If you ever need evidence that Wikipedia can’t be trusted, check out the entry for Area-7.
Keys player for the band, Dave Jackson confirmed the boys had nothing to do with writing it but it did give him a laugh. The page is accurate, if facetious, about the band’s achievements: ‘They have done extensive touring, playing literally dozens of guitars and drums, and have also been in a car.
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'Highlights include their Gold albums, their ARIA nomination for Best Rock Album in 2000, their significant success on the Australian touring circuit, and that time they sung about being angry kids when they were all well into their 30s.’ If you go to the ‘Talk’ section, there’s also a stirring debate over which is better: the band or Matthew Reilly’s book of the same name.
DJ finds the whole thing quite amusing. “There was actually a lot of confusion when the book came out. We had people asking if it was about the band.” If you check out the film clip for ‘Individuality’, you’ll spot one of the boys not-so-subtly reading a copy of the book
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The film clip also stars a penguin who learns to believe in himself and was released during the band’s peak, in the early 2000s. Since then, Area-7 has slowed right down.
There was even talk last year that they might come to a complete stop. “We had very disappointed fans coming up at shows asking “is this the end?’ It was getting hard to fit it all in but then we did our 20-year-anniversary tour, and then Soundwave. Then we were asked to do some interstate shows off the back of that. Because we love doing it so much we just said ‘yes’ before we had any time to think about it. Next thing you know, we’ve found this new momentum and here we are.”
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The lads are going to be kicking it old-school in their upcoming tour. If you were old enough to be going to gigs in the '90s, it’ll be a chance to relive your youth. And if you weren’t, then you'll get to experience what the '90s was like for a night.
Either way it’s like time travel, which is awesome. “A lot of people haven’t seen us in a while so we’ve resurrected all the old songs we haven’t played in ages. We’re doubled with 28 Days and they’re doing the same. So it’ll be the kind of show where everyone knows all the lyrics.”
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One song that doesn’t need resurrecting, because it’s never been laid to rest, is ‘Nobody Likes A Bogan’. “I don’t think we’d get out of a show alive if we didn’t play it. We never really expected it to be so popular. When we first played it, ‘bogan’ wasn’t even a national saying. There were a lot of other words for it, different ones in every state.”
The iconic song unified our understanding of the word ‘bogan’. The state-by-state variants slipped away (nobody says bevan anymore), and ‘bogan’ became the quintessential Aussie descriptor.
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It may just be a coincidence but, exactly a decade after the song was released, the Oxford English Dictionary allowed the word ‘bogan’ to grace its pages. The only problem is, it’s listed as a derogatory term. “In the early days, we had a few people come up and say ‘are you having a go at bogans?’ But, if you listen to the lyrics, we’re not having a go at all, we’re embracing it. We all love a bogan and we’ve all got a bit of bogan about us.”
Area-7 and 28 Days Tour Dates
Sat 2 Jul - The Gov (Adelaide)Fri 8 Jul - Chardons Corner Hotel (Brisbane)
Sat 9 Jul - Parkwood Tavern (Brisbane)
Fri 22 Jul - The Cambridge Hotel (Newcastle)
