Interviews and Reviews

Express Magazine (Perth), 27 March 1997. Album Review
Effigy, Effigy (SONY)

"This debut album from the local wonders, Effigy (Now based in Melbourne) is one of excellence. The sexual yet haunting voice of Peter Hardman, absorbs your mind and takes you on a journey filled with power guitar and strong rhythms and will not release you until the final c[h]ord is struck. A must for any person who appreciates a work of art." - Robbie D.

"After their notable absence touring and recording in the Eastern states, Effigy proved thay had not forgotten their Western roots with big gig at Planet Nightclub in Friday night." ... " It was obvious from the crowd clamouring front of stage that Effigy were the star of the show. Bursting forth with Ultraclean, the local band done good were in high spirits. Peter Hardman as frontman purred and pouted epitomising androgyny in fur and lurex before laying out one frenetic guitar riff after another. Annie Becker[l]ing's deep swampy bass and Jason Stacy's tribal drumming were showcased in Black Lashes offsetting Hardman's bluesy groove. As enamoured audience members pleaded for their Effigy tracks of choice the JJJ thrashed Lovers rang out with its eerie verses pleasing all of the people all of the time. From then on Effigy had the crowd eating out of the palm of their hand as each huge desperate and venemous rock anthem drew rapturous applause. After a generous set, Effigy returned with a mind-blowing encore testing the stamina in the mini mosh pit. Another five songs later, including roaring renditions of This Sin and Perfume and Effigy said adieu for the evening with a killer version of Bowie's Heroes. A beautifully hypnotic ending to a mesmerizing evening of home-grown talent, it will be sad to see even less of Effigy as they move on to the inevitable bigger and better things. Catch them while you can next time you can." - Kate Toovey

"This was my first turnstyle experience - and it began with the guy next to me saying they were the best band in Perth. With catchy pop songs that linger on like Cologne and I'm a Bus, he just might be right. ... With Effigy came a swollen room, fans with cameras in tow and vocal chords stretched to the limit. Peter Hardman did not disappoint, striding on stage in fab faux fur to greet the packed room. Effigy began just like every other gig that weekend before going on to play much of the album they were launching, Effigy. Bass guitarist Annie dealt with a larger than live bass donated by Flanders when one of her bass strings snapped, keeping the intense vibe flowing as Effigy played their singles Lovers and Small. Sadly, they omitted I Remember Nothing. An absence reverberated through a most fanatical crowd. It was all over wwhen the Newport lights came on. No time for encores or retrospective farewells. - Diana Ward

n.b. I was at this gig. Just a few days after, the Newport was set ablaze literally, Effigy were just too hot. Since then, the Newport has not re-opened.
 

Beat Magazine, 8/4/97. Album Review

Mistaken Effigies

Peter Blythe
On hearing Lovers, the single from Melbourne pop outfit Effigy a few months ago, my reaction went along the lines of, 'hey, we've got an Australian Gargage show to go with the rest of the cover bands in town', such was the high pitched and whispering vocal style of the singer. And it was only when an esteemed colleague reviewed Lovers, that I discovered that the vocalist was in fact male.

Fortunately the mistake wasn't exclusive to this scribe apparently, and therefore said male vocalist, Peter Hardman, wasn't particularly offended by the confession that the vocals sounded similair to those of Garbage's Shirley Manson. "That's fine with me. I don't have a problem with that, no, not at all," Hardman laughs quietly down the line from Roadrunner Record's offices in Melbourne.

Mistaken identity aside, it would seem that Hardman and the other two members of Effigy - bassist , Annie Beckerling, and drummer, Jason Stacy - aren't at all perplexed by comments about the bands music or appearance - which with heavily made up faces and clean guitar based sounds reminds the humble punter of the New Romantics era during the 80's. 'Not only do I think we're up for it, it's bound to happen sooner or later,' Hardman says when the topic of public derision arises.

