Okay, I want you to picture a glass box. It's
sitting right in the middle of a public square.
Year's 2004. Federation Square, Melbourne. It's
hot. It's loud. And inside this box, it's basically
a human aquarium, are three musicians trying
to record an album. And they can't get out. They're
stuck in there for weeks on end. Right. They're
eating in there, slaking in there, probably arguing
in there. And all day long, you've got commuters,
tourists, school kids pressing their faces up
against the glass, just watching them like they're
zoo animals. For most bands, this would be a
nightmare, a torture test. Or, you know, just
a psychological breakdown waiting to happen.
Exactly. But for the band we're talking about
today, this wasn't some kind of punishment. It
was a strategy. This is the story of Regurgitator,
a band that, I mean, if you look at their whole
career, it seems like they spent 30 years actively
trying to destroy it. Yeah, and somehow only
became more successful every single time they
lit the match. It's this paradox of, what do
you call it, anti -careerism. It really is. I
mean, usually in the music industry, you find
a sound, it works, and you just repeat it until
the wheels fall off. Regurgitator did the exact
opposite. They'd find a sound that worked, get
bored with it, mock the fans who liked it, and
then just pivot to something completely different.
We're talking about a band that went from, like,
heavy alternative rock to 80s synth pop to recording
in a bubble to making children's music. Yeah.
And somehow... They are still one of the most
respected acts in Australian music history. It
creates a fascinating case study. How does a
band that's defined by cynicism, by genre mashing,
by just refusing to play the game, how do they
outlast their peers who followed all the rules?
That's the mission today. to try and understand
the method behind all that madness. And honestly,
if you look at how they started, it's almost
funny we're even talking about a career, because
this was never supposed to be a real band. No,
not at all. It was a distraction. If you go back
to Brisbane, 1993, the music scene there was
incredibly incestuous. Everyone was in everyone
else's band. You had Quan Yeomans, Ben Ely, and
Martin Lee. The holy trinity of Brisbane weirdness.
And they supposedly met on a bus. Just a chance
encounter on public transport. But these guys...
were already established musicians. Ben Ely was
in a band called Pangea, which was a pretty big
deal locally. Quan was in a band called Zurastia.
Regurgitator was just what they did for fun.
It's the side hustle, the place where they could
just dump all the weird ideas that didn't fit
in their serious bands. Which is often where
the best art comes from, right? When there's
no pressure. But the industry didn't really see
it that way at first. There's this great story
about how they got signed. A rep from Warner
Music, Michael Parisi, he flies up to Brisbane.
He was there to court Benny Lee, but for Pangea.
He wanted the serious band. He did. Pangea had
the live chops. They had a following. But the
manager, Paul Curtis, who is a legend for managing
this chaos for decades, he slips Parisi a tape
of Regurgitator. The old bait and switch. Exactly.
So Parisi listens to the tape and he hears something
that Pangea just didn't have. He called it a
hook. There was this like pop sensibility buried
under all the noise. So Warner ends up signing
the side project instead. That must have been
a weird dynamic for Ben Akeley. Hey, they don't
want our main band. They want the joke band.
But they signed the deal in 95, put out a couple
EPs, get some airplay with a song called Blubber
Boy. Yeah. And now, you know, standard industry
practice here is. You've got a major label budget
for your first album. Yeah, you book a nice studio
in Sydney, maybe Melbourne. Get a producer who
works with Nirvana or something. That would be
the logical thing to do. Regurgitator, however,
took that budget and flew to Bangkok. In 1996.
Yeah. And you have to remember, recording in
Asia wasn't this trendy thing to do back then.
It was just logistical chaos. They set up in
a pop music studio right in the middle of the
city. And Bangkok in the 90s. That is just sensory
over - The heat, the river, the traffic. You
can almost hear the humidity on the record. You
really can. The album, Two -Playing, is named
after the Thai word for jukebox. And that title
is just perfect because the album sounds like
someone is smashing the buttons on a jukebox
at random. It's total sonic whiplash. You have
a track like Kung Fu Sing, which is this crunchy,
guitar -heavy rock riff. But then the vocals
are rapped, and the beat is almost hip -hop.
It was a collision of styles that... on paper
just shouldn't work together they were mixing
metal funk rap pop but it wasn't just the sound
that was aggressive it was the lyrics kwan yeomans
had this very specific Very cynical worldview.
Cynical is putting it lightly. He was writing
songs that were deliberately offensive. Yeah.
I mean, we have to talk about the track. I sucked
a lot of cock to get where I am. A title that
instantly grabs your attention for obvious reasons.
And it is not a metaphor. No. And naturally,
the establishment absolutely hated it. You had
Alan Jones, the king of conservative talk radio,
launching a whole campaign to get the song banned.
He was just appalled by the obscenity. Which,
I mean, knowing Regurgitator, that probably just
felt like free marketing. It absolutely was.
It positioned them as the outsiders, the punks
inside the major label system. And despite or
maybe because of that controversy, 2 -Playing
was a monster hit. It went platinum. They won
the ARIA for best alternative release. They were
suddenly one of the biggest bands in the country.
