Vastly unpredictable, elemental, mystic, spooky, weird, something quite peculiar – no Australian band incites such valiant efforts from punters and journalists alike, in describing THE CHURCH. Ahead of the band’s Starfish 30th Anniversary tour in Australia, STEVE KILBEY spoke with MATT PETHERBRIDGE about the album’s longevity, his creative process and the surrealism of his public life.
“When I started, the last thing I thought was longevity. I had no idea 30 years ago we’d be talking about Starfish, or that I’d be talking to you about it, or anyone for that matter. It’s weird – I never foresaw any of this.”
In 1987, The Church, an ambitious, moody and brooding 7 year old band, buoyed by early commercial success with The Unguarded Moment and Almost With You, had grown into itself. The tyranny of transmuting Kilbey’s vision had ceased by 1985’s Heyday, “By then, (the band) could see what it needed to be. The songs could be explored with more contribution. It was a heavy burden to come up with all myself. It alleviated that to encourage the band to come up with music on their own.”
Kilbey remembers the first time former guitarist Marty Willson-Piper came up with the riff for ‘Reptile’. “The great thing about that song is all these pieces working against each other, then a call and response between the bass line and the vocal. The song’s in G minor, and in the bridge, it goes to G major.” Another song ‘Destination’, was comprised of parts as opposed to chord progression-driven songs, ‘Antenna’, ‘Under The Milky Way’.
Kilbey was 33, pre-fatherhood, in transition from an ‘arrogant, hot-headed 25 year old ratbag’, but not yet something quite peculiar. Lyrically, Starfish alludes to destinations, direction, the unexpected, some thing – the indescribable amidst milky ways, Texas moons and wombs. He was changing into something reflective of the music he helped created, ‘no agenda, just something that can’t really be defined.’ The process of Kilbey improvising lyrics over music crafted by the entire band freed his process up to delve deeper into character, wordplay – which would be further explored to great effect on later albums, notably 1992’s Priest = Aura.
By loose definition, a starfish is regenerative, a curio, a souvenir, a brittle star. In research fields, the starfish’s ability to repel foreign bodies makes it difficult to track. The very word conjures an ambiguity that forms a key facet of Kilbey’s songwriting across all eras of The Church. Take ‘Under The Milky Way’ – “It’s been used in weddings, in Miami Vice, car advertisements, tourism advertisements. A wonderfully ambigious song that people can find whatever they want in it. The music and the words leave it open to interpretation.”
With 26 full length albums in 38 years, countless EP’s, and a Psychedelic Symphony live at Sydney Opera House with renowned composer George Ellis and the Sydney University Symphony Orchestra – The Church have built an unrivalled legacy, not just in Australian music history, but worldwide. You’d be hard pressed to find bands of their generation and ilk that match their staggering productivity, quality and consistency.
As accepting as Kilbey is of fame, the band’s legacy still bemuses him. “I thought it’d just be an ephemeral thing, it would disappear like everything else. I never imagined it would turn around and people would credit me as the soundtrack of their life. Being in a band is quite surreal. This thing where you become almost a venerated master, a maestro or something… I never foresaw it.”
Songs like ‘The Unguarded Moment’ and ‘Under The Milky Way’ are now part of the Australian music pantheon. They’ve even made Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s personal Spotify playlist – take that one how you wish. Kilbey’s relationship with two of his most prominent songs differs substantially. “I didn’t know it [‘The Unguarded Moment’] was a big hit. Everyone just wanted to focus on that. We’d play gigs and people wouldn’t do anything and then we’d play that song and they’d go crazy – and then people would sit down during the next song. it was an accidental hit. I was young, arrogant, it was a bit of a conundrum. I got angry with it, the song assumed all this importance i didn’t want it to have”, he says plaintively. “Mind you, it’s better than having no hit at all.”
The Church are no strangers to honouring their albums live. They previously played Starfish start-to-finish as part of their Future Past Perfect tour. The 2011-2012 tour saw them play three albums start-to-finish, then-released album Untitled #23, Starfish and the vastly underrated 1992 album, Priest = Aura. And still, the Starfish 30th Anniversary tour is an important chapter in The Church’s history. With most of the tour stops nearly sold out – Kilbey clearly isn’t fighting against his legacy, noting “people obviously want that entire album experience”.
“I’ll tell you the truth, I’m just the foot soldier. Someone said to me, ‘it’s been 30 years since Starfish came out, you should do a big tour.” And I said, we already did it on Future Past Perfect! Frontier Touring got behind it and said “We’re going to put it in Sydney and Melbourne”, in really big venues we haven’t done in a while. Kilbey earnestly acknowledges, “I’m really just a musician. It wasn’t really my idea, but if someone has a constructive idea about what we should be doing, I don’t mind that either.”
The addition of Ian Haug (of Powderfinger) has seen The Church kick into a new gear. They’ve released two stellar albums in 2014’s Further Deeper and 2017’s Man Woman Life Death Infinity, which included the interstellar ‘I Don’t Know How I Don’t Know’.
“For (Man Woman Life Death Infinity), we wrote all the music in two sessions, then we’d go in the studio and re-record them. The best way I found for myself to work, was to go in the studio in the morning, figure out what song we would work on and say ‘We’re gonna do this song in half an hour’, then take the song outside in my headphones, smoke a joint, listen to it and the words would sort of… come. Ever since The Church started writing the music, and I’d turn up and sing, that’s been my process”.
Of all the descriptions labelled on Kilbey, he strongly identifies as a working class songwriter. “I’m a songwriter, that’s what I do. It’s like walking up to a carpenter on a building site and asking ‘What makes you do that?’…. He’d say ‘I’m a carpenter, that’s what I do’ It’s my vocation.. I don’t question that anymore. It’s just what I do. Nothing has to feed it. As long as there’s any need for me to keep writing a song, I’ll keep writing a song haha. I’ll keep writing when there is no need either.”
The Church perform Friday 23 November, Anita’s Theatre, Wollongong, NSW; Saturday 24 November, NEX: The Arena, Newcastle, NSW; Sunday 25 November, QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane, QLD; Friday 30 November, State Theatre, Sydney, NSW; Saturday 1 December, Palais Theatre, Melbourne, VIC; Sunday 2 December, Royal Theatre, Canberra, ACT; Tuesday 4 December, Spark Arena, Auckland, NZ; Friday 7 December, Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide, SA; Sunday 9 December, Perth Concert Hall, Perth, WA.