:Whenever anyone's taking a risk, there's bound to be some sort of backlash, but I think we can weather most storms. And besides, it wouldn't be much of an accomplishment with alot of things we're doing in Australia if we weren't going against the grain. Having said that, it's not so much a conscious thing, it's just my personal taste in music, the way I like to dress, and the way I behave.'

However, although there is quite a New Romantics feel to a number of tracks on the bands self-titled debut album, Hardman says the era has had little influence on his songwriting style. 'They do mention the New Romantics thing a bit I suppose, with the frilly shirt kind of thing, but that sort of music never really appealed to me,' he explains. 'I mean I like alot of one-hit wonder sort of stuff, but I was much more into 80's underground, with bands like the Smiths and the Cure. 'But it does seem to suit the androgyny angle, which in itself isn't particularly contrived. since I've been confused for a girl for many years, before I was even in a band, and there was a great deal of lipstick being applied around all around the world at that point wasn't there?,' Hardman laughs.

Along with the more obvious influences such as the Cure, Hardman also sights the slightly darker and more diverse sounds of The Birthday Party and the Pixies as having an impact on Effigy's music. In fact, diversity is something that the band's frontman is always conscious of when writing. 'I refuse to be pigeonholed and I think the next album will be even more diverse,' Hardman says. 'I don;t want people to think of an album, or a show they've been to, and be confused by too many samey sounding songs.'

And not too surprising, considering the bands influences, is the fact that lyrically, Effigy's debut album is quite intense and emotional at times. Although, according to Hardman, not too much can be read into various songs. 'I think it's fairly emotional, but I think there's some humour there as well, a little black humour in things like 'Bluffing', because I don't really hate my friends,' he laughs at the songs chorus.

'But I do tend to feel that that's the most rewarding music, not only to play, but to listen to. I've always wanted my performance to be flamboyant, but also to feel as though they're displaying or projecting these intense emotions, people giving something of themselves.'

However while a number of tracks on the album may not be all they seem, I Found Hell is definitely one that has personal references to Hardmans own life. 'It's a song about American Culture and it's effect on Australia, but it's more personal than political, because it was a lifestyle I was leading towards the end of 95, where I was just watching Rikki Lake and eating McDonalds all the time, not doing anything, really soul destroying,' Hardman explains. 'So it is a rebuff, a sort of 'fuck you' to America, if you like.'

And on an interesting aspect of I Found Hell is the length to which Hardman went to capture the prank call conversation at the beginning of the song. 'It took about 200 phone calls across America, and I ended up with a doctors surgery in Queens,' he explains. 'It took a along time because people kept hanging up before I managed to finish my lyric, but this lady was wonderful, she stayed on the whole time and said these things. Hopefully she'll turn up later and try to sue us for scaring her half to death, that'd be funny.'
 

Effigy

Anthony Horan
Scoring a nice amount of attention with their first two singles-the epic noisepop of Lovers and the loud n' fast Small-Perth band Effigy this month release their debut album, one which has been a while in arriving. The first local signing to Dutch label Roadrunner's Australian arm, Effigy command attention simply because they won't play by the established rules. Frilly shirts, candles, makeup-the trappings of early 80's alternative bands but long discarded-are prime components of the Effigy image. The fact that singer, guitarist and songwriter Peter Hardman is a devotee of precisely this musical era should send shivers of dread of hardened journalists, fully expecting to put the album on and hear dated, fey posing and bad Duran Duran impersonations.

What Effigy accomplished with their debut, though, is nothing of the sort. Sure, there's big production (by local guitat-pop veteran Paul Kosky), shimmering guitars, enough reverb to drown Andrew Eldrich, and an almost fanatical attention to detail, but instead of mimicking the past, Hardman and his band have used it's resources to avoid sounding like Just Another Guitar Band. They've succeeded-album tracks I Found Hell, Ultraclean, Bluffing and the electric opener I Give In postively exude exitement, killer pop songs with more guitars on them than the average Metallica album-but propelled by kinetic drums, melodic bass lines and a keen sense of melody and structure.

