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"Just a music fan, Blackle demonstrates his love for the art.
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more popular, 60s garage-influenced
bands like the Lime Spiders," remembers
Ray. "We were able to go down with both
crowds."
So what is the collective Hard-Ons
ideal? "We're all just music fans playing
music," says Ray. "We never put
messages in our songs. We don't care
what anyone thinks about us. We're just
doing our own thing. We have a lot of in-
fluences because we listen to a lot of dif-
ferent things, which is why our music is
so diverse."
While all three members of the band are
currently living "on the dole," bassist Ray
is beginning to gain some degree of
notoriety for his artwork. His etchings have
graced each and every Hard-Ons record
cover, from their debut 7" "Surfin' On My
Face" to the recently released "Dick-
cheese" Lp. "I like the simple, cartoony
drawing styles you see in cartoon strips
like 'Croc,' 'The Wizard of Id' and 'Donald
Duck.' They make people look really stupid
and out of proportion, which is something
I like. I also enjoy artists like Jack Kirby and
Steve Ditko. I like the way they draw people
with big, goofy eyes."
Their outrageous record covers and
song titles have left the Hard-Ons open to
attack. They've been tagged sexist, racist
and just out and out stupid. Obviously the
trio, which includes one Asian, one Indian
and one Caucasian, are a bit more clever
than most people give them credit for. "A
lot of our songs have double meanings,"
reveals Ray. "People don't know if we're
putting down or praising ethnic people and
women. There was one gig when Keish
was wearing a flipped up baseball cap with
"White Folks Suck!" on the brim and
nobody knew what to think of it consider
ing that Keish is dark. He's almost black.
We put that slogan on the cover of our 'All
Set to Go' single and I think that confused
a lot of folks as to what we're about."
Like the Ramones and befitting their
irreverent monicker, the Hard-Ons write a
lot of songs about women. Whether
they're romantic ("Girl in a Sweater") or
more than a tad risque ("Suck and
Swallow"), their youthful male obsession
is just as tongue in cheek as anything else
they've ever sung about. "We're into the
romantic side of pornography," smirks
Keish.
"And besides," adds Ray, "we think of
lyrics as a good chance to have a laugh,
mostly at our own expense. The music is
the most important thing to us, because
without it you have some dickhead reading
poetry."
Although they're pictured carrying
skateboards on the cover of "Hard-Ons,""
their Big Time/RCA American debut Lp,
the guys aren't exactly pro material.
"We're social skaters," laughs Blackie.
"We all skate, which is something we pick-
ed up from a band back home called Mass
Appeal that we're good friends with. Back
in the seventies, when we were all really
young, we all used to have skateboards
but they were called "Surly Sams" and
they were nothing like skateboards are
now. They had wooden decks and rubber
wheels."
Dismissing Australia's national pastime
of surfing as "too hard to learn," they also
don't lay claim to being particularly adept
on urethane and pavement. "We wouldn't
go to the ramps until about eleven o'clock
at night," says Blackie. "We'd go there dur-
ing the day and there would be about fifty
or sixty kids at the quarter-pipe and they
were all brilliant so we decided we would
come back later when no one was there
to ride."
"Free of embarassment," adds Ray.
So, what's next for the Aussie mop-
heads? Fame? Fortune? Skating lessons?
Unknown to most, they've already made
their American motion picture debut by
supplying their classic fave, "Girl in a
Sweater" to the soundtrack of the recent
Susannah Hoffs lackluster film, "The
Allnighter." They shared musical credits
with Redd Kross and the Exploding White
Mice. "It was a terrible movie," says
Blackie. "It never even went to the
cinemas, just straight to video tape."
"And we never even got to meet
Susannah Hoffs," laments Keish.