Back in the early 90’s one of the best live bands you’d see in the pubs and clubs of Australia was Nick Barker and the Reptiles. They toured relentlessly and always put on a memorable show. It’s been 30 years now since the second of their two great albums ‘After the Show’ and now they’re back! It’s not a huge tour though to celebrate but just the two select dates one at The Bridge Hotel in Sydney on Saturday 16th October and the other a couple of weeks later at Melbourne’s Corner Hotel on Saturday 30th October. It’s pretty much unmissable if either you remember them back in the day or have heard the legends! We caught up with Nick to remember the great days when shows were full and strange cocktails were invented for the occasion! Did we mention card games? They invented one of those too!
Nick: Hey Mark!
Mark: Hey Nick how are you?
Nick: I’m good man, I’d be better if I could work this out!
Mark: There you’ve got it! I was sat here trying to remember the last time I saw you live, it must have been three or four years ago in Melbourne.
Nick: Oh you’re in Melbourne?
Mark: No, I was then but I’m sadly over here now in Perth in the beautiful West.
Nick: I’m not sure if it’s ‘sadly’ with the lockdown! I think you’re sitting nicely there in the Republic of Western Australia!
Mark: (laughs) We may still devolve if things continue!
Nick: (laughs)
Mark: It’s great to read you’re playing some shows. It’s the 30th Anniversary this year too of that second album ‘After the Show’ which I think just shades it as my favourite ‘Reptiles’ album.
Nick: I didn’t even think of that. It’s so funny you get to this point in your career and you can pretty much pluck an anniversary! (laughs)
Mark: Yeah there’s a few! I remember back in the day when I lived in Sydney seeing you guys quite regularly out in the pubs.
Nick: I was thinking about that the other day, you know. With Sydney someone sent me an old tour schedule thing. With Sydney you could go and play Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then go back home, and there might have been a Wollongong in there or something but that’s what you could do – there might be Carringbah, North Ryde, a show in the City – there’s no way you could do that now, you’d be pushing it to do one show in town!
Mark: Yeah, sadly the live music scene has changed considerably over the last 20 years but it’s good to see you back.
Nick: It’s funny you find yourself saying “I’m never gonna do that again, look at all these people reforming and stuff” and then you think “I kind of miss those guys” you know, we were all in our early 20’s and it’s such a big part of your life that it’s hard not to get a little nostalgic.
Mark: I know what you mean.
Nick: It’s funny talking of Anniversaries we did another show three years ago for the anniversary of ‘Another Me’ being released and we probably had four or five hundred people come out – I just sort of forgot what a good bar band ‘Reptiles’ was.
Mark: It’s was great! Always a great night out, great music and the only band alive to have done justice to an Alex Harley song! He’s a hard man to cover.
Nick: (laughs) I’ve been listening to a lot of that lately, Alex Harley. I was talking to Angry Anderson of all people and he was telling me about the time he met Alex Harley, it’s a really great story, he’s a real raconteur Angry! But he also told me another story about how he got onto Alex Harley – he was at a bar and he was talking to Bon Scott and Bon pulled out a cassette out of his jacket and pushed it into Angry’s front pocket – it was The Sensational Alex Harley Band album, and he said “Just Listen to that!” Angry told me years later when he got to meet Alex he told him that story – so there you go!
Mark: That’s a great story I know when Angry and I chat we always end up talking about music and usually of that era and normally The Faces as he’s a huge fan!
Nick: Boy is he! And he’s really exploring that side of himself when he’s doing his solo album, I hope he gets that out soon as he’s working with some really good young cats that I know down here.
Mark: That sounds pretty cool.
Nick: Ask him about the Alex Harley story though – he tells it better than me!
Mark: I will, we’ll have to touch base with him to chat about the album. And I’ve got a story I want to get out of you a little later, so we’ll leave that for now. The main reason of course we’re having a chat is you’re playing just the two dates at two of my favourite venues in Australia I think – I’ve had many a good might out at both, and you must have some great memories of those two venues?
