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Supercar were a unique band — a force of nature And although there has already been one excellent account written of the band by the brilliant Alan Holt (N.Z. Musician and Music writer), this is ultimately from an observers perspective, (although Alan was one of the people closest to the band and what he has written is fantastic) This account here is from myself as the drummer and founding member of the band… How It All Began — 1992 The Psycho Daizies tour had just finished and we (the five soon to be members of Supercar), were sitting around in the Royal Tavern in downtown Auckland one Thursday afternoon drinking and talking about the tour. We five who met up on that fateful day were — Craig Wattam (roadie on the tour/but also amazing singer in his own right), Richard Whall: aka Mixture, (Bassist on the PD tour), Myself (Drummer on the PD tour)… Also present were our good mates and two of NZs great Rock ’n’ Roll guitarists — Cameron Bain and Roddy McClelland: aka Roddy Pain. So we drank and talked and talked and drank, until we got to a point where we were talking about forming a new band together. Rich and I were now living at Frisbee studios №1 on Mayoral Drive and as well as playing in Psycho Daizies, were now playing with Dave Graham in the new order of ‘Gestalt’ working on a triple album… I say ‘new order’ because Cameron had recently been sacked by Dave from Gestalt because Cameron’s ‘poetic drunkeness’ wasn’t as inline with Dave’s new vision for Gestalt as it once was when they first started the band as teenagers… But it was PERFECTLY inline with what was to become ‘Supercar’! (Note: Dave, Rich & I formed Rainy Days together as a side project from Gestalt) So we started talking about names… I remember ‘ChunderBus’ was a suggestion, but we decided on the name ‘Supercar’ - inspired by Craig’s nickname he had acquired on tour… ‘Nurse Supercar’ (no idea where that came from) so we had the members, we had the name… NOW WHAT? We wobbled our way up Queen Street to Mayoral Drive, plugged in, turned up — and proceeded to write the songs that would become our set. Here ’tis Love Bitch Donut Man Raw Chicken Sweet Lemora Drunken Bastard Dog Tunnel Ungulate Kiss Trash Mama Surfer Babe Rocket To Uranus Nail Bomb Now when I say ‘write’, I mean we just literally played and the songs just came out of us —totally organically… all in one mad moment. We wrote two songs after that session over the next year of the band’s brief existence — ‘Cooler Than You’ and ‘Shawarma Farmer’ but we never played them live) And what I mean by that — and what I’ve never experienced in such a powerful and natural way with anyone else, is that we didn’t discuss what kind of sound we were going for, we didn’t sit there working out structures of songs… it just happened. WHY?? I put it down to the fact that we were all at the end of our teenage years, all age 20 — at the same time, (energy, creativity, angst and passion bursting out from the seams) And I think that when we got together in that practice room, five wild, young men on the fringes of society, whose only collective concern was drinking, drugs, sex and loud ragged rock ’n’ roll — was somehow perfectly expressed in that handful of songs that came pouring out of us that day. THAT was the magic of Supercar. and then there was our gigs… Our first gig was at ‘The Blues Barn’ at the top of Queen Street… one of those mid day dole day gigs… It was the only gig we played that we weren’t pissed off our faces (the preferred state)… we were STONED off our heads… I sat there behind my shades, paranoid as fuck, just trying to keep my end of the job together… But I noticed the power we produced, the reaction of the audience (shocked faces, much yelping)… We had something. SUPERCAR CAUSE A RIOT We found ourselves headlining a gig at the Takapuna War Memorial Hall… On the bill were around 4 other bands — I remember one was called ‘The Goodies’ — a bunch of local teens who covered ‘Smells like teen spirit’ and other such obvious standards of the time — that was the general gist of the gig… The exception was the great ‘Nothing At All’ were on the bill as well. In fact, it was Paul’s (their drummer) new drumkit we were using for the night. There was a good crowd there — 500 or so… Then we came On It all went pretty crazy from the go… we were