After the rain
Car accidents! Legal battles! The Angels have taken all manner of hits in the last decade, but they're back with one of the most unpredictable resurrections in Australian rock history. By Andrew P Street.
As recently as two years ago the idea that The
Angels would ever work together again seemed the most dizzy of
fantasies. The creative axis of the band were embroiled in a fierce
legal battle over use of the name, with two versions of the Angels
touring the nation: one led by frontman Doc Neeson, the other by
co-founding guitarists Rick and John Brewster. Fans were unclear on
which, if either, was the "real" one and a series of very public spats
did little to clarify matters. However, with the announcement of the
reissue of their seminal debut album Face To Face (in remastered,
extended form) came the news that the classic line-up of Neeson, the
Brewsters, bassist Chris Bailey and drummer Graham "Buzz" Bidstrup
would be doing a national tour behind it. Given their thorny recent
history, was there ever a moment that Neeson thought he'd find himself
fronting The Angels again?
"No, I didn't," he intones in that
gravelley, immediately-familiar baritone, "and it's something I'd like
to clear up. What led up to all that legal stuff was that I had serious
car accident in 1999: I got serious whiplash injury and some spinal
damage as a result of that, and I was told by my back specialist that I
had to retire straight away or look forward to being in a wheelchair
for the rest of my days.
"So the rest of the band went on and
called themselves, for a while, The Original Angels and I went into a
fair amount of physical rehabilitation and gradually got better. When I
did get better I formed a band of my own called Doc Neeson's Angels, or
DNA, and I found out that the other guys, or maybe unscrupulous
promoters, were calling themselves The Angels. I was getting emails and
feedback from friends who were saying they'd gone to these shows
thinking ‘oh, Doc has recovered, he's back with the band', and then
find there was a four piece band with John Brewster singing and felt
ripped off. So I got in touch with them and we made an agreement that
they wouldn't [use the name], but before long I was getting the same
reports back as before. I was getting concerned that the name The
Angels was getting sullied and the only way to do anything effective
was to take out an injunction."
Enter the lawyers - but Doc credits
one particularly fraught meeting between him and the Brewsters with
sowing the seeds of the current reformation. "We looked around the room
and there were lawyers everywhere, and we started to laugh a bit: the
joke being that we were here because we both wanted to play music. That
broke the ice," he explains, with a low chuckle. "And then not long
after that we had an invitation from our record company Alberts, who
wanted to release a 30th anniversary version of our Face To Face album,
which was kind of a record-breaker at the time - it spent 79 weeks in
the charts, which at the time was only eclipsed by Pink Floyd - and
we're all very proud of the album, so we figured ‘let's just focus on
the music, we will be The Angels - which was kind of the whole point
all along."
Doc's made an almost complete recovery from his
accident and insists that he's ready to hit the road. "I've been going
to gym and doing a bit of swimming for my back. But I always find, I
must say, no matter what my state of health is, the first week of
touring always hits me like a steamroller. It is a major lift up of
activity, both physical and emotional. Night after night I put my heart
and soul into each song, I've never been a singer who's comfortable
about doing a song by rote. That's part of where the Angels have their
reputation from: we're up there playing the song almost like it's the
first time.'
And while the band are known for their no-nonsense live
shows, surely they'd be looking to do something special for these
shows: perhaps a Justin Timberlake-style laser spectacular, with
massive video screens and dancing robots?
"Wow, we hadn't actually got that far - I was just thinking a couple of reds and blues..."
And what of the mental state of the band?
"Whatever
personal issues people have or whatever baggage they're carrying, we'll
just focus on the music," he shrugs. "We've had a couple of rehearsals
now and they went very well. A lot of the songs from the album will be
in our set, but they generally are anyway because they're kinda core
material to The Angels and any set that we would do anyway. Even in all
those legal arguments the core issue has been about the music and who,
if you like, is carrying the torch. There was no doubt that both The
Original Angels Band and DNA were still passionate about The Angels'
music. So it's worked out rather well."
The Angels hit the
Souths Junior Leagues Club on Thu 3 July, the Blacktown RSL on Fri 4
and the Revesby Workers Club on Sat 5. Face To Face: 30th Anniversary
Edition is out now through Alberts/SonyBMG.