Nick: The Corner Hotel I remember because it was one of the first places The Reptiles ever sold out on the door. It probably held about 900 people back then, and this was just after ‘After the Show’ came out. I remember being upstairs and it was just like dirty single mans quarters up there when we played!
Mark: (laughs)
Nick: The promoter at the time had given us, and it was a sold out show, we’d sold a lot of tickets it was packed, and he’d given us a case of West End. I don’t know if you know what West End beer is?
Mark: (laughs) from Adelaide!
Nick: Yeah (laughs) and we were big beer drinkers and this was just nun’s piss! It was horrible! And warm! (laughs) And I remember because Chris told me when we were talking that I must hold the record for throwing a case of beer at somebody because he was at one end of the hall – the promoter and we were at the other and I threw the case of beer down the hallway upstairs at The Corner and he reckons I must have thrown it about 15 feet! “We’re not drinking this piss!” So he went out and got us a case of cold VB!
Mark: It should be an Olympic sport! (laughs) Great venues though, I’ve spent so much time in places like that watching great music!
Nick: They’re dirty pubs you know, and I don’t mean that in a hygiene sense, I just mean they haven’t really been… They haven’t had the guts sucked out of them by trendy renovations and they’ve managed to retain.. and you know I’ve played at the Corner hundreds of times and The Bridge quite a lot too. We played at The Bridge a few years ago doing something and it hasn’t changed, it’s still got that pub feel. And that’s what The Reptiles were – we were just a good bar band and so if we were going to do a show we wanted to just pay homage to us and also those pubs. Let’s face it those type of rooms are the ones that have suffered the most during this lockdown. It’s the in-between rooms that have really copped it.
Mark: They definitely have. Now let’s get to that story because I’ve never heard it but it mentioned it in the press release – what was the card game you invented?
Nick: (laughs) It’s not as intriguing as it sounds! It kind of speaks to how much we used to tour and how boring touring is, you know. You’re just sitting around a lot of the time. If you read any biography of any musician they talk about that ‘time in-between’! Charlie Watts famously said “It’s 5 years of touring and 20 years of sitting around! One day we got a whole big pile of, and we were playing at The Great Northern Hotel the one in Sydney, and they just had all of these drink coasters and we got 52 of them, They had all these things on them that were available at the pub – bar and bistro, live music 5 nights a week, something, something, something! (laughs) There was just a list of things and we circled things and paired them, and we’d deal them out someone would shout “I’ve got 4 – ‘5 days bar and bistro'” – that beats ‘fine dining’! It was the most ridiculous game, but we carried these coasters round with us for years and years and we’d be sat around and someone would say “Do you want a game of ‘Northers’?” We used to call it ‘Northers; because it was the great Northern Hotel! (laughs) So we’d all sit around in a circle and deal out these flea-bitten old beer coasters! It was stupid! And we’d bet on it! It was ridiculous, just one of those stupid things – pretty much like the cocktail we invented! That was Vodka and ‘Staminade’ because we worked out that we needed to be healthy as well so we decided we were going to mix our vodka – so we used to get a big thing of ‘Staminade’ on our rider – so we’d mix up this ‘Staminade’ and tip the vodka into it and take these big schooners of vodka and ‘Staminade’ on stage! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Nick: With the reasoning that we were somehow benefitting ourselves!
Mark: So are you going to revisit those two things on these dates?
Nick: Oh I am!
Mark: (laughs)
Nick: I’m trying to get the Corner to do a cocktail on the night – ‘The Reptile’ which is just vodka and ‘Staminade’! It’s disgusting! (laughs) We’ll see!
Mark: (laughs) Have you picked the setlist? Have you decided what you’re gonna do?
