Th' Dudes back on the bliss

(From left) Bruce Hambling, Lez White, Peter Urlich, Ian Morris and Dave Dobbyn hit the road again. Picture / Becky Nunes

They started off as teenagers and weren't much older when they stopped. But in their five or so years together in the late 70s, Th' Dudes left their mark on Kiwi rock with two albums, a row of enduring singles and one drunken national anthem.

Unlike many acts of their generation, they've never reformed. Until now that is, headlining a tour celebrating 40 years of New Zealand's original rock station, Radio Hauraki.

Before they launched the roadshow - which also features Hammond Gamble and Hello Sailor - at a press conference yesterday.

Scott Kara and Russell Baillie tracked down all five members - guitarist-singer Dave Dobbyn, singer Peter Urlich, guitarist Ian Morris, drummer Bruce Hambling and bassist Lez White - and asked them their memories of those good old days. And inquired whether the reunion is about a bunch of fortysomething guys following their Bliss ...

* * *

The beginning...

Ian Morris: Should you ask me to put a date on when Th' Dudes began, I'd point to a Saturday afternoon sometime early in the Auckland summer of 1975. Dave Dobbyn, Peter Urlich, Peter "Nyolls" Coleman and I were gathered - as usual - in Nyolls' grandmother's basement in Greenlane. We were "getting a band together". Dave, Peter U and I had known each other since form one at Sacred Heart College in 1968.
(from the liner notes to compilation Where Are The Boys?)

Peter Urlich: We played during lunchtime for whoever was around at the time. Then Ian and I wanted to take it further and we hooked up with this garage band from Glendowie College. We were trying to get Dave to come along but he was incredibly shy.

Morris: We finally convinced Dave to come along and play some guitar. We would've been 18. We advertised for a drummer and Bruce Hambling turned up for that one.

Dave Dobbyn: Ian dragged me along one day and I was quite reticent because I hadn't really done a lot of public playing. But they had. They'd had bottles thrown at them at Surfside on the Shore.

Bruce Hambling: answered an ad in the Herald. I just felt that they had something about them and they were trying to do their own music, which was rare back then. They had a good vision about where they were going and it was just this machine starting up and it was really going to get rolling.

Dobbyn: The first gig we played was at Crofts nightclub in Airedale St, and Human Instinct were playing. I was shitting myself. Terrified. I was facing the amplifier. But a little bit of Dutch courage in the form of some sly grogging probably gave me the courage to play and I was hooked.

Morris: [Bassist Coleman] would eventually leave the band to explore his own personal Hippocratic frontier, and in his place we pulled in someone we'd had our eye on for a while. The only thing wrong was his name we felt we couldn't have yet another Peter, so we shortened his middle name and - whether he liked it or not - made him "Lez".

Peter "Lez" White (bassist): I'm the Ronnie Wood of Th' Dudes. I was in a band with Jenny Morris. We went into the Battle of the Bands competition and we thought we had it sewn up because we had a guitar player who could play with his teeth ... we got into the finals and these [expletive] were the ones who actually won that year. So I said, 'I'm getting with the winners'.

The early success

Dobbyn: We were ambitious. Peter had a very clear idea of what we needed. We needed to be managed, have flyers and posters, have better PAs, better lights and actually put on a show. One day in Wellington we decided that the PA wasn't up to scratch and cancelled the gig. It got really bad press but I remember enjoying that because it was a good rock'n'roll moment.

White: What marketing? I don't remember any billboards and T-shirts. There was no marketing.

Urlich: In Th' Dudes, after gigs, people would hang around and they wanted to be part of the band and buy into the band. They wanted to be fans. So I guess we thought we've got something that people want. We believed in ourselves and a lot of people thought we were arrogant and cocky.

White: I don't think we even realised we had that reputation. We were babes in the wood compared to certain people. The reputation of being snotty and aloof - if you're nobody you're just a shy person. If you become well known then it's aloof.

Dobbyn: When we saw the Rolling Stones we wanted to be like them, and when we saw Hello Sailor we wanted to be like them, too, because they were the real thing. They were living like rock'n'rollers and before we knew it, we were too.

White: The gig I remember most fondly is when we got to support Peter Frampton - never got to see Peter Frampton.

Hambling: Playing at Sweetwaters was a real thrill. I can't actually remember when it was to be honest [it was 1980] but I think, looking back now, it was bigger than we actually thought.

White: We were a pub band and we did all right.

The songs

Morris: We always wanted every song to be a hit single but Th' Dudes never had hits in the classic sense. I think Right First Time made No 17 or something. But the songs have really carried on without us and become hits posthumously in a way. They're good simple songs, well played, and they still sound great on the radio.

Urlich: The songs kept going and became a part of New Zealand culture, almost. I can listen to Dave sing Be Mine Tonight and it still makes me feel quite emotional.

Hambling: I always thought Be Mine Tonight was a really good song and would probably stay in peoples' memories for years. I didn't quite think the same about Bliss. I think Dave and Ian are incredibly good songwriters and in those early days they'd write a song, and it was great, and you'd expect them to write another one, and they did.

