The members of Stiff Richards and Split System are in about eight overlapping punk bands in Naarm/Melbourne. I questioned them about forming a super group called the “Public Houses of Split Richards”, or “Stiff Systems of Sir Richard”, even “Richard Speed Week and the Stiff Heaters” (the imagery is equally as powerful, if not slightly more disturbing for Cliff Richards fans) Perhaps they could do a cover of the 1986 Young Ones cover of Livin’ Doll covering Cliff Richards, or a cover of Cliff Richards singing the Young Ones but with a modern Australian punk flair? Confused? Well then welcome to another Five Quickfire Questions with OnlyBands where cohesion is the first casualty.
Stiff Richards are:
- Aaron Mawson: Guitar
- Wolfgang Buckley: Vocals
- Lochie Caviagan: Drums
- Raf Heale: Bass (Not interviewed)
- Tim Garrard: Guitar (Not interviewed)
1. Does a Split System Force Field block a Stiff Richards Bad Disease? One sounds like it needs fifty rolls of a hundred mile-an-hour tape and a thousand dingers to construct while the other needs a dozen boxes of Viagra with some poor life choices. Who wins in that sweaty arm wrestle?
Mawson: HA! I reckon combine them and see what happens.
Wolfy: It could be a very interesting cocktail.
Mawson: Did you say a thousand dingers?
OB: Yeah, a thousand dingers.
Wolfy: A thousand dingers is going to be the band name of the next band I’m starting ha-ha!
Lochie: Wow!
OB: It’s like the invincible force meets the unstoppable object.
Mawson: I reckon The Merge, yep.
Wolfy: That’s a great name as well…
Wolfy: Bad Disease infects the force field.
Lochie: Bad Force.
Mawson: The Force Disease.
OB: And the combination of the two give you coverage to everything right?
Wolfy: Yeah, totally! Ha-ha!
Lochie: Do Splitties have a song called Force Field?
Wolfy/Mawson: Yeah, yeah… it’s one of the newer ones.
Lochie: Sing it to me…
Wolfy/Mawson: FORCE FIELD, FORCE FIELD!
Wolfy: Ha-ha, which one it’s called Force Field!
(We all sing the chorus and have a laugh)
OB: Oh yeah, all these questions are song title related across the various bands.
Mawson: Nice.
2. What is the most Ostentatious thing you’ve ever done at a Rich Cunt Party? Two bands and two song titles there.
All: OWE!
Wolfy: I try to steer clear of Rich Cunt‘s parties, which is the moral of that story. They can be quite boring, I went to a private Catholic school, and they used to have really shit parties….
Mawson: That doesn’t really lean into quite Ostentatious behaviour, does it? It’s more mongrel behaviour like “Who stole the bottle of Moet?” and then bail and go drink it in the park or something like that.
Wolfy: Maybe not ostentatious behaviour, but this is pretty dumb arsehole teenage move. I once stole a Foxtel card from a pool house room, at a Rich Cunt‘s house, and then I woke up with it in my pocket, and I was like what the hell is this? And then they posted on the party message board: “Who (did this)? Like this is so annoying, just give it back!”. It was such a dickhead thing to do…
Mawson: That’s still mongrel move, not so Ostentatious.
Lochie: Did you give it back?
Wolfy: No! Who needs Foxtel just in their pool house! That’s a wanker move, so I relinquished them of it!
OB: Oh, love it. Great song by the way.
Wolfy: Thank you.
OB: I’m waiting for the next Public House song. Every time I look under them, I look if there is a new song, nope. I look again, nope…
Mawson: Is this Rich Cunt Party by Public House?
Lochie/Wolfy: yeah
Mawson; He just showed me a new song coming and I’m pretty fucking impressed.
Wolfy: We recorded a new one on Sunday, it should be hitting your ears soon.
OB: Oh, can I put that in?
Wolfy: Yeah!
Mawson: Yeah, it’s coming out there soon, so chuck it in the article.
(OnlyBands with the scoop!)
3. Who do you consider to be changing the world around them in a positive way? In any circles. Someone that you consider to have real Power, Energy, Action.
Mawson: Ow, Stiff Richards!
Lochie: What about Shane and Leanne from The Tote? (The brains and brawn behind the Save The Tote campaign.)
Wolfy: Oh dude! Yeah!
Mawson: And Stu from Singing Bird Studio in Frankston.
Lochie/Wolfy: All three, yeah!
Wolfy: He is all Power, Energy, Action.
Mawson: I look at all three of them and yeah…
Wolfy: All three of them have got Power, Energy, Action with lots of strong underlying emphasis on the Action!
OB: I love this, goosebumps!
Mawson: I don’t want to call them parents because they’re not that old but…
Wolfy: They are the mayors! The mayors of their respective suburbs.
Lochie/Mawson: They are beautiful, just beautiful people.
OB: I am so glad I put that question in.
ALL: Yep absolutely!
OB: Yeah, we caught up with Aiden from Private Function, and Jordan from The Grogans at The Tote, talking about how good The Tote is, and Jordan’s mate was wearing a Singing Bird t-shirt.
