What started at a one-off gig in a rough-as-guts Melbourne union pub in 1982 quickly turned into a riot that launched the career of Australia's most unlikely punk heroes.
Over 30 years, 7 albums and some 1,800 gigs later, lead singer and trumpet player for Painters And Dockers, Paul Stewart recalls the night of madness and civil disobedience that forged an Aussie punk legacy. “The guy who lived next door to the pub hated what we were playing, and this was our very first gig,” he explains.
“So he jumped the fence with an axe and starting chopping up the mixing desk. Everyone just went, 'Fuck! What is this guy doing? This is outrageous!'; the guy was out of control.
© Richard Turton“The reason we called ourselves Painters And Dockers was because that was a really heavy trade union [Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union] here in Melbourne. It was one of their pubs and they've got one rule at their pub: no cops.
"So, all the cops come because there's this riot with the [axe] guy, then all the dockers come out the front and say [to the cops] 'you're not coming in'.
“Then a massive brawl breaks out between the cops and the unionists. A guy's chopping up the mixing desk, people are screaming, the PA is falling down, everyone is shouting and there's madness in there. I'm on stage with the microphone and I thought: this is what I want to do for the rest of my life,” Paul laughs.
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From this one performance, Painters And Dockers became a fully-fledged band and earned themselves a reputation for causing riots and general mayhem, an image which Paul says worked heavily in the band's favour. “The next two shows after that pub gig were banned,” Paul says.
“There was a story in The Age down here saying 'this band is banned from pubs because they cause riots', but by the fourth gig we lined up you couldn't get into the place because everyone wanted to see this fucking band.
“Bigger pussies you've never met in your life than the Painters And Dockers, but we were suddenly these anarchist hard guys and we milked it for all it was worth for several years. It set the scene for the type of band we were going to be which was fucking total off-the-wall. Anything can happen at one of our shows and it's been fantastic.”
Since reforming in 2014, Painters And Dockers have returned to their live roots and will perform in Adelaide for the first time in 20 years. Having cemented themselves as an anything-goes punk band, Paul says he never knows what to expect, from the band or the fans. “We've had people onstage making love,” he says.
“We did a gig in Adelaide once and we said in the interview on a local radio station that anyone who turns up nude gets in for free, so we had like 37 nude people at the gig. A guy in a wedding dress got up at one gig and ate a pizza during one song and we've never heard from him since. Anything can go down at a Painters And Dockers gig and I'm expecting Adelaide to help us out.”
“We always get our biggest crowd when there's a full moon, put it that way; when all the freaks come out. One of our most memorable gigs was when we played at Hobart Uni once: we walked on stage and we were pelted with three pigs heads and about four pounds of bacon, thrown at us as we walked on and we went 'what the fuck is this?'
“Can you imagine what four pounds of bacon does after a while under those stage lights? It started cooking and we were like, 'fuck!'.”
Painters And Dockers play The Gov 16 April.