The end is near

Morris: In November of 1979 we went to Australia for a month. That was great and terrible. It was a great experience and it honed the band into a tight musical unit and we wrote Bliss over there. But it also showed me what we would have to do to go any further. It shook me and I thought, "Man, I don't really want to do this". I've played all the scummy dives to no one in New Zealand, and it was great fun, but I didn't really want to do that again.

Dobbyn: Touring Australia was a hard slog. We had no money, our crew got punched out, we were treated badly and driving round in rent-a-wrecks with no air-conditioning. So we were fuelled up on other things to get us through and I think we realised how difficult it would be to break through in a place like that.

White: Surprisingly, Australia didn't fall at our feet within three days of arrival. I don't know whether Australia broke up the band but we had become accustomed to a certain number of people turning up. We did one show in Sydney and a little-known Australian band supported us. I remember Peter's girlfriend saying "that band that was on before you, it was quite good. The singer looked a bit like Jim Morrison" - that was INXS. I never saw them.

Urlich: I guess when the hard times came we lacked the resolve to keep going and I always wonder if we'd ridden that tough wave in Australia, where we might have got to. We could have been Split Enz, or even bigger. You never know. And we never will.

The final curtain

Morris: I remember the day I broke the news to Dave. We went up to the Alexander Tavern and I said, "I'm leaving the band". He was stunned because, like all of us, it had been our life for four years, or whatever. It had consumed every waking moment. There was no thought of getting another guitarist because it was such a special band.

Dobbyn: Ian Morris was the one who called it quits. He said he was leaving and we thought, 'Oh well, we'll break it up'. I was devastated. But I think the real reason was it was time for us to move on. While we were in the band I thought we were going to be together forever. I was that deluded, happily.

White: I think Ian jacked it in first and for a couple of days we were going to get someone else in. Then it might have been the catalyst of somebody turning up late for the next rehearsal and Peter going 'I'm out of this as well'. Then I think for about three days it was going to be Dave, me and Bruce.

Urlich: The dream was over, and the bubble was burst. [At the final show] we got hammered, and I remember Ian playing in the nude, and the audience was chaotic, and it was a complete rock'n'roll shambles, which was good. By that stage I was physically and emotional exhausted. In a way, when we got to the last song I can remember, it wasn't like I was in tears, I was like, 'Oh, I need a rest'.

Morris: I was naked and I'm not sure how that came about. I think it was my idea. I really have no idea. I was a lot skinnier in those days. I do remember turning around to adjust my amp and a woman jumped on stage and drew eyes on my buttocks. I think there was a far amount of Jack Daniels drunk that night.

White: I remember one of the last shows at Mainstreet, I thought it was glass being thrown at us but it was ice. There was one brief moment where Peter was on the verge of shoving his mike stand down what was probably a 16-year-old girl's throat and I would have backed him up for doing so.

Hambling: I don't think we ever really tired of the music, and I know we never tired of each other. I think it was some of the outside influences that come to bear on young people at the time, that was what caused us to split up in the end.

The reunion

White: I don't know if the songs have endured. Because I have been away [living in Australia] there's part of me that's going 'are we kidding ourselves here?'

Dobbyn: It's a bit scary. But I'm quite excited. Hopefully, we won't be making any of the fashion atrocities of the past. Rest assured, we won't be dragging out the PVC pants. There's a wonderful Spinal Tapness about it, and a touch of the Metallica documentary, too.

Morris: Because Th' Dudes were such a special band for all of us - our first proper band - so we wanted it to be special rather than just putting something on and seeing who turns up.

Urlich: Dave, Ian and I did a one-off at our old school [Sacred Heart College] a couple of years ago. We played three songs and I got a tremendous buzz out of that. Armed with that experience alone, it's going to be a pretty wild and crazy thing.

White: If there is a song playing when you are having your very first shag ... it could be They Are Coming To Take Me Away Ha Ha or Auld Lang Syne ... it's always going to be a special song irrespective of the musical worth of it. So hopefully somebody got laid to Bliss for the first time in their life and it will mean something to them.

* In celebration of Radio Hauraki's 40th anniversary Th' Dudes are re-forming and hitting the road for a nationwide tour with old mates Hello Sailor and Hammond Gamble.

Forum North, Whangarei, Monday Oct 2; Municipal Theatre, Napier, Tues Oct 3; Holy Trinity, Tauranga, Wed Oct 4; Founders Theatre, Hamilton, Thurs Oct 5; St James Theatre, Auckland, Fri Oct 6; TSB Showplace, New Plymouth, Mon Oct 9; Opera House, Wellington, Tues Oct 10; Civic Theatre, Invercargill, Thurs Oct 12; Town Hall, Dunedin, Fri Oct 13; Theatre Royal, Christchurch, Sat Oct 14.

Tickets on sale August 25 from Ticketek and Ticketdirect.

LOWDOWN

WHO: Th' Dudes, NZ rock upstarts of the late 70s

LINE-UP: Dave Dobbyn (guitar/vocals); Peter Urlich (vocals); Ian Morris (guitar); Lez White (bass); Bruce Hambling (drums)

ALBUMS: Right First Time (1979); Where Are the Boys (1980); So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star (mini album, 1982); Where Are the Girls - Th' Definitive Collection (2001)