next for you guys from here?

We’re going to take this record on the road! I am pretty excited. I wish we could rehearse more. We are currently moving studios because gentrification of Sydney means that a lot of the warehouse spaces are being demolished and being turned into god awful apartments and our studio was in one of them. We found a new studio, but it hasn’t been set up yet. I'm dying to get in there and get some rehearsals in. Now with Tim, we’ve had three records, so I just want to go back and pick the songs off the new record that translate best live and mix it up with some of the older shit and play it live. The albums out October the 4th and we will already be in Europe then and the doco comes out and we will hit the road.