Augie March On Celebrating Twenty Years Of “Moo, You Bloody Choir”

Just shy of two decades ago, an instant Australian icon was made with the 2006 release of Augie March’s poetic and immersive third album Moo, You Bloody Choir. With its twentieth anniversary fast approaching next year, today the beloved indie rockers announce a tour fit for such a special milestone and album, with their twentieth Anniversary Tour of Moo, You Bloody Choir set to take place next April, performing the album in its entirety for the first time ever at these special shows, alongside some extra fan-favourites. Glenn Richards talks to Hi Fi Way about the milestone of this classic album.

Congratulations on twenty years of Moo, You Bloody Choir. Awesome achievement. How does the achievement itself sit with you when you reflect on it?
I’ll probably think about it from the point of view that we’re still here, we’re still making records and that sort of thing. Once you get past the lightning nature of the twenty years passing, which is kind of depressing, but we all experience that, it’s a pretty nice thing to know that a hell of a lot of the fans that got into that one are still with us and still following what we do.

Do you get nostalgic at all with these sort of milestones, or is it very much keep looking forwards?
No, I mean I might occasionally. I think once we start rehearsing I’ll probably have a few more thoughts along those lines, but it’d be more just wishing that I was still in my twenties and drinking beer, and it was the 90s.

Does it continue to amaze you the legacy that this album in has built over the years and continues to build?
I’m in Hobart now, and I don’t really see the other guys very often, and don’t tend to think too much about Augie unless I’m doing it. It’s not until these sort of things crop up that I start thinking about it again, and I guess probably the best thing about is even though it had the one song that did good business for us, the album itself got really well received, and it won a few awards as an album. I know those sort of things aren’t that important anymore, but for us at the time, and to this day, it’s a pretty cool thing.

The single in particular, One Crowded Hour, did that feel like an absolute gift at the time? Was it one of those songs where all the planets aligned at the right time?
It did, we’re lucky that the J’s picked up on it, and community radio and that sort of thing. It did really good work for us across the country, and I guess if we were ever going to cross over into the commercial radio side of things, it was with that one. It didn’t quite happen, but for a band like us, who’d just been steadily building by playing gigs and growing an organic audience, it suddenly brought a lot more people along that I think we were pretty realistic about — they were there for that song. And as we found out afterwards, those sort of fans fall off, but the ones that loved the record and found out about the other records and kept coming to see us, like I said, they’re still with us. So from that point of view, it was probably the best thing that could have happened.

Is that the hardest and most frustrating thing trying to keep that momentum going? Fans drop off along the way, and it seems continually difficult for any band expecting another One Crowded Hour again.
Yeah, which was never really going to happen, because I’m not that sort of songwriter, and we’re not that sort of band, but I think probably the hardest thing for me was that we had a lot of momentum, and as happens with a lot of acts, the wrong course was taken on a number of fronts. We went too hard at going to America and wasted a lot of resources on that. Following the record up should have been a good thing, it should have been a good feeling about it. But there wasn’t. We had label issues, we had a label completely eat another label and that just made things a little less comfortable than they should have been.

I mean, I’m not complaining, it’s just that you read about these things when you’re young, about bands that should have gone somewhere and didn’t, the various reasons, and they’re so familiar to us now, having experienced it, that it’s almost like some bands are chosen to go through that. But the fact that we’re still here is testament to the fact that we were always about just doing more music and not much else.

I guess it’s more about doing it on your own terms rather than chasing the bright lights of America or Europe.
There’s no doubt that we wanted to do it, especially Europe, and without going into it, we were prevented from doing that. So, I find it a little regretful, some of that stuff, but I think that’s the harder part, because we did want to. I just wanted to do weirder and weirder things. I wanted to travel and have experiences, and while we got some of that, it wasn’t really on the terms that they should have been, that I suppose helped us grow, if that makes any sense. I think it did the opposite, but that’s what happens.

What were the moments that stand out for you from when the album came out? Anything you look back on now and think, yeah, that was pretty good at the time?
I don’t have the kind of memory that throws these sort of things up. We did a lot of good stuff. I guess just knowing that we would turn up to any city in Australia and we’d have a legion of people there that were devoted to the record and to us. We’d always had a smaller version of that, it grew and it grew, and that was a nice experience. If you’re in a band, you’re lucky to get that, and you should treasure it. We played some really big places, we supported some really big bands, but it’s just another gig to me. It’s more about when we play our own gigs, and regardless of the room, in fact, the smaller the better sometimes, they’re the more enjoyable moments.

The Gov here in Adelaide has always been a happy place for the band, too. I’ve seen you guys that many times it’s always a fantastic night there.
Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about, the ones where you get off stage and there’s a bit of a glow.

How do you think you’ll find playing the album start to end? Do you kind of mix it up a little bit, or you haven’t really decided?
I think the expectation is you play it start to finish. I don’t really see any reason to not do that. It sort of makes sense. We’ll have an intermission when the record’s supposed to be turned over or something. Give me a break!

Are there songs that are harder revisiting?
I think my biggest concern is there’s a few songs that we never really played that much live, and so I don’t have the muscle memory to just pick up a guitar and remember how they go. I don’t have any videos of anything, so it’s going to take me about three or four days just to get the basics down on them. But apart from that I’ll see if I can hit some of those high notes that I used to, and I should be alright.

Are there any special re‑releases that’s planned?
This is all sort of stuff we’re currently discussing. I think you’ve got to have vinyl to sell at a show, and obviously we’ll try and do something a little bit different and offer something that makes it compelling. It’s always a bit weird for me, selling a record to people that obviously already own it. But maybe there’s a lot that don’t have the vinyl, and because in the interim a lot of people have got back into that side of things. So yeah, we’ll do that. New t‑shirts and all that sort of gaffe. I think maybe a cap and a stubby holder are probably in order as well.

Do you notice a generational shift in the fan base now?
I just finished a solo tour, I met a lot of young people, and usually with their parents my age. Obviously, they’re old enough to get into the pub and stuff. It’s always interesting that the parent has obviously had a few beers, and the kid’s sober as a judge. It’s an interesting dynamic. It’s got a lot more interesting things to say than the parent. So yeah, we have that, and we’ve always sort of had it. We have the oldies as well, so we might be underestimating how many people are going to come along, because we’ve got generations now. That’s a very cool thing that happens when you stick around long enough.

Do you think much further beyond the tour? Are there plans for new music with Augie March, or is that still bubbling away in the background?
Well, I’m in the middle of recording a new solo record at the moment, so that’s obviously the focus for me over the next few months. But if things go well with the shows, it’s always been about whether the guys have got time. We always end up having to either rush things or do them in a pretty compromised manner, just because the guys have got their own lives. If there’s a month where we can do it properly, then I’d be well up for it, but we’ll see.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Tickets for Augie March’s 20th Anniversary Tour of Moo, You Bloody Choir are on sale now from http://www.teamwrktouring.com/tours/augie-march-anniversary-tour.