MR BASTARD LINE-UP
August 1992 to April 1994
Marcus Surly - guitar, vocals
Mark “Gregor” Samson - bass, vocals
Andrew “Stumpy” Leavold - drums
Roland - heavy metal guitar
April 1994 to October 1994
Marcus Surly - guitar, vocals
Mark “Gregor” Samson - bass, vocals
Andrew “Stumpy” Leavold - drums
October 1994 to December 1995, July 1998 to February 2000
Marcus Surly - guitar, vocals
Mark “Gregor” Samson - bass, vocals
Andrew “Stumpy” Leavold - drums
Cal Crilly - guitar
[from Seditious Intent fanzine (December 1993)
I saw Mr Bastard recently when they played at Studio 694 and decided to drop Stumpy the drummer a line. So this is what I received in the mail in November of 1993. Read on and enjoy...
SI - First of all, who is in Mr Bastard and what do they play?
STUMPY - Screamin' J.Marcus is the throat and rhythm guitar. Gregor plays bass, sings,dances and acts as MC for the evening. The one and only Rowland the heavy metal guitarist is our answer to Kevin Borisch. I beat the fuck out of my drumkit.
Who decided that Mr Bastard would be a worthwhile thing to start?
Rowland wanted a pub-rock band, I-wanted a country metal band,and Marcus was planning a cabaret combo. Gregor likes noise, but then he's on medication. We figured we could play Country-Punk-Metal-Cabaret-Noise at the same time in the same band. Mr Bastard rocks HARD!!
Are any of you in other bands?
We are rufugees from one or more of the following: Strontium Dog, Surly Girls, Queer, Invisible Empire, Voice of the Christian Truckers, Wide-Open Beavers, real fuckin’ punk rock superstars (har de har).
What do you sing about in Mr Bastard songs?
We pay tribute to our idols - the plight of Wally Lewis breaking his leg, Michael Jackson going to hell and getting fucked up the arse by Bubbles, Syd Barret from Pink Floyd comatose on hallucinogens -things that have shaped us as musicians, things that really affect us.
Are you all long haired hippies -Ha Ha!
Why you little wise-ass punk motherfucker! We're all long-hairs but we're too lazy to be hippies. We also enjoy raping the environment. We're trying to grow our beards long like Motorhead.
Does
Boy, we’ve got enough groin thunder up here to rock the underpants off any of those candy-ass Waterfront Mexican types. The rest of the country's dead south of the waist line. And that's a fuckin' quote.
What do you think of The Onyas? Are Mr Bastard better?
Those college boys can rock hard. They've got the moves, they've got the T-shirts - but they can't drink to save their mothers or their sisters. If those non-drinking rockstar types want to challenge us, the fight is on! We can win the beer gut competition, fists down as well.
Do you get pissed much?
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Can you see Mr Bastard releasing a CD in the near future?
Boy, I can’t even see Mr Bastard getting a fuckin’ paid gig in the near future. “King Wally”, our ode to the Emperor, is on a CD called "Fuck the White Race: The Malignant Xmas Collection", out in January. Tape out soon too.
Could I borrow your drums if I ever get a band together with these fuckwits from Rocky, Garth and Andrew?
Yeah? In your dreams fella! (Get me a woman and a bottle of Tequila and we'll talk about it some more...)
Any message for the legions of SI readers out there?
Mr.Bastard will rock your Bar-b-q HARD (get those beer offers in now).
Well thanks a lot for that Stumpy and good luck with your demo tape and all that.
Wanks For The Mammaries: MR BASTARD Interview with John Henry Calvinist
[originally published in Rave magazine 08/07/98]
Back in the Antediluvian days of the early nineties, a fearsome bastard (“That's Mr Bastard to you...”) of a band bestrode the land; drinking up everyone’s booze, frightening the horses, and generally spreading drunken mirth about the place. And now they're back, with a handsome LP to launch and many tales to tell. Andrew 'Trash' Leavold and Mark 'Gregor' Samson share their precious memories...
All right, so what have you got planned for your triumphant return?
“Just wait till you see the poster... It's got the skyline of
“In a party pack with the Colonel."
"And a couple of condoms, with the special lace tie you can put around various parts..."
"Aren't we supposed to be talking about our album launch?"
“We've gotta get some go-go dancers..."
“We have got them, we just haven't got cages. We're thinking of importing some Filipino midgets - they'll fit into cockatoo cages. You can fit about five of them on top of an amp, you know.”
"I saw this wonderful band in
We now resume our 'regular' programming...
“Well, we've got lots of special guests lined up, including (of course) the legendary Garth Anonymous reprising his famous version of “King Of The Fuckin' Road”. Unfortunately, we won't be able to duplicate that time at a ZZZ Market Day, when he poked his head around the side of the stage - in the middle of the song - and started singing, “There's two people having sex out the back.” They started before the show, and when we finished, they were still going for it. All you could see were these buttocks going up and down near the fence."
“And, apparently, they were reported afterwards as saying, ‘Great fuckin' band’."
"That's a true story, too."
'Things like that seem to happen to us a lot."
Given that you'd had such a consistent career of marvellously shoddy performances, what made you actually get in there and practice so's you could deliver such a together- sounding record?
"Well, we didn't. The whole thing was done in an afternoon - no retakes, no outtakes... just one song after another. We were just inspired Bastards for once...”
“I can see the next Mr Bastard release being an interactive CD. With a board game. We've just got to buy a couple copies of Hustler so we can make up the pieces...”
"The prancing penis, that sort of thing."
Enough of that, you filthy swine... maybe you'd better tell us some more band history before we end up with an X rating.
'Well, we should talk about the Roland years..."
"I remember our very first practice, you all plugged in your instruments and I got behind the drums and started going THUMPATHUMPATHUMPA... and Roland waltzed in, looking like Richie Blackmore, switched on his amp and launched into some ludicrous seventies rock riff. And, we're all going THUMPATHUMPA... uh? Excuse me?”
"He was kinda like a guy wearing a tutu in the middle of a biker bar.”
"And with him in the band, we managed to end up bigger losers than we ever thought possible.”
"I thought I was badly incompetent in Strontium Dog, but he just took it to heights."
“Every song started sounding like Cream - it didn't matter what the hell we were playing, he was just off somewhere... and eventually he didn't come back."
Such was the lure of Turtlebox...
"It's great to have the band together again at the most racist bigoted wonderland period in the state's history. 'Cause now we can really piss people off. These days, all you'd have to do is wear a cow suit on stage, and you'd be accused of undermining the beef industry, or something. Especially if you had a midget businessman pelting him with sushi...'
Sounds like you've thinking hard about this.
"Well, there are definite possibilities...”
“What else should we have in the interview?”
“We need a page 3 girl. Definitely."
[Lawrence English's interview with Cal originally published in Timeoff Magazine, 17/02/99]
