Rewind With Steve Bell returns to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Regurgitator’s debut album Tu-Plang

by the partae
Rewind With Steve Bell returns to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Regurgitator's debut album Tu-Plang

When Regurgitator appeared out of the Brisbane underground music scene in the early ‘90s they seemed like the band least likely to be snapped up by a major label. But defying the odds, they inked a deal with Warner that gave them full artistic control. Despite songs lashing music industry greed and spiked with radio unfriendly lyrics, Regurgitator landed in the charts, becoming a platinum-certified, festival-playing favourite.

In this season of Rewind, host Steve Bell sits down with the original Regurgitator line-up who recorded Tu-Plang: Quan Yeomans, Ben Ely and Martin Lee (the first time he’s spoken publicly in twenty years). They are joined by a behind-the-scenes team who helped get Tu-Plang out: DIY-inclined manager Paul Curtis, Warner’s A&R at the time of Tu-Plang Michael Parisi and album producer Lachlan “Magoo” Goold.

Together they weave a tale of how a band, who despite a central punk sensibility, defied expectations and signed with a major label. The trio then pushed against their corporate bosses with defiantly uncommercial ideas and an adventurous recording session in Thailand that included feral dogs, a biker gang, diarrhoea and a mixing desk controlled with toothpicks. Then came the hits, Alan Jones’ calling for them to be banned and the unusual twist of turning down the chance to break America.

Rewind With Steve Bell is available to stream via The Podcasts website and all your favourite streaming platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

About Regurgitator:

Emerging from Brisbane in the mid-‘90s as alternative music bludgeoned the mainstream, Regurgitator quickly established themselves as a surreal staple on both radio and the touring circuit. As well as lovingly indulging in six Big Day Out tours, Regurgitator also gave touring partners such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Boredoms, Helmet, Pansy Division, and The Prodigy some fun for their money when it came to satiating crowds with sweaty, energetic, genre-bending rock.

About Rewind:

Rewind With Steve Bell launched in 2020 with a successful three-part oral history of Silverchair’s Frogstomp. The podcast quickly became the most played locally- produced music podcast upon release, peaking at #2 on Apple’s music podcast chart (held from the #1 spot by the blockbusting Dolly Parton’s America). Three follow-up seasons, featuring Billy Bragg, The Avalanches and Daryl Braithwaite have seen Rewind remain in Apple’s top 10, smash into Spotify’s music top 5 and trend around the globe (Great Britain, Japan, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, Portugal, Argentina and more).

About Steve Bell:

In the 20 years since Steve Bell turned his back on a promising legal career to follow his passion of music he’s pretty much done it all, from managing bands and running a record label to owning a record store and dedicating years on-air to community radio. But since tumbling into the world of street press in mid-2000 it’s music journalism that has proved his true love, and he’s now parlayed those decades of interviewing artists for print and radio into the podcast world.

About Handshake Podcasts:

Rewind is a part of the Handshake stable that also includes one-on-one interview series The Green Room With Tiana Speter, NRL opinion series The Take With Willie Mason and pop culture show that doesn’t live up to its name, That Sucks.

QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE OF REWIND:

Michael Parisi, former Warner A&R, about how he discovered Regurgitator accidentally on another band’s demo tape:

“It just so happened that when Ben sent me the demos for the new Pangaea stuff, it was a cassette actually, one side was a Pangaea record. The other side was these Regurgitator demos. And, I had a listen to it and I went, ‘what is this?’ And I remember ringing Ben going, ‘I love this more than Pangaea.’ So at the time I go, ‘Can I sign both?’ At the time my boss said, “Look, let’s just focus on one and if that works, then we can, you know, we can sign the other. So which one do you want to sign?’ I said, ‘I’m going to sign this Regurgitator band.’” listen to quote here

Ben Ely speaking about how the band reacted to going pop:

“I remember we had a rehearsal at Red Zeds one Friday night when we used to rehearse there, and Quan came in and he’s like, ‘I’ve written this song,’ and he said, ‘it’s a pop song.’’ We’re like, ‘What? You wrote a pop song. It’s like, ‘Dude, what are you, what are you doing?’ You know, we don’t do that. And then we played it and went, ‘Oh.’ I remember actually playing it in the rehearsal room. And I remember us all looking at each other and just kind of going… kind of freaked out. Cause we liked it. We felt guilty for liking cause we weren’t supposed to do it.” listen to quote here

Quan Yeomans on not enjoying fame:

“To be so successful so quickly and to do it in such a random seemingly random way to me, and to just have so much fun doing it as well as being incredible. So I do feel really, really lucky. But the industry thing, I mean, I never went, I tried to avoid all of the ARIA Awards. I remember, the year that we won five or six of them, I was just in bed, in a hotel room with my girlfriend watching it on TV. I mean, we just, I don’t think I watched at all. Um, it really wasn’t that important to me and that.” listen to quote here

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