Sitting in his label's boardroom, Peter Hardman chooses the new Bowie album as the backing track for this interview from a stack of CD's he's brought along-something that's become customary-and sets about discussing the self-titled album, and the path that's brought him to it.

The first thing that's apparent on hearing the album is its attention to detail...
"We spent quite a bit of time, not only recording it, but also getting the order right. It's a hard thing to do; I spent ages compiling lists, trying to get the right flow when you listen to the album in it's entirety. But you can't go with the two-sides approach any more-it has to flow as one continuous thing"

An intersting flow it is, too-you travel from pure pop to something approaching blues-rock as the album progresses...
"That's the way most of my favourite records are, I suppose. Like (The Cure's) Disintergration, which is a huge favourite of mine."

How's the reaction been to the two singles?
"People who've just heard Small think we're just indie-pop, and those who hears Lovers go on about the pseudo-goth thing, that we're pretentious or something. Eventually we'll have enough releases out that people will think of us as a band, a band that writes good songs"

It's a challenge to start with, being an Australian band playing music like this.
"Well, I didn't ask to be born in Australia! No, it's not so bad. It's an enormous challenge, and if we succeed by selling a few copies, then we'll have really accomplished something."

Paul Kosky's done a terrific production job on the album-bit he seems, on paper, an unlikely choice for a band like Effigy.
"We were ringing up producers and recording studios, and they were saying sure, come in and record, but there was no real enthusiasm. We sent Paul a tape, and he rang us back and said 'I want Effigy'. And you can't knock back that kind of enthusiasm, especially from someone with his experience. So we met with him, and he was a groovy cat. I'd like to record with Paul again, and I think we're going to before the end of the year. It's like finding a team, people who know what they're doing and people with the right chemistry. That's the main thing, not so much whether these guys are famous or not. And I love slick production. I like to hear the money."

Are we hearing the money on the album then?
"The money that we got was stretched to its limits-this is the cheapest you can record at this level of quality. It wasn't a small budget, but an overseas producer, say, would have been out of the question. I've been playing these songs for a long time, so there wasn't an enormous amount of pre-production to do. Just finding guitar sounds and stuff."

Reproducing some of the album's sounds on stage would be a challenge...
"I like it just being a three piece live; there's a nice dynamic between us. But we have some sequenced keyboards and stuff, which aren't on stage. We've got the computer, and we're not afraid of technology in particular. The album's the main thing at the moment, but I love getting up on stage."

You often speak ofthe 80's alternative bands that have influenced your songwriting and playing-but what about current music?
"There are bands that have been around a long time and I'm really in to their current stuff...but the next album's going to be even more interesting, I think. There is that 80's alternative thing, but...it's not so much an 80's thing, though people tend to pick up on that. Occasionally people describe us as New Romantic. It must be the frilly shirt thing."

Maybe it's time to abandon the shirt...!
"Well, this week I'm roadtesting an image I'm doing for the Perth launch. The catchphrase I was trying to explain to the record company-while they were having heart attacks-was a 'harlequin junkie from a ghetto in Xanadu'. That was the way I described the look."

Have the songs on this album been in your live set for a good while?
Well, Small is a very popular song at gigs we play in Perth. That's about the oldest song we've got on the record. There are ones that were written after I realised I was moving to Melbourne; most of them were written, though around 1995/96. There's alot of older songs we haven't recorded-we were listening to some old tapes in the car on the way to Adelaide, and we were thinking they weren't so bad. The lyrics are a little shite, but that's my fault. There's some good tuned there though...I'm going to have to recycle. And I've got loads of songs that no-one has heard yet; I'm a sort of you-can't-hear-it-til-its-finished kind of guy."

You obviously feel that your lyrics are no longer 'shite'...
"You just get better at it, hopefully. Its not so much that the old songs are bad; I had an enormous chip on my shoulder, and I was pretty depressed back then. An surprisingly, that didn't make for very good lyrics. You think it would, but it got in the way."

