Britpack Magazine 1996.

Return of the Individual.
Severed Heads.

Severed  Heads, as we all know,
would have to be one of the longest
running and most respected dance
acts in Australia.
They have had many world-wide
hits, stretching beck from Greater
Reward' right up to 'Dead Eyes
Opened' and '.Heart Of The Party'.
Thus, it was a great honour for
Jack Quinn to get the chance to
talk to Tom Ellard, the creative
force behind Severed Heads.

JQ - First of all, have you got a new album
coming out?
TE - Yeah, we have an album called "Haul"
which would be our first record since 1994. I
would have liked to have got it out this year but
the circumstances are that it will probably be
next year. Part of that [is due to] I'm not
getting as much time as I really need to get it all
finished, but we're looking at 1997 and hoping
to get something where it's a bit coordinated.
Like in the past, the last album came out in
Australia then it came out in Germany then it
came out in America and because everyone was
being all itty bitty about it, it was a bit of a
mess, so we're just hoping to get everyone
lined up and on the bloody case, you know, get
it all out.

JQ - How successful was the last album?
TE - Oh it did fine in Australia. I mean, part of
the problem was we didn't put "Dead Eyes
Open" on it. If we'd agreed to put "Dead Eyes
Open" on it, I'm sure we would've done better
than we did. It sold more than any of the other
ones before but you know, you've got a Top 20
single, if you'd stuck it on the album obviously
we could have pushed it further but I locked my
heels in on that one because you really can't put
a track from 1983 in the middle of stuff
recorded in 1994. I mean, that's what an
album's all about, isn't it? It's an album of
activity and of course, maybe if you were a
marketing person then you'd call me stupid, but
I mean, there's got to be something in this
world apart from marketing, you know.

JQ - Didn't you actually put the single on later?
TE - Well, originally there was a double album
with CDROM and when the CDROM went through
two editions, the label declined to do any more
saying that it was all very well and good but 
we'd be doing a lot better if we stuck the single
in and well, okay, two physical discs, that's
fine because in that way you've still got the
difference between that's that and that's this,
even though they're in the same box.

JQ - Was that (Heart of the Party) a fairly successful single?

TE - Yeah it was pretty successful. There was
a lot of problems in that, for reasons I'm not
quite sure about, it wasn't released until about
four months late and so we'd gone off and done
a tour around the place to promote the single
and then it came out about four months late
which didn't help. It also didn't help that there
was some other problems going on that...hell, it
was mismanaged, basically. You know, in
football they stumble to the ball and also, the
thing is just because one single does really well
doesn't mean the next one along will do as well
and there's many a band that gets all hoity-toity
about what 'we've achieved now we've done
the breakthrough, now we're gonna be fine'.
"Heart Of The Party" was different. It wasn't
quite as, shall we call it, '1990's'. In fact, it
had vocals and everything in it and vocals are,
of course, not allowed in dance music anymore,
it's forbidden and therefore we were breaking a
few rules. It sold about...ooh...Christ, we're
not sure, about four or five times as many as
say "Twister" or something, which was the one
before "Heart Of The Party". Obviously
there's been a breakthrough, but I mean, we
could've done a lot better.

JQ - When did Severed Heads form?
TE - Well, the first album came out in 1979.
JQ - Quite a while ago.
TE - It is quite a while ago. I mean, we had to
wag school to cut the record. Having said that,
the thing's gone through various stages. There
would be the early experimental stage so-called
which would go from 1979 to about 1984, um,
'84, '85 we had to change because the whole,
basically there was a band at that point which
broke up and I kept on going and we worked
Europe for a while and then we switched to
 working America for a while. Then the
 America thing calmed down. Basically, unless
 you've got long hair and tattoos, you can't play
 live in America any more, it's true, and so the
 early 1990's there's been a bit of a problem in
 that the world's decided to turn back on
 anything apart from guitar cock-rock, so we've
 just been moving into other fields a bit - a lot
  more animation a lot more CDROM work stuff
  like that. So yeah, we've been going since '79,
  but there's quite distinct phases in that period,
  it's not just one big plug.