Nick: Well, we did a show three years ago for ‘Another Me’ Anniversary and I picked the setlist out of that and it was just a beauty – you’d be surprised how much we covered – there was a lot of ‘After the Show’ in there. ‘After the Show’ – the sound of it wasn’t how I’d imagined it. We did it in Memphis at Ardent Studios where Big Star and The Replacements and Steve Earle and Georgia Satellites – all those bands recorded. And I kinda wanted it to sound like a Georgia Satellites record and we even had the same producer that did their last record ‘Land of Salvation and Sin’. So that’s how I wanted it to sound but it just never came out like that, but the songs when you play them kind of lend themselves to that. But the setlist is pretty much half of each and a couple f songs off the EP, but it’s a good one.
Mark: Sounds like it will be a fantastic night.
Nick: The band is sounding good, I’m a hard task master and because we’ve slowed down a bit and we don’t play them as fast they’ve got a lot more of that Southern Rock in them now than probably they ever had, which works, you know. I mean that’s all we ever wanted to be – Jason and the Scorchers!
Mark: (laughs)
Nick: And they tried to turn us into Guns ‘n’ Roses a bit, and it just failed. We were never that good of a band. Anything outside of a pub we just weren’t that good! (laughs) We were good in a pub with a litre of ‘Staminade’ and a game of weird card – that pretty much sums Reptiles up! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) How has lockdown been for you? Have you find yourself being more creative or has it hampered things?
Nick: It’s funny you know because I did one show in 12 months and that’s funny for me because I’ve ben playing gigs since I was 17. But I wrote and recorded a record that is sort of three-quarters done. I mean I don’t want to say lockdown is good but everybody’s had their own epiphanies during it right? And you’ll get that, but for me because I want chasing my tail playing – you get in a bit of a mouse wheel doing gigs – you think you’ve got to keep doing them… And when you can’t, or when you don’t do them the record that I wrote was just has a different take on it with live music out of your mind. It’s a really good record, I’ve played a helluva lot more guitar on it, overdubbed a lot more and it has some of the best lyrics I’ve ever written. And I don’t know if that has anything to do with it but there’s certainly.. It’s strange, it’s weird thing when you take away something you’ve always done, I don’t know, its strange.
Mark: A lot of people have been saying that it’s gone one of two ways. I was talking to Billy Gibbons the other day…
Nick: (laughs) It just so happens!
Mark: (laughs) Sorry for the name-dropping! But he said it was great for him he got away from it all to the desert and just spent months making a record whereas before he’d be writing when he was playing and he’d probably get just a few weeks to put things together.
Nick: I reckon for people like that it would have been a real eye-opener because I reckon they would have people breathing down their neck to get recording and to finish songs. With me it was just more about stepping out of the loop and…. the problem with music, it doesn’t matter how old you get is that if you’re still in it you’re still trying to stay relevant all the time and even if you don’t realise it at the time you’re constantly going “I should be doing this, I should be doing that… and what if I?” And I think “Gee whizz man you’re 56, you’re not that relevant, but you’re not irrelevant!” So there’s a nice middle ground that I’ve just slipped into. And that’s 50% self realisation and 50% just being appreciative of what I have done and where I fit. And that was kinda good for me. And that’s probably why we’re doing Reptiles shows because I realise that I did miss those guys and that part of me was a real huge part of my life. So I thought don’t ignore it, embrace it and don’t cringe every time someone sends you a video of ‘Make Me Smile’ or something like that. You’ve got to take it on board a bit more.
Mark: And hopefully you’ll bring back a lot of great memories for a lot of people and also maybe get some young kids in there too to check it out. When I told people I was talking to you I got a flood of emails which is always a great sign, some the usual ones like “Why aren’t you playing Perth and Adelaide” and all that…
Nick: (laughs)
Mark: Which we’ll ignore but we do hope to see you over one day.
Nick: It’s just a financial thing with Perth, it always has been. I mean I’d love to come to Perth – you used to be able to come over and you could do five pub shows and we did so well in Perth, it’s an amazing Rock and Roll Town, it always was, but nowadays trying to base it around one gig is difficult.
Mark: It is. And I guess one thing about lockdown and people not coming to see us from over East is that the local scene is getting rediscovered.
