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Formed in Perth, Australia in 1978, the Scientists first established themselves as a punk band with pop tendencies before a personnel reshuffle (the first of many) in the early ’80s, which saw the band dive into disturbing swamp rock, tinged with Beefhearty crazy blues, Cramps-like dissonant ’60s fuzz-rock, Suicidal hysteria, Stoogian proto-punk, and apocalyptic Birthday Party-style post-punk. Raw, lo-fi sound, primal and hypnotic rhythms, dangerously simple riffs, it’s particularly this second incarnation of the Scientists that has left its mark and influenced numerous bands including the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Mudhoney. The incendiary “We Had Love”, recently heard by many in the movie Rock n Rolla, could be considered a classic of the Scientists sound.
They’ve been crowned the godfathers of grunge, but the Scientists were far more twisted, unhealthy and sinister than anything that came out of Seattle or Sub Pop. After relocating to Sydney, then London, and six landmark albums between 1982 and 87, the Scientists faded away… only to return with the same spirit. First sporadically, then much more seriously since the beginning of the 2000s.
The current formation, still centered around the singer and guitarist Kim Salmon, gathers all the musicians of the second incarnation: guitarist Tony Thewlis, bassist Boris Sujdovic and drummer Leanne Cowie, who joined the band in December 1985. If the Scientists have toured a lot since this reformation, they have on the other hand released very little new material, Salmon preferring to focus on concerts. After a single released in 2017, then another for the Los Angeles label In The Red the following year and an EP for the same label in 2019, the band was convinced to make a new album. Negativity, released on June 11, brings the Australian band back to almost where they left off in 1987. They haven’t mellowed out a bit, always seemingly fueled by bad acid and cheap beer, and they’re still in the same bad mood that suits them so well. To emphasize the point, PAN M 360 reached Salmon at his home in Melbourne, where it’s almost winter. The very friendly leader of the band gave us a long interview, in which he talks about the Scientists reformation, the creation of Negativity, and his passion for drawing and painting.
PAN M 360: When the Scientists called it quits in 1987, did you leave on a bad note? How did you get back together?
Kim Salmon: It was sort of a natural process when we ended the Scientists in ’86, there wasn’t any point in pursuing it, it seemed okay to do it, we couldn’t see any reasons not to…
PAN M 360: Had you thought about coming back together for a while before making it real?
Kim Salmon: Not really. It was one of those understood kind of things. Tony was a bit reluctant about it because of certain things that did occur in the past. He was a bit embittered about some things that had nothing to do with the band, but more about the band not being as successful as he had hoped. We were kind of on the verge of breaking into the mainstream in the ’80s but it just never quite happened for various reasons, and he was maybe more disappointed than us about that. Anyway, we succeeded in persuading him to restart the band.
PAN M 360: Were you adamant about having the old line-up back together?
Kim Salmon: The band had a few line-ups. We reunited one of the earlier line-up with James Baker, Ian Sharples and Ben Juniper to perform a show on some rooftop somewhere in Perth for quite a bit of money in 1995, but that was just a one-off thing. And there was the line-up we had for Human Jukebox in 1987 with myself, Tony and a guy named Nick Combe, so that was another line-up as well. I like it but I don’t think it was the Scientists line-up. It’s just that people were more interested in this actual line-up, which is the one we had in the early to mid-’80s. Leanne joined in late ’85. She was the one who fit best with this line-up after Brett Rixon left in ’85. People think we got back together in 2006 but it was actually in 2002, when we were offered to tour Australia. At this point, we had tried two different drummers. One night, we played a show in Sydney and we asked Leanne if she would like to join us on stage for a song. That was a pivotal moment because that’s where we realized that we really needed her in the band, it just wasn’t the same without Leanne on drums.
PAN M 360: How did this new album came together?
