Aussie icons know how to stay rock hard

Billed as "one of the best live bands you'll ever see".

I've had people come up to me and say, 'Man, you suck'," says Peter "Blackie" Black, from Aussie punk rockers, the Hard-Ons.

"But I'm like, 'Dude, I rock'," he laughs.

"That's the thing I'm most proud of, with the amount of time we've been around, we've never sucked."

It's true, since playing their first official gig in 1984, the Hard-Ons have always done exactly what they wanted to and become Aussie music icons.

It's early afternoon in Sydney and Blackie has just woken. He works nights as a cabbie - he still has to have a part-time job to support his music.

He laughs: "We definitely, definitely didn't make much money. But I think we've had a pretty charmed life. We got to work with people like Captain Sensible [the Damned], and Henry Rollins, and we've toured the world so many times. And we still do it."

They play in Auckland at the Kings Arms tonight - their first gig here in 12 years.

Blackie doesn't like nostalgia. But today, maybe because he's sleepy, he's happy to talk about the volatile and often racist punk scene of early 80s Australia.

Back then the Hard-Ons were a mixed-race trio made up of Korean Ray Ahn (bass), Sri Lankan Keish De Silva (drums/vocals, who left the band in 2001 and was replaced by Pete Kostic from Regurgitator), and Blackie of Yugoslavian descent. This was not an issue for the band because they grew up in west Sydney in an ethnically diverse area.

"But it was a pretty violent scene back then. Punk rock had degenerated, and this music called Oi was at the forefront, which had quite a few racist overtones. We were like a box of mixed jellies - every colour of the rainbow - and we ran into a fair few problems.

"Plus we had long hair, we took our shirts off, and we loved the Pistols, as well as Sabbath, and we loved Black Flag and we loved Zeppelin. We were just suburban kids who loved music. So half the crowd wanted to kill us and the other half were like, 'What the [expletive] is this? This is awesome'."

Over the course of 11 albums (highlights being 1986's Smell My Finger, 1987's Hot For Your Love Baby and 1990's Yummy!) they were rebellious, noisy, and their stage shows crazy.

That latest album, Most People Are A Waste Of Time, is a melodic and catchy set of tunes. Blackie says the next album is a heavy one.

They don't play old songs much because "we're not one of those bands that plays our greatest hits". So tonight, most songs will be new, with a few old gems chucked in. But rest assured, says Blackie, they are "one of the best live bands you'll ever see".

PERFORMANCE

* Who: The Hard-Ons

* Where & when: Tonight, Kings Arms Tavern, Auckland

Albums: Smell My Finger (1986); Hot For Your Love Baby (1987); Yummy! (1990); Most People Are a Waste of Time (2006)