I N T E R V I E W

Interview Rusty, Venom (face to face)

Hi guys, how are you? We are in Grenoble today, and there is snow outside, isn't this a temperature shock for you?

Rusty: Lovely. It's actually not that cold. And it's good to see the snow. The weather is very warm in Australia at the moment, as you know.

Venom: We don't get those temperatures much, so it's different for us.

Easy question to start with: where does the name of the band come from?

Rusty: The name came down in 2003, we had a tour of Jimi Hendrix studio in New York, and  the girl that was giving us the tour was Mary Campbell and her email address was electricmary at something and I thought it was a great name for a band.

And what about your nickname Rusty?

Rusty: Nothing special, my name is Russel and a lot of Russel are called Rusty. That's it, nothing really cool in that.

We see a fair amount of Australian bands such as Koritni, tour in Europe. Is it impossible to make it big in Australia?

Rusty: Well, Australia is quite a big place with not so many people in it, 20 millions or something like that. To go from one major city to anothe major city, it's a 10 hour drive with nothing in between. If you get in a car in Paris and drive for 10 hours, you can visit a lot of places and play a lot of shows. That's the reason Airbourne, Koritni, do the same. Actually Koritni, they live here I think now.

Venom: Every heavy rock band struggles in Australia. Because of the small population, it's ok for pop music but very hard for more underground music.

You spend a fair amount of time on the road. Isn't it difficult to be away from home?

Venom: Noooo, we've lived there for 40 years...

Can you explain why we get so many good hard rock bands from Australia? You guys are raised on heavy rock?

Rusty: Rock 'n' Roll is big. Back in those days, bands could play every night, Monday to Sunday. That was true in the 80s, the 90s, but not any more.

Venom: Not for heavy rock, but still for classic rock and pop

I find a little unfair that big names such as AC/DC and Airbourne, mask, in a way, the rest of the Australian scene, no?

Rusty: I agree. There are some great bands in Australia. For example the guys from The Living End.

Venom: They are not heavy rock, but more Rockabilly, very good.

You guys are touring in France where you do a fair number of dates, in small places. That's unusual. Do you have a special link with France?

Rusty: Yes. The reason we do that is because we grew up doing that in Australia. You get in a car, you drive, you play shows, and we drive again. And you know coming from Australia it would not make sense to play only one show in Paris. Instead we play everywhere we can, and it doesn't matter if it's a small venue. And we like it here too. We feel comfortable.

Let's talk about your last album, III, a little bit. Is it me, miscounting, or there was no second album?

Rusty: No actually "Down To The Bone"s was our second album. Our first album was "Four Hands High". Many people consider it an EP, but it was an album [laughs].

Venom: We sold it as an album [laughs].

I liked this new album a lot, and noticed a little stoner tone to it, do you agree?

Venom: Yes that's true. Our second album was more chord or riff centered.

What do you write songs about?

Rusty: All sorts of things in life. For example the song "All Eyes on Me" was written about our concert at Hellfest in 2010. My view on us doing that show, which for me is my favorite show that I can remember. Folks showed up, despite the fact that we played in the morning, and they didn't get much sleep.

Did you get good feedback on this last album?

Rusty: Yes we did. But what happened is that I got sick and we had to stop until I was heathy again. So we didn't get a chance to tour for this album yet. This is going to be the first real tour for it.

You'll be touring Europe, what about the USA?

Rusty: We tried to do something there. But everything is much more complicated there. And
we didn't have the budget to do both Europe and the US, so we decided to stick to Europe.

Venom: It's very expensive to go to America. We also think that in Europe, the crowd, the journalists, the industry in general is better. The attitude is different. In the US, people listen to what you do and look for what's wrong. In Europe folks listen to what you do and look for what's right. Very different. People are more passionate about music here. Nobody is perfect, you known, and in the US they always look for the perfect thing, and compare it to what they already know.

What happens next for Electric Mary?

Rusty: We will be going back to Australia, work on new material. We have some stuff that
we wrote while on the road. And then we will come back for summer festivals. We hope to
be at Hellfest next year.

Thanks and enjoy your time on France!

Thanks a lot and have a drink or something...

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