And now this set of lyrics is permanently archived on CD for everyone to hear...
"It is like a permanent thing; I listen to the album now, and I think...mainly of the songwriting. I'm very happy with some of those songs, like I Found Hell-I love my guitat playing in that. Unfortunayely we can't play it live-there's too many guitars on it."

Well, it's good to be happy with what you've recorded.
"Yeah, it is. It all happened the way I wanted it to. But it's more of a relief than anything else. I think about my songwriting, and I think I could have tried harder. You know, like 'it's not that complex a melody, what was I thinking?' Maybe I'm just going to be pushing myself more. For some reason I just don't take the easy way."

There have to be compromises, though, even with a generous recording schedule...
"We had to record a world class album, that's the main thing. That's the shortcoming of a lot of Australian independent stuff. Like the way people hear Lovers and expect everything we do to sound like that. I think that's just because so many Australian bands just produce the same song over and over again, and they expect everyone else to do it."

You don't seem to be much of an Australian music fan...
"Some stuff. Like Regurgitator, I think they're wicked. I don't have their album, and I don't know heaps about them, but they don't write the same song twice. I think that's just awesome. And I love that, in amongst all this redneck bullshit, they can write a song that says 'I sucked alot of cock'. Just to get the odd bogan singing that line is a triumph."
 

Status:Symbol

Simon Wooldridge
"It's not quite Ben Hur or anything", Peter Hardman smiles as he sets out to describes his personal oddessy, and that of his band Effigy. He's right, but it's still a remarkable tale in the current local music environment and at its heart lies a subtext that has everything to do with Hardmans primary motivations and little to do with indie chic. While most musicians are quick to dispel the idea that they covet the baggage attached to musical success, he explains he started Effigy out of "a love of music...and a desperation to get famous, I s'pose. Which hasn't happened yet. But I'm trying."

Hardman's voice reflects the slight, fey tone of his on-record vocals. This sense of androgyny is a defining elemnt of the Effigy sound, the package topped by a pronounced and flamboyant visual style and a keen commercial pop edge. After all, what's the point in being a personality if your music's so exclusive you'll have no-one to witness your performance?

"I've always liked the cult of personality as much as the music," Hardman explains. "David Bowie, Blondie, Robert Smith...all the people who I love listening to were as much about what they were doing offstage as what they were saying with their music. Now people want to be perceived as striving for the art of the music. But that's more peer pressure: don't try too hard, and don't appear as if you want fame. In fact appear as if you're shunning it because it's just a by-product of your artistic expression."

Formed mid-'93 in Perth, the original Effigy comprised guitarist and vocalist Hardman, bassist Beckerling and a drum machine. After seeing the two-piece combo, drummer Jason Stacy approached Hardman and joined. By mid-'96 the band had refined its act and developed a following sufficient to impress Roadrunner Records' Bob Stevenson and John Saterly. They signed the band, allowing Hardman money to buy himself the trappings of the image he craved. Reocrding followed, resulting in Effigy's debut self-titled album.

While relatively focused and brittle, "Effigy" is glittering bombasta-rock, a la Smashing Pumpkins, a comparison fuelledthe similarities between Hardmans vocals and those of Billy Corgan. But while Hardman owns "Siamese Dream", his primary influences are Talking Heads, the Birthday Party, baroque classical music and Miles Davis, allof which are evident, if a little swamped by the aesthetic (a natural product of Hardman's exibitionist tendencies and visual arts background). It's here, where the image meets the music, that Hardman faces his primary struggle. For the moment he's busy grappling with the reality of his fantasy.

"My mental defences are strained," he says, as he re-assesses his look. "I need to believe that I'm one step ahead and I've taken the gamut of pop culture and rock music and have tried to construct something that is going to work. But it's tempered with a great deal of sincerity. I'm very hurt when things don't work out. This is just the wayI like to do things, a mixture of sincerity and cynicism."
 

