OnlyBands were ecstatic to spend the night at Iron and Resin Garage celebrating the birthday of none other than Luke Henery. The lords and ladies of the local scene gathered with friends and family to share their admiration the kindest person to ever strum a four string. Luke also handpicked the line-up, composed of Haters, Disgraceland, Sonny James, and of course the headliners Straight Arrows, who are Luke’s “all-time favourite band”.
Before they took to the stage, members Owen Penglis and Al Grigg joined us in the back of a bread van converted into the Bread N Butter Photo Booth so we could ask them five quickfire questions!
Straight Arrows are:
- Owen Penglis (Vocals and guitar)
- Alex Grigg (Guitar)
- Adam Williams (Drums)
- Will Harley (Bass)
1. After seeing your live show, the tracks Smoke, Peakin, and Fast Product are particular favourites of mine. What are the party favours that inspire the song track names, where do we get said product from, and how much is it per ounce?
Owen: How much is Fast Product worth? It depends how quickly it arrives I suppose. Smoke, it’s about smoke. Peakin, it’s about hitting the top too fast. And hitting the bongos.
OB: Simon’s bongos.
Al: Simon’s bongos yes!
Owen: Simon’s bongos, great to have a hit.
(Simon Ridley from DZ Deathrays loaned his bongos for their show at The Bearded Lady the previous night that were played by his fellow Velociraptor band members in Slowrip for the occasion)
2. Let’s imagine a Straight Arrows festival. Your choice of venues around Australia and you get to choose the bands on the lineup. Who are your headliners and where are we headed?
Owen: Is this like a touring festival?
OB: Yeah, whatever you want!
Owen. Right, a Straight Arrows Palooza kind of thing… Do all these bands have to be alive?
Dakota: No, you can bring them back from the dead!
Al: We are going to resurrect and repair.
Owen: Oh man this is going to be incredible festival. I’m going to have like Little Richard headlining it, where we going next?
OB: With original back up guitarist Jimmy Hendrix?
Owen: Yeah yeah!
Al: He can pop in for a little bit.
Owen: I reckon. Anyone you’d like in this Al?
Al: Yeah, I reckon like the Buzzcocks, but with the original singer.
Owen: I reckon Howard Devoto era of Buzzcocks, Spiral Scratch era…
Al: Oh yeah.
Owen: Actually, Buzzcocks should just get him to come and sing on the latest tour actually.
Al: Hell yeah.
Owen: Who else are we getting on this thing? I would one-hundred percent get GG Allin and The Jabbers pre–fufu! So, there would be Always Was, Is and Always Shall Be after era… I actually heard from many people that saw them who said they were actually a bunch of losers allegedly but I would get pre-fufu GG on.
Al: Yeah, hell yeah! This is so hard because there’s generally a million bands I would like to put on this.
Owen: Like the 1963-1972 Ike and Tina Turner Revue. I reckon that would be incredible.
OB: What about on the local scene?
Al: There are heaps of good Sydney bands at the moment, Gee Tee, Itchy and the Nits, Tee Vee Repairmann.
Dakota: I love Itchy and the Nits, they haven’t come up yet (to Brisbane) and I want them to come up, so yeah!
Al: Oh, you want them to come up there? I will just ask them, well it will be happening at the Straight Arrows festival, right? Ha-ha see you there! Where will be doing this?
Owen: Oh, one at Dreamworld, one at Movie World, and also at (unintelligible).
Dakota: Someone just played a show there recently yeah.
Owen: Yeah, when I was in high school, the high school band played in Dreamworld. I got to play Wipeout on the drums! Yeah, and I was playing it too loud, and all these people came out of those little shops and complained, and then I never got to play Wipeout on the drums again!
OB: Can you close the set tonight with Wipeout?
Owen: Yeah, but I won’t be on the drums I suppose!
3. I think I have solved the energy crisis. I’m going to superglue your 2018 album On Top! to any Private Function. My theory is this will create a perpetual motion between both albums trying to be the one on top. This can be harnessed as a sustainable power source to power punk rock music venues around Australia and keep them open forever. Would you be willing to conduct this experiment with me?
Al: That sounds too smart for me, I don’t understand how that works. But I trust you man to solve the energy crisis!
Owen: We will donate to you five copies of the album to start that.
OB: Great, now all we need is Private Function to be on board with this experiment also.
Owen: Yeah, we will have a chat to them.