Kim Salmon: In 2017, we had the opportunity to do some touring in Australia and we had at that point reissued all our catalogue on a label called Numero. We had many, many reissues over the years, but Numero was really the most successful, and really brought the band back to life, so we went on that tour. In those days, Tony got me involved in some recording he was doing for someone’s birthday and he wanted me to sing on it. He actually did a pretty good job with my vocals and we thought that maybe we should do some more tracks with the rest of the band, so we did this single, which was a cover of Jacques Dutronc’s “Mini Mini Mini” and “Perpetual Motion”, an obscure Scientists song from the ’80s that we never officially recorded. We were’nt too much into recording new stuff like old bands do because its always fraught with disaster. So for us a single was alright. But then we found ourselves touring Europe a year after, and then the USA, so we did another single, with In The Red this time, and then In The Red persuaded us to do an EP and another tour of the U.S.
After that, we were offered a third tour of the USA but the label needed more new recordings so we finally agreed to do another album… that’s how Negativity came about! So we put the album out, but we were never able to tour… We still have an open visa until June 2022, so we’ll see how things go. Negativity was basically done through the Internet. I would come up with a rhythm on the drums, send it to Tony in London who would come up with a riff and send it to me. If I liked the riff, I would come up with something to sing on it. Then we would add the bass and send it to Leanne to add the drums. But since I had already found a beat, it was not easy for her to play over it. So we basically recorded it at Sumo Studio in Perth. We added some stuff here and there, violin, trombone, my daughter sang a bit and played some piano…
PAN M 360: Would you say that Negativity is the logical follow-up to Human Jukebox, that last album you guys recorded together in 1987?
Kim Salmon: In some ways. I think it’s more polished than Human Jukebox which is much more rough and ready. This new record sounds like it’s more produced to my ears. And there aren’t a lot of Scientists records that sound well produced, aside from Weird Love (1986) and maybe You Get What You Deserve (1985); generally, we had pretty garage-y records. We usually recorded on a low budget. I think our recording history is bizarre because our first album is very different, with a pop-punky kind of sound; Blood Red River is quite an extreme sounding record and You Get What Deserve is also different… I can hear a sort of aesthetic somehow, I think that they share some things. We’re still pursuing that minimalist sort of structure in our songs, that’s what we’ve always done. The structures are very simple in terms of notes and keys and melodies. That said, the artist is the last person to be talking about his work. But If I can draw a parallel between those two albums, it’s mostly about Tony’s involvment. Usually, I was writing most of the songs, but on Human Jukebox, Tony contributed to a lot of the music, as well as on Negativity.
PAN M 360: Why did you choose the title Negativity?
Kim Salmon: We’ve always been a band with a dark side, we’ve never done anything very positive and upbeat – without being goth, that I want to say (laughs). So this word came to me in one of the songs of the album, on “Dissonance” I think, and I thought it would make a good title. I did something positive with Negativity (laughs)
PAN M 360: Aside from the band, you teach music and you also paint and draw.
Kim Salmon: When I was 19, I studied fine arts for a year, painting was my primary interest. Then I took what they call a gap year… and that gap year lasted until now (laughs). But all along, I kept being interested in drawing and art, but aside from a few drawings and cartoons here and there, and a few record covers I illustrated, I never really focused on this. It’s after my last solo album in 2015 that I got more into it. In order to do the album, I had a Gofundme, but instead of doing a private show or something like that for the people who helped me, I decided to send them a card with some drawings I made. Then someone approached me about doing an exhibition of my work. So I did my first exhibit in 2018 which included a little bit of everything I’ve done since I was 16. I sold quite a few works and the following year I did another one, mostly drawings and watercolours. Again, I sold a lot of them. Then I exhibited at Mick Harvey and his wife’s gallery. Again, a big success as I sold 14 of my works. At the opening, I sold five works that I had done in a week while I was in quarantine in Perth! Since the confinement, I really immersed myself in painting and drawing. I have been quite productive and have made a lot of progress. I really love painting and drawing, I’m really excited about it and will definitely do more of it.
(photo credit: Andrew Watson)