much louder, doing our own songs and emanated danger — and these teenagers had yet to see something as Rock n Roll as Supercar — and they responded accordingly… The whole hall became a surging mosh pit, then they started throwing cans… Then bottles… But all credit to our frontline (Craig, Cam and Roddy)… Craig was stomping about in the broken glass in bare feet, blood pissing out of his feet, barking down the mike… Cam and Roddy were forward rolling across the stage, jumping up to Karate chop off flying bottles — whilst maintaining their riffs (and feedback)… Rich and I just kept our eye on the missiles and tried to keep the groove. IT GOT TOO MUCH a bottle in the face was seeming very likely I saw a guy in the middle of the crowd aiming up about to throw a stubbie… I pointed at him with my right hand drumstick (whilst keeping the beat with the kick and snare) shook my head and mouthed ‘NO’… he mouthed ‘sorry mate’ and turned around to walk off. I didn’t trust him Sure enough, he swung around and hurled the stubbie toward the stage and then turned to run off I aimed my drumstick at the centre of his back — and threw it as hard as i could… It rolled end over end through the air and skewered him right in the middle of the back… He arched back in agony and disappeared out the door. After that, the bottles subsided, we finished the gig with our traditional pile of amps and guitars in a feedbacking heap and then Craig, fired up from the gig, got behind the drumkit like a human bulldozer and pushed the whole kit off the front off the stage. The crowd freaked and stormed out of the venue en masse. Backstage, Paul, the drummer from Nothing At All went fucking mental (rightfully so) backstage at Craig for trashing his new drumkit… I calmed the situation down saying that we’d pay for any damages. About 20 minutes later, Craig and I were lugging a speaker out the door to the transport — and over on the horizon on a road on a ridge (half a km away in suburban North Shore) was a strange site — at which we just stood there staring at… A surging mob of shadows (the audience from the gig) running along the road, screaming, arms waving, police chopper hovering overhead, police vans blocking their way, more sirens approaching in the distance. I turned to Craig as we stood in the doorway sharing the load of the speaker and said: “Did we do that?’ To which he replied “I think we did mate” RAW CHICKEN We have managed to secure the opening spot (12.30 mid day) at the annual open air Albert Park gig in the middle of Auckland, showcasing local bands. This was a fairly big gig — at least three thousand people SO We thought it would be a good idea to acquire a 10kg sack of severed chicken feet from the chicken processing plant where Roddy worked driving truck. We go on and the sound is shit. Now what I mean by this IS, they mixed all the feedback and nastiness out of the mix… Usually — when we went on stage, our guitarists would literally turn every knob on their guitar and amps up to FULL – and THAT sonic noise was very much part of Supercar’s sound. but they killed it (mixed it all clean) Never mind… A little way into the gig — Craig grabs the sack by the bottom and violently swinging it left to right, chicken feet spewing out the top, sprays the first eight or so rows of the audience… Some people were shocked, a few screaming and trying to get away! Others were cheering and loving it. After the gig, whilst we’re sitting behind stage drinking, there is a queue of complainants. One white hippy grunge girl with chicken claws in her dreadlocks shouted at me ‘I’m a fucking Vegetarian’… To which I replied ‘yeah? I’m a vegan and it’s rock n roll… fuck off’ So you now get a fairly good insight into what was the greatest band I’ve ever played in. And don’t get me wrong — I’ve played in some great bands with some amazing musicians over the years, but like I say, Supercar were just — unique. Supercar formed in the rock n roll ooze pool, flew like a meteor, then dissipated into the ether. Members of Supercar were: Nurse Supercar (Craig Wattam) — Vocals Kid Petrol (Cameron Bain) — Guitar Rocky Metroblast (Roddy Pain/Roderick McClelland) — Guitar SunJungle (Rich Mixture/Richard Whall) — Bass Revv Typhoon (Me/Steve Deans/Steve Pikelet/Bunny Boy) — Drums This story dedicated to the memories of CAMERON BAIN 1971–2014 RODDY PAIN 1971–2016