OB: Well with PF Jusavinageez and Straight Arrows’ Shop Window, is the whole window-shopping theme mutual? I can see a potential team up here.
Owen: Oh yeah.
OB: Maybe a double-sided pressing perhaps? Similar to the theory of buttered toast on one side and a cat landing on its feet on the other.
4. Last night at the Bearded Lady you broke a string within the first couple of songs and your guitar was having acclimatisation issues. However, you were shredding it like a Car Thief, almost like you had an eight-string mandolin, and not a five-string guitar as the situation presented. Is omitting a string the secret to your self-professed mid-fi sound?
Owen: Ref guitar strings yeah, I’d say so. Also like… omitting working pedals also helps!
OB: Is that a Queensland thing or…
Owen: No, we’ve been doing this naturally, don’t worry!
(All laughing)
Owen: Well for years we’ve had these old guitars we bought and they sound cool, but they play like shit! And I took them to a guy, and he fixed them and made them amazing. Before that I used to break like, four strings a night! And it’s been great.
Al: That was the first broken string of the tour.
OB: First one? Really on the second last show!
Al: Yeah yeah, the humid climate of Brisbane.
OB: Welcome to Brisbane and the Beardo!
Dakota: Oh, that is very on brand for The Bearded Lady ha-ha!
OB: Yeah, you’d better get a tetanus shot now.
Owen: Ah yes very nice!
OB: We love the Beardo.
5. You are here today in celebrating the fortieth birthday of one of the most loved and respected people in Australian music. Can you tell us your favourite Luke Henery memory?
Al: I feel that you would have a really good Luke Henery memory, Owen.
Owen: I’ve got a good one… So, the first time Straight Arrows and Violent Soho played together was on our first seven-inch tour in 2007. And us and Violent Soho played a house party in the middle of Brisbane, and it was great but we ran out of drinks- Wait, I think the statute of limitations has almost passed now we are back in Queensland! I’ll continue.
So, we (Luke and I) went up the road to the local pub to get some more beers, and the pub had a karaoke set up, it was this karaoke bar and no one else in it. So, me and Luke did this little cover of I Got You Babe together! And then we went to the bar to buy like a carton of beers right, but no one was there. Luke looked at me and said “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”. Mind you we hardly knew each other then, and I said “Yep!”. Then we both put our heads under the beer taps, turned them on and just started sculling this beer! But the bartender didn’t appear for like over five minutes so we are just like “Argh!” with our heads under these beer taps.
Finally, this guy walks out from nowhere, he does a double take and goes “What the fuck?!”. I grab Luke from under the beer tap, beer all over his face, and I say “Luke let’s go!”.
The guy is calling after us, and we just run out the door and down the street, with the bartender chasing us. We hide in some bushes for a bit. We get back to the party and everyone is like “Where is the beer?”. And yeah, it was inside of us! That was the first time I met Luke Henery, and we became really good friends after that.
OB: Al, do you have a story to add too?
Al: Well, I feel like I’ve been watching Luke Henery play for twenty years in Violent Soho, he played in Straight Arrows before…
Owen: He did! That’s right, in Toowoomba, he was our fill in bassist, and Al almost got arrested for jaywalking, and I really hated it there!
OB: Haha! So funny on the TNSW podcast they were talking about people being arrested for jaywalking. Do cops still do that? I thought it was just Vic cops myself.
Al: Ha yeah, so I don’t really know one story as there are so many multiple memories with Luke. Just literally throughout our whole musical life, he is just the loveliest guy. And I know he looks so intimidating because he is so big and tough. Before I first met him, I’m kind of scared of this guy, but then as soon as you meet him, he is just the loveliest dude ever.
Owen: Yeah, one hundred percent.
OB: I know right? I told Luke we don’t always have Dakota so I need to look at getting a camera. Then he finds the perfect one for me and just buys it! I’ll pay him back of course, but like who does that kind of thing for people?!
Al: Luke absolutely. Luke does that kind of thing. That’s who he is.
OB: Well, thank you! We better let you get in there to put on a show for him.
Owen: Yeah, we have got some rocking’ to do I suppose!
Straight Arrows rocked the night away, with one very happy Luke Henery joining on stage to belt out a track or two with a beer in each hand. What a night. It was another stellar example of the community through music. Love, friendship, fun, and memories.
Thank you to Dakota (@strictly.sentimental) for capturing all the highlights of the Straight Arrows set! You can see more of her work right here.