JQ - In America you had a reasonably
successful single called "Greater Reward".
TE - Yeah, "Greater Reward" did quite well as
well. We've had this thing that we keep putting
out singles that are destined for greatness and
then some sort of fuck-up or process gets in the
way. I mean, the problem was it came out on
Nettwerk Records which at that point was
changed from being an underground label to
being a mainstream label and they were based
in Canada. Now the problem with "Greater
Reward" was it had to be exported from Canada
to America. Now, at one point I was told,
whether or not it's true, I believe it's true, that it
was the biggest selling import single in the
United States. The problem was of course it
was an import single and there was a certain
quantity that was coming in. By the time it was
assigned to an American label, several months
had gone by and then there was a bit of
uncertainty about the whole deal so, again, the
player stumbles with the ball, but it did quite
well. It became part of the soundscape in
America at the time. I heard stories about
cheerleader squads working out routines to it,
so that was nice. God knows how it would've
done if we'd been on an American label. What
happened with "Greater Reward" was that, that
was fine and then people, you see, the moment
that became successful, people get upright and
they want the next one to be just the same and
then one alter that and the one after that and at
that time, which was about 1988, we were still
in the position of wishing to be different and so
again, we have this difficulty with labels who
are expecting therefore "Greater Reward"
versions 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 and we try and comply
but be interesting at the same time.

JQ - Going back to touring, I know you've
toured with Itch-e & Scratch-e at the Big Day
Out, do you have any plans for the future to
tour this new album coming out?
TE - Well certainly we'll be touring. The deal
that has been in place in terms of the band that
we'll be touring and stuff, none of that exists
anymore. For instance, ltch-e & Scratch-e no
longer exist, Boxcar are going to be relocating
to England as soon as they can, so the local
electronic scene is going through a lot of
turmoil. When I say 'local', of course I do
mean Sydney - I can't tell you what goes on
down there, but basically, there was a
community of bands and the community has
basically broken up as of this year. We have to
finish the album, we have to find a new label,
we have to sort out a few problems that we've
inherited from the last label and when that's all
done then we can think about touring. I would
like to see it change, but the thing is we've
been playing live since about 1982 and we've
done a video projection thing now for
approximately ten years, we've just dropped
that in the last couple of shows here, and have
gone for a much more live thing and that's
worked quite well. But there's a lot of figuring
out to do at the moment. Seriously, money's a
big problem for a start. I mean, I'm working in
video production at the moment to pay bills and
stuff.

JQ - Do you think the new album's going to
bring commercial success'?
TE - Who can tell? It's really not up to me.
The record company I'm dealing with now,
which is Central Station Records, a lot of their
stuff does really well and I've been watching
how they do that and one thing I'm beginning
to understand and I knew it before but you
don't really understand it until you see it is the
process of how a single or something becomes
successful. Really has not much to do with the
music and as I'm the musician, which is the
case with Severed Heads, I'm really a small
part of the equation. (Laughs) The hair stylist
is probably more important!