Rolling Stone Magazine (Australia), July 1997 (Issue 537). Band Interview

New Faces-Effigy

Call the rock & roll police. It's the Ziggy Stardust syndrome

Michael Dwyer
The room resembles, by Peter Hardman's reckoning, "a cancerous old heart." The bloke out of Effigy leans out of his blood-red armchair like a pasty-faced gremlin of indeterminate gender, an escapee from one of David Lynch's unexplained nightmares. Dressed in similair glam-cum-gothic chic, rhythm section Annie Beckerling and Jason Stacy recline in the background, behind the stuffed peacocks and the gold-painted human sculpture.

OK, it's only an album cover. But any Perth pub urchin would have to conclude that some Twighlight Zone had befallen their brittlr pop heroes somewhere across the Nullabor, en route to JJJ's high rotation bin. "It's got very little to do with the make-up nowadays," Hardman says of the curious identity transformation which has aroused much interest-and suspicion-as "Lovers" and "Small", Effigy's first two radio staples. "The make-up is an aid sometimes, but I have just as much trouble without it, whether I'm on stage or not, connecting with who I actually am. The problem is not stepping out of my real persona on stage. It's more that I've done it so many times that it's seeped offstage as well. Now I'm a little unsure of what sort of person I am."

Lordy, call the rock & roll police. It's Ziggy Stardust syndrome. "Oh, I don't know if I'd take it that far," laughs the 21-year-old singer, songwriter and guitarist, tossing a ringlet of wet black hair over his faded black civilian attire. Peter Hardman and Annie Beckerling played their first gig as Effigy in Fremantle, in September 1993. Jason Stacy replaced the drum machine shortly after, and their handful of Pixies covers were long gone when they caught the ear of Roadrunner Records' Jon Satterly, on a western reconnaissance trip in May 1996.

The striking image makeover coincided with extraordinary advance reports from Melbourne's Kiss Studios in September: "What we now have is an album in the can which might revolutionise Australian pop music," Roadrunner gushed, citing the Cure, Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage and the Stone Roses and promising "a sound that cuts through the rock/Brit-pop/beat cultural divide.

What we got, in March '97, was a lush dark and angular pop record, rendered fresh and slightly disturbing by Hardman's intense, first-person lyrics: muted, opaque horror stories from a lonely androgyne's troubled subconscious.

"Even though the lyrics might be quite cryptic and ambiguous I still get the sense that I'm sharing secrets and divulging little fantasies that I maybe shouldn't. It's almost a fetish or something; I get a real kick out of it," Hardman says.

"Androgyny is not something I've worked with exclusively within this band. It's always been a part of me. It comes from my voice and , to a certain extent, all my mannerisms: the way I move my hands, the way I stand. I can switch quite easily into a blokey thing but I still get mistaken for a girl constantly."

In true Ziggy tradition, the performers blurred self-perception extends beyond the veneer of image to questions of artistic motivation and his own fleeting role in the rock & roll continuum. "Am I being totally cynical? Is all my songwriting a deconstruction of what I've learnt from years and years of chronic pop music abuse? Or is it a genuine expulsion of negative emotion in to something more positive?" The abusive behaviour to which Hardman refers has brought a handful of reference points into sharp focus. By virtue of lipstick, eyeliner and wild black hair, the Cure is a frequent one, though he dismisses the "gothic" tag with mild irritation: "Gothics remind me of the Mission-just shonky shite."

"When critics talk about our 80's influences it always seems to be the New Romantics," Hardman adds with a bewildered frown. "And I couldn't give a toss about the New Romantics."

That'll be yer frilly shirt, mate.

"Yeah, but you'd think music would be the first reference point. It shows how naive I am, I suppose. I make a stab at cynicism and image manipulation...and I think [the criticism] has to do with that Australian ethic of 'Don't look as though you're trying too hard'. I'd like to look like I'm trying very, very hard."

gurge@psinet.net.au

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