So here they are. They've accidentally become
rock stars with their side project. They've got
the platinum plaque. The smart move now is to
make two playing part two. Give the people more
of that rock rap stuff. Keep Alan Jones angry.
And this is where that anti -careerism really,
really kicks in. It's 1997. They retreat to this
warehouse in Brisbane they call the Dirty Room.
And instead of cranking up the guitar amps, they
start messing around with synthesizers. This
is the pivot that defines them. The album unit.
If you were a fan of Australian rock in 1997,
you were listening to Grinspoon, Silverchair,
heavy guitars. Post -grunge was the law of the
land. And Regurgitator comes out with an album
that sounds like a warped 80s pop record. It's
all bubbly, electronic, it's got drum machines.
It was the complete antithesis of cool rock at
the time. It was almost a troll move. And they
were so aware of what they were doing that they
literally warn you on the very first track. I
like your old stuff better than your new stuff.
It's just genius. It's the first thing you hear.
They're mocking the listener before the listener
even has a chance to form an opinion. Well, it's
a defense mechanism. By saying it first, they
take all the power away from the critics. They're
basically saying, we know this is different.
We know you might hate it. And frankly, we don't
care. But the joke was on them. Because people
didn't hate it. They loved it even more. It backfired
in the best possible way. Polyester Girl became
this huge anthem. Black Bugs was everywhere.
Unit went triple platinum. It won five ARIAs,
including Album of the Year. They beat Savage
Garden. They beat The Living End. They tried
to alienate their rock fan base with a pop album
and ended up becoming the biggest pop band in
the country. But while the public was seeing
this massive success, the internal reality of
the band was getting really dark. Like, Thriller
movie dark. Yeah, this is the story that often
gets glossed over because the music itself was
so fun. It's late 1997. They're on the unit tour.
They're in Perth. And Martin Lee, the drummer,
just doesn't show up for a gig. Which, for a
touring band, is the ultimate panic moment. It's
terrifying. He'd been at a nightclub the night
before and just vanished. He was found the next
day unconscious. He spent a full week in a coma
in a Perth hospital. A week in a coma. That is...
Wow, that's heavy. It's incredibly serious. And
the really scary part is when he woke up, he
had total amnesia about the event. To this day,
there's no clear public account of exactly what
happened to him. It's just a blank space. So
you have the band at the absolute peak of their
fame. Polyester Girl is blasting out of every
car radio. And their drummer is in a hospital
bed with a huge gap in his memory. They still
had shows to play, though. They couldn't just
stop the machine. No, the machine keeps moving.
So they brought in a fill -in drummer, John Coghill.
From Powderfinger. Right. And this is where the
cultural clash becomes really interesting. Powderfinger
and Regurgitator were both from Brisbane, but
they were from different planets, socially. Yeah,
Powderfinger were the golden boys. Polished.
earnest, melodic rock. Exactly. And Quan Yeomans
was pretty open about the friction. He later
described Powderfinger as private schoolboys
from a different social strata. It wasn't just
a musical mismatch. It was a total vibe mismatch.
You can imagine the tension of having this outsider
step into their weird, cynical little circle.
It really highlights how insular regurgitator
was. They were a gang. But Martin recovers eventually.
But things didn't just snap back to normal. No.
That kind of trauma leaves a mark. When they
went to record the follow -up album, Dot Art,
in 1999, the whole dynamic had shifted. They
rented a beach house in Byron Bay, which sounds
idyllic, but Martin Lee felt like he was being
pushed out. Well, you look at Unit with its electronic
sound, they were using more and more drum machines.
Yeah. If you're the drummer and the songwriter's
obsessed with the drum machine, you start wondering,
so, why am I here? Exactly. The machine was replacing
the man. Plus, Kwan didn't want to record in
the dirty room anymore, which Martin had helped
build. Lee felt undervalued, excluded from the
creative process. So in late 1999, he leaves.
Creative differences. The classic breakup line.
But in this case, it was very real. He was replaced
by Peter Kostic from the Hard Ons, another legendary
Australian punk band. So the lineup stabilizes,
but the relationship with the major label, with
Warner, is starting to rot. Right, because remember,
Warner signed them. because of that hook. But
by 2001, Regurgitator is in London, recording
an album called Eduardo and Rodriguez Wage War
on T -Rex. Great title. Classic title. But the
music, it's hip -hop heavy, it's weird, it's
dark, and Warner's listening to this going, okay,
but where's the next polyester girl? Warner was
frustrated. They basically accused the band of
lacking commercial motivation, which is hilarious,
because the band never even claimed to have commercial
motivation. They were motivated by boredom and
art. So the label drops them. Or they mutually
agree to part ways. And honestly, for most bands,
this is the death knell. You lose the funding,
you lose distribution, you fade away playing
pub gigs. But Regurgitator saw it as liberation.
And this brings us right back to where we started.