JQ - Yeah, I've noticed that these days that
with a lot of bands, their image is just taking
over the actual music. What do you think of
the whole Britpop thing?
TE - Interesting. Let me put it this way, I mean,
I've been into music since about 1977, I'm
talking about back when bands like The Clash
and The Jam and all that sort of shit was still
happening and then I saw the whole Cold
Wave thing come in when Punk died, and then
Cold Wave died and then you've got your
electronic dance and then that died and then
you got the guitar cock-rock bands come back
and the Britpop thing and I don't understand
why everything has to be declared as though it
was a new breakthrough. I mean, I heard a
record the other day by a local guitar band who
will remain nameless, and it, it was amazing to
see how much of The Who they had
incorporated into their sound. Everything
from bloody chord progression to the...la la
la...it was as if bloody Roger Daltrey had
come back out of the grave! Now that's great
and there's no reason why that music
shouldn't be, but don't expect me to get too
excited about it. It's great that there are
young, enthusiastic bands still around the
place because, God, at one point it seemed like
there was nothing but producers and dance
stuff, you know 'We're from Germany, we
make ten new singles every week, la la la'.
The Britpop thing, of course, is an energy
thing and it's coming from individuals and I'm
glad to see individuals being promoted again.
I mean, the guy from the Prodigy, Liam, at
least you know who he is. At least he's got a
face, he's got a personality or even like The
Aphex Twin guy, Richard what's-his-face,
you know what he looks like. You know he
bought himself a tank to drive down to the pub
la la la, that's great because it got to a point
where you couldn't really identify a person in
the whole damned lot and that' s a really good
thing, what's happening at the moment, is the
return of the individua1.
JQ - It's quite important, really.
TE - Shit yeah, because you can't really love
something if it's anonymous.
JQ - Where do you get your influences from?
TE - It's changed over the years. I mean,
when we started, there was a very definite
scene in England which you could basically
call the Cold Wave or the Sheffield sound and
really, it was Sheffield, Manchester, that sort
of stuff and it ranged from bands like Cabaret
Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, up to Human
League and that sort of stuff In Australia we
had bands like early SPK, in Melbourne we're
talking about Whirly World, Primitive
Calculators, Tsk Tsk Tsk, that sort of stuff.
It was very vibey. Lots and lots of stuff
happening, very very noisy, very archaic and
we came into that aged about 16, as a bunch of
kids trying to fit in. Then later, if you want to
cut a bit out, 1985, when we're sort of hanging
around in America, you had early Ministry,
Skinny Puppy, Revolting Cocks, sort of the
beginning of the Canadian/American so-called
'industrial' bands. 1 don't know whether they
were influencing so much, because basically
we were, at that point, peers. But there was a
certain sort of sound. Nowadays I suppose,
we're really in a way, living off a community
here. I see the people out of Boxcar and Itch-e
quite a lot and there's a few people in the
United Kingdom and America I keep in touch
with, but really I must say, just not particularly
inspired by most of the electronic music in
particular that's coming out and we tend more
to be inspired by our friendships with people,
rather than long distance stuff.' And the
channels of communication aren't as good as
they used to be. I used to know exactly what
was going down around Australia in the early
days. Nowadays it's really hard to know what
the fuck's happening, you know. I know some
of the guys from Melbourne like Snog and that.
I only know them because they come up here.
Things are a lot more low-key and there's this
whole clubby thing going on. You don't get
somebody renting a pub and playing live from
8 o'clock til 12 o'clock at night and then
pissing off home with a case of beer. It's this
whole business of band doesn't start 'til 4 in the
morning and the band is only in auxiliary to a
DJ and, I mean, I'm sorry, but DJ culture to
me is like the tennis or something. It's like two
guys bashing a ball at each other, it's great and
I'm sure if you followed it very carefully you'd
know what was going on, and with DJs, it's
just some guy playing a record.
JQ - Do you have any favourite British bands at
the moment?
TE - I applaud the Prodigy for some of the
things they've done. I can't stand The Orb.
Can't stand them. A bunch of hippies laughing
at each other's navels in a studio. Future Sound
of London could be really good if they weren't
so smug. When they're good, they're really
good. When they suck...they suck terribly and
they really should not be so up themselves.
The Aphex Twin...now there's a boy, there's a
lad. [He's doing] soundscapes we explored ten
years ago and now he's a fucking millionaire
out of it. Quite odd. You feel like a bullet went
by your head and hit somebody else.
I'm still looking for something melodic
because I still believe that melody has a long-
term emotional response. A collection of
noises is a hamburger whereas melody is more
like a salad and sure, you can live off
hamburgers but, you know, do you really want
to?
               - Jack Quinn