Wolfy: Yeah, they are good friends of ours, The Grogans boys… Oi, you could really get a jackpot here and get a C.O.F.F.I.N member in here as well, in the interview. (C.O.F.F.I.N walk in to the Brunswick Ballroom to see their good friends)
OB: OH NO WAY! I saw them at a 4ZZZ carpark gig this year and it was insane! Jess and I couldn’t get a ticket to the show at the Bendigo Hotel re-opening tomorrow as it’s sold out.
Wolfy: Oi Benny! wanna come join in on an interview? Here he is… welcome back!
(Ben Portnoy, drummer and lead vocalist of C.O.F.F.I.N joins the interview)
OB: I saw you guys perform at the 4ZZZ carpark gig, and it was one of the best fucking gigs I’ve ever seen in my life! Two hundred people in the space for fifty, it was hectic.
Benny: Fuck Yeah!
Mawson: Fuck yeah, it’s C.O.F.F.I.N mate! Of course it would be.
OB: So actually, I just asked a great question.
(I repeat the question to Benny about Power, Energy, Action)
Benny: Umm… well, if we want to keep it local, I’d say Leanne and Shane from…
Everyone: OH NO WAY!
Stiff Richards: That’s what we said! And Singing Bird in Frankston.
Benny: Oh yeah and Stu from Singing Bird too.
Wolfy: There we go!
Benny: Because I think we could go into a more deep and political thing, but in terms of them having such a ranging sort of positive effect. You’ve got the arts side involvement of it, to the gigs and staff, and people around it, the actual community too you know, it creates sort of like a central zone for nice things to happen. So, I would say that.
OB: I love that. Thank you, Benny.
OB: Time for the next question and this requires theme music… (I play Speed Week Theme from the Speed Week album Hey, Hey It’s Speed Week, pre-taped on my Dictaphone Speed Week is Ryan from Split System’s other band).
Mawson: Speed Week… Dat dat dat da da daaa… Speed Week!
Wolfy: Ha-ha-ha! Why don’t we have a theme song?!
Mawson: You could sing a theme song!
4. It’s time to play…. Fill in the Blanks. Here is the game: Stiff Richards spent all their tour budget on _ at the _. Now they are going to _ to get the money back to go on tour _ to_.
Wolfy: Stiff Richards spent all their tour budget on Speed at the Speed Dealer and now they are going to the Speed Dealer to get the money back to go on tour of Russia!
(General laughter ensues)
Lochie: That’s mostly true.
Mawson: Apart from the Russia bit,
Wolfy: Yeah, because they wouldn’t let us in.
OB: Well, that leads me to my next question, as I am actually on a mission on behalf of banana bending punk tragics from Brisbane.
5. Is the reason you are not frequenting the Sunshine State as often as we would like (I am on my hands and knees grovelling for you to come to QLD). Is it because of a strict NO FUN ON THE BEACHES policy?
Mawson: Ha! We played The Showdown there in 2023, yeah…
Lochie: But we haven’t done our own proper show there yet.
Mawson: We actually had a joint show with Split System booked for Brissie, we were going to book at one of the venues there that closed recently…
OB: The Zoo?
Mawson: Yep. It would have been the same line up as tonight too with a local band, but I’ve just had a baby and I’m heading away soon, it was too much to reschedule it.
OB: Fair enough and congratulations too! I regret not seeing The Showdown gig.
Mawson: Thank you. I don’t think we played that well that night.
Wolfy: It was like thirty-eight degrees that day.
Mawson: We got there at eight AM, and drank piss sitting in a container all day.
Lochie: Yeah, they showed us the green room and it was a shipping container.
Wolfy: And the only room with an aircon!
Mawson: I think we sank thirteen slabs or something close, and by the time we played that night we were like “OH FUCK!”.
Wolfy: It was fine, I had fun!
OB: Brisbane only has an artificial beach at South Bank, next to a brown, oozing swamp of a river full of bull sharks.
Wolfy: No fun on the Brown Snake! Ha!
OB: There are beaches up and down the Gold and Sunny coast, and to be fair both with great venues like Sol Bar, Vinnies Dive Bar, Mo’s Desert Clubhouse for example, they would go apeshit crazy to host you no doubt.
Mawson: Fuck yeah!
Lochie: That would be awesome.
OB: Rubbing salt into the wound, Drunk Mums played at Bearded Lady in Brisbane, wearing matching Split System t-shirts. Luke the drummer from Full Flower Moon Band wearing a sleeveless Stiff Richards shirt at the 4ZZZ Reclink gig. All of them taunting us with their coolness, and a punk “Na-na-na you’re never going to get it!”
Mawson: Ha! Sick we love those guys. Fucking perfect.
OB: And that’s when I was like “Fuck it I’m going down to Melbourne and fucking begging for them to come back!”.
Mawson: I’d love to get back up there again!
Lochie: Hell yes!
Wolfy: Hundred percent!
Big ups to Aaron Mawson, guitarist and manager of Stiff Richards and Split System for arranging all of this
The Brunswick Ballroom show was pure pandemonium, complete with Billiam crowd surfing and Benny taking photos. I managed to save the gig after some dickhead poured an entire pint of beer on a power board within ten seconds of the first song by acting quickly and using my Drunk Mums t-shirt to mop up the beer enabling the Stiffies to carry on and put on a show for the ages. C.OF.F.I.N were also nice enough to put Jess and I on the door of the Bendi show, how good!