The bubble. 2004. Yeah. Banned in a bubble. Now
that we know the history, the rejection of fame,
the boredom with standard studios, this whole
stunt makes so much more sense. It was a way
to force creativity through constraint. They
partnered with Channel V. They built that glass
studio in Federation Square. And they turned
the entire recording process into a reality TV
show. Just imagine the psychology of that. You're
trying to write a lyric. Maybe you're feeling
vulnerable or stuck. And there's a guy just eating
a sandwich on the other side of the glass staring
at you. It's the ultimate exposure. It plays
with the whole idea of the rock star as a commodity.
You want to consume us? Fine. Watch us cut our
teeth. Watch us sleep. It completely demystified
the whole process. And the music that came out
of it, the album Mish Mash. Yeah. It sounds frantic.
It does. It has this nervous energy. It's maybe
not their most polished work, but it's arguably
their most honest. It proved they could generate
attention and create art without a major label
marketing budget. They just needed a high concept
stunt. And they kept chasing that. that stunt
energy or maybe just the novelty of new places.
Yeah. Because after the bubble, they didn't go
back to a normal studio. They went to Brazil.
Right. For Love and Paranoia in 2007, they flew
to Rio. Then later, for Dirty Pop Fantasy, they
recorded in an apartment in Hong Kong. It seems
like they were using the location as another
instrument. Like, we're bored at Guitarist, let's
see what Rio sounds like. I think it's escapism.
By this point, the band members were living all
over the place. Kwan was in Hong Kong, Ben was
in Melbourne. They were pretty fragmented. The
band was becoming more of a periodic meeting
of old friends than a full -time job. Which led
to the hiatus in 2013. Quan had his first kid.
The logistics were a nightmare. They basically
just said, we're done for a while. And usually
indefinite hiatus is just polite code for we
hate each other and we're never playing again.
But not these guys. They took a break, lived
some life, and came back in 2015. But the comeback
isn't the surprise. The surprise is what they
pivoted to next in 2019. This is my favorite
twist in the entire saga, The Pagogo Show. The
band that wrote I Sucked a Lot of. You know what?
The band that was threatened by Alan Jones for
being obscene releases a children's album. The
really, really, really, really boring album.
Which is the best title for a kid's album ever.
It really is. And it makes you realize something
profound about their music. Regurgitator has
always been a bit cartoonish. The bright synths,
the high energy, the silly voices, the costumes.
It was always playground music, just with adult
lyrics. You just take the profanity out and it
reveals what was underneath the whole time. Pure,
chaotic fun. Exactly. Kids respond to that same
manic energy just as well as stoned teenagers
in the 90s did. And of course, in true regurgitator
fashion, the album was a critical darling. It
won the ARR Award for Best Independent Children's
Album. It's the ultimate anti -career move. Oh,
you think we're aging rockers who should be playing
our greatest hits on the nostalgia circle? Watch
this. We're going to play songs for toddlers.
And then, just to keep you guessing, they pivot
right back. 2023, they celebrate 25 years of
UNIT. They're opening for Weezer. They're opening
for KISS. That is a visual I just love. The KISS
army in all their makeup and leather, watching
Ben and Kwan jump around like complete maniacs.
It's perfect. KISS is all about the brand, the
logo, the consistency. Regurgitator is all...
about the mess the change the refusal to be branded
and yet there they were sharing a stage and they
just dropped a new album invader in 2024. they're
still making new music still refusing to just
be a heritage act which is so rare most bands
from the 90s are stuck in amber they play the
hits they look a bit tired regurgitator still
feels Dangerous. Maybe not dangerous, but definitely
unpredictable. So if we step back and look at
this whole timeline from the bus in Brisbane
to the Bangkok heat to the platinum pop of unit,
the coma, the bubble, the kids music. What's
the lesson here? I think the lesson is that career
planning is probably overrated. If Regurgitator
had listened to Warner Music, they would have
made two playing two, bored themselves to death,
and broken up by 1999. They survived by destroying
themselves. Precisely. They burned down their
own image every three years. And by doing that,
they never let the concrete set. They stayed
flexible. The anti -careerism was actually the
best career move they could have possibly made.
It's a validation of boredom. They let their
boredom guide them. I'm bored of rock. Let's
do pop. I'm bored of studios. Let's sit in a
glass box. I'm bored of adults. Let's play for
kids. And in a world where we're all told to
curate our personal brands, to stay on message,
to be consistent, Regurgitator is just this great
reminder that you can be messy, you can be contradictory,
and you can still win. Maybe you even win because
you're messy. I think so. Longevity doesn't come
from standing still. It comes from being a moving
target. So next time you feel like you're stuck
in a rut. or you're worried about what people
will think if you change your style, just ask
yourself, what would Regurgitator do? They'd
probably build a bubble and lock themselves in
it. Or write a song about how much they hate
their own fans. Either way, it seems to work.
Thanks for diving deep with us into the chaos
of Regurgitator. Go listen to Unit, go listen
to the kids' album, and see if you can hear the
thread that connects them. We'll catch you on
the next deep dive.