Radio Birdman have been part of the Australian rock music lexicon since 1974. In the midst of a scene mired in prog, boogie and nondescript folk rock, guitarist Deniz Tek and vocalist Rob Younger joined forces to challenge the norm. Radio Birdman’s explosive, high energy hard rock drew its inspiration from Detroit bands like the Stooges and MC5, a sound that was barely known in Australia at the time.
Exiled from the mainstream and rejected from the scene, the band built one of their own around their venue, The Funhouse in Darlinghurst, and set about establishing their legend as hard rock outlaws.
All that was fifty years ago, and Radio Birdman remains.
“It’s hard to believe, really, for me,” Deniz Tek admits. “There were a few gaps in there, but we got together in 1974 and we still have three of the original five people still around.”
Along with Younger, the third of those original members is keyboards player Pip Hoyle. Together with Jim Dickson and Dave Kettley, from Younger’s other band New Christs, and drummer Nik Reith, Radio Birdman reactivated for a second time in 2014, playing to bigger crowds each time they go out. It’s not something Tek could have even considered in the early days.
“I didn’t think…” he begins, “I couldn’t even imagine the year 2000, much less 2024, whether anybody would be around. So we thought this was a pretty good occasion. The last tour was in 2019 and then we got hit with the pandemic and obviously couldn’t play for a few years because of that, but this is a good reason to get back together. That’s behind us and all of a sudden it’s our fiftieth birthday, so let’s go out and play some shows.”
The response to the tour announcement was immediate. Two Sydney shows sold out almost as soon as ticket sales opened. A third went the same way, very quickly.
“I think maybe people have a sense that, uh, you better have a look now because” – he chuckles, grimly – “it’s not going to happen many more times.”
That’s something that always seems to have been said about Birdman. When they first reunited in 1996 for the Big Day Out, no one expected the line-up to last beyond that tour.
“Yeah,” says Tek, “and right after that we did a tour with Wayne Kramer as our support – Wayne with his trio – and, of course, Wayne passed away [a little while ago], so he’s gone now. We’re still here, for the time being anyway.”
That second incarnation of Birdman lasted twelve years, three times longer than the first, but Tek is realistic about just how much longer they can continue.
“If we can’t do it at full power, we’re not going to be doing it. What we present to the people has to be true to the original vision of the band. I think we’re ok to still do that, at least this time, but it’s not going to go forever, that’s for sure.”
The original vision of the band was as pugnacious outsiders, kicking against the musical trends of the time with a snarling mix of hard-driving Detroit garage punk and surf rock. They may have been ostracised by the industry at large, but the band did have their supporters. Chief among them was Michael McMartin of Trafalgar Studios, who passed away as this article was being written. McMartin allowed the band to record at his studio and eventually set up Trafalgar Records to release what would become Radios Appear.
“We recorded that at a studio that allowed us to work in it when they didn’t have any paying customers. We were just some guys off the street and they took us under their wing and said, ‘You can record in our studio’. That first album evolve[d] over plenty of time because we weren’t allowed to get in the studio and work every day. We were playing those songs in clubs night after night, and they evolved as we evolved in the studio. After about a year we had enough material recorded on tape to make an album with.”
The original version of Radios Appear was primarily available only through mail order or directly from the band; when Sire Records signed them the band had a chance to revise it for overseas release. Two originals and their version of the Stooges’ “TV Eye” were left off and replaced by five new songs, including the 13th Floor Elevators’ “You’re Gonna Miss Me” and “Hit Them Again”, which Tek wrote with Ron Asheton.
“By the time Sire wanted to release it, we had some new songs and some things we wanted to do a little differently, so we changed about half of those songs,” Tek recalls. “We had a chance to revise [Radios Appears] at that point. In retrospect, it probably would have been better to leave the first album where it was and then put a completely new, completely original album out through Sire. But it wouldn’t have made any difference because Sire kind of collapsed the next year and they dumped all their bands, except for four.”
Radio Birdman split up in the UK in 1978, shortly after recording Living Eyes for Sire. Their rock rebellion may have only lasted only four years, but their defiant spirit and DIY ethic was carried on by another generation of bands, some of which had spun out of Birdman’s inner circle or had been directly influenced by them – The Hitmen, Died Pretty, The Screaming Tribesmen, Celibate Rifles, Lime Spiders. Almost two decades later, as the 90s saw a resurgence of interest in indie-flavoured rock, another new generation were finding their way to Radio Birdman and the 1996 Big Day Out brought them together.
Almost three whole decades since then, and people still want to rock with Radio Birdman. It’s been almost four years since they were last on tour, before COVID put the brakes on their activity. Tek has spent that time writing and recording – he released an album with James Williamson just as COVID hit and continues to release solo material, with another record in the works at the moment. With the Birdman 5-0 shows coming up, though, he’s concentrating on training himself up for those.
“I’ve been working on a new album. I was halfway through the process of that when we decided to do this tour so I’m splitting my time between working on this new album and relearning my back catalogue. Also, I’ve got to spend some time with the guitar to get my speed and endurance back, up to Radio Birdman level. That’s a different level, right there. You’ve got to work up to it. It’s like training for a marathon or training for the Australian Open. You’ve got to put the time in, in advance, to get there. That’s what I’m doing right now.”
