Romantic comedy meets punk rock in 'Pure Heroin', the latest single from Brisbane indie five-piece Cedarsmoke.
'Pure Heroin' offers a new perspective on the tragic love story of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, which caught the attention of Cedarsmoke frontman and songwriter Jon Cloumassis. “I decided to read up on [Sid and Nancy] a bit and once I did, I went down the rabbit hole,” Jon says.
“Their story is stranger than fiction, just surreal, and I wanted to write about it. It's also like 'Romeo & Juliet' where it ends in death for both of them. When you think of Shakespeare and Sid Vicious and The Sex Pistols, I found a bit of humour in there. It was fun to write and research.”
The story of Sid and Nancy is probably just as well-known as that of 'Romeo & Juliet' and has become an integral part of the rich tapestry that is rock music history, even being made into a 1986 biopic starring Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb.
Theirs was a drug-fuelled, self-destructive relationship that frayed Sid's relationships with his bandmates (Sex Pistols broke up in 1978, barely a year after Sid had joined) and eventually ended in 1978 when Nancy was found stabbed to death in the bathroom of their hotel room; Sid was arrested and charged with her murder. In 1979, Sid died of a heroin overdose after being released on bail for the assault of Patti Smith's brother, Todd.
The release of 'Pure Heroin' follows Cedarsmoke's six-track EP 'Kicked Out Of Eden' earlier in the year. In December, Cedarsmoke launch the single with a show at Tomcat.
“We're playing with a fair few bands, and some of our favourites like Jordan Merrick and Leichardt; The Belladonnas are playing as well, so it's cool to play a show with more than one other band,” Jon says.
“With us, we just like to have fun with the gigs and our philosophy is we can either play tight or be real sloppy but just have fun. We're not making money from it anyway, it's not a job it's just fun.”
Over the coming months, Jon says that Cedarsmoke will be releasing a number of new songs from a recently-recorded EP and have plans to get back into to the studio post-haste. “We recorded an EP a couple of months ago, so there are another four tracks from that to release,” he says.
“We have tonnes of songs written and we're keen to get them recorded as soon as possible. I just want to keep doing it because I love it.”