Nick: Perth was always like that. I’ll never forget going to Perth and seeing cover bands like The Jets! They had their own truck! These bands were big! Because Perth was essentially by tyranny of distance was always sort of in its own lockdown, and this goes right back to Bon Scott and The Valentines – you get this sense of bands leaving Perth and going to the East Coast was like going to another country! SO Perth always had this really happening live scene that you never realised till you got over there. I remember when we came over it was like going to Rock and Roll wonderland – we used to come over and play those big Bikie Festivals and then you could do five gigs in town! Man we loved it!
Mark: It is and now we also have to contend with the Covid lottery too! Jon Stevens the other week he was over and played a few dates… if he’d been to Bluesfest the shows would have been cancelled!
Nick: Yeah it’s a worry, and they have those winery shows too – the old people’s Big Day Out! They sell serious tickets too! There’s a real appetite for it.
Mark: There is – the latest sold out.
Nick: Well that’s pretty much the catalyst for our latest shows – we got offered a similar show in the Hunter Valley – it’s with Tatts and James Reyne, Baby Animals, all those guys! And we play about 8.30 in the morning for about ten minutes!
Mark: (laughs)
Nick: But it was enough for us to then do The Bridge and then we were up and running an doing The Corner. So if there’s any promoters in Perth who want to chuck us on one of those we’ll be there!
Mark: Just a few quick questions to close if that’s OK, the last person I asked these was of course Billy Gibbons!
Nick: (laughs) Good company!
Mark: (laughs) And there is a connection I do believe?
Nick: Yes Joe Hardy who produced Nick Barker and the Reptiles ‘After the Show’ he did a few ZZ Top records too and that was one of the reasons we wanted to use him.
Mark: Yes Joe ‘Party’ Hardy as Billy refers to him who sadly died recently.
Nick: Yes, what a guy! Lovely guy.
Mark: So what started it off for you Nick? Was it a defining moment or a gradual realisation that music was going to become such an important part of your life?
Nick: I guess all teenagers try music at some point I had a friend and we started playing Neil Young covers in High School and then I split up with this girlfriend that I had and I wrote this kind of nasty song, well not nasty but a song about her and I remember we did this gig at the local youth centre and I played this song and she kind of bust into tears and ran out, there was all this drama. And I guess at that point I kind of thought – you know what I can actually write songs! And I sort of drifted into it from there. I was always a bass player for years and played in a lot of Post-Punk bands in Melbourne in the 80’s. Music was kind of my way in. There was a real ‘tribe’ mentality in Melbourne in the early 80’s and everybody played in bands. I played in 5 bands at once when I was sort of 17,18 – it just sort of rolled on from there really.
Mark: If you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great album, just to see how the magic happened in the studio – what’s the album you would have liked to have been there for?
Nick: Ooh, you know at some point I would have loved to have been a ‘fly on teh wall’ for ‘Tonight’s The Night’ by Neil Young. I would have been a fly with a tiny tumbler of tequila and a tray of honey sliders! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Nick: (laughs)
Mark: That would have been the Neil Young album I would have chosen as well, there’s just something magical about that record.
Nick: We got together and played that album start to finish for the Anniversary. I put a band together down here and it’s a fun record! You know you think that record would be really difficult to play, but it’s so loose and so much fun!
Mark: I would have loved to have seen that! And let’s leave you with an easy one! What is the meaning of life?
Nick: (laughs) The meaning of life? The meaning of life? What is the meaning of life? I haven’t got a clue, I can tell you what though it’s not being locked in your lounge room I can tell you that much.
Mark: But it could be playing cards and having cocktails on the 16th of October.
Nick: (laughs) The meaning of life is playing a card game of your own making with your friends and drinking vodka and Staminade!
Mark: Brilliant! That’s the most original answer I’ve ever had Nick. Thank you so much for your time mate!
Nick: Yeah thanks man! It’s been great.
Mark: Take care stay safe!
Nick: See you mate! Cheers.