Sacred Cowboys

 

One of the most seminal bands to come out of Melbourne’s underground scene of the 80s saddle up for another ride. 2024 sees Garry Gray and Mark Ferrie reunite, along with Anthony Paine Tim Dean and Damian Fitzgerald as the Sacred Cowboys. The Sacred Cowboys played there first gig in over a decade at Shotkickers back in October, and also sees the release of a new anthology, Cowboy Logic.

Disc 1 starts at 1988, picking up where the previous collection, Nailed at the Cross ended. Disc 2 is a live compilation spanning 1994-2006, showcasing all the amazing talent that called themselves Cowboys.

Garry Gray answered a few questions re the recent formation and new release.

Munster: You have reformed the Sacred Cowboys, playing two shows already, one being a secret show, and have a CD anthology out now. Why was now the time to get the band back together?

Garry: two things really, independent of each other. I had been looking at doing an anthology, not a best of. In an ideal world, we would be like the Rolling Stones, where you’re in a band and can stay together for a thousand years. Around 2007. Shock Records put out kind of an anthology, Nailed to the Cross, which comprised of early Cowboys stuff. Which included a live disc at the Ballroom. So, I figured out what to do with this release many years later. I guess the entire span of all the work I had been doing went beyond Sacred Cowboys. So was a large component of what I was doing until 2008. Then I had other projects with the Sixth Circle, and last year the record with Ed Clayton-Jones. I wanted to do an anthology, two discs. One, studio work from 1988 which wasn’t covered in Nailed to the Cross, And from 1998 onwards. There’s a lot of connect threads in the recordings.

Spencer (P Jones) joined the band in 1993-94. The bulk of that disc is live recordings from the ESPY in 1994. With basically the Trouble from Providence lineup Cowboys. When I reformed the Cowboys in 2006, we had Spencer and Penny Ikinger, so there’s a few tracks on disc two of the 2006 line up. The two discs covers all the stuff I’ve been working on since 1988. And why the Sacred Cowboys are back in 2024? Independently of all this, Mark became friends with Anthony Paine, who’s in a band called Sore Eyes with Tim Dean and Damian Fitzgerald. Mark got to know those guys, and they had been into the Cowboys in the past and were interested in an idea to do a live outing as the Sacred Cowboys. So the two projects kind of intercepted, so we started working with the guys a few months ago, so all of a sudden we had the CD launch as well as a writing project with a newly retooled Sacred Cowboys. Live we’ve gone back to playing some of our earliest stuff. Using that kind of experience of doing those songs together springboards us into other writing projects so that’s where it sists at this point in time

Munster: did you and Mark pick the songs for the anthology together or was it just you?

Garry: was just me. I told Mark I was putting something together, when I started talking to him I just had the live disc and I didn’t want to put it out on its own. I thought it would be better expressing the work that had been done over the years so the selectins were all mine. I think its turned out to a great way of linking the past and present quite well, ties all the loose ends of the Sacred Cowboys. We’re ready to move on to the next thing. I was also trying to do was with the studio material, you can listen to it, and its like an LP in its own right, the songs I selected hang together thematically, they reference each other somehow or evolve from one era to another quite smoothly, that’s what I wanted to do with it, make it a coherent record. We’ve always had different people in the group at different points in time, the era we start with in the Trouble from Providence days, we have on that record Ollie Olsen and Marie Hoy doing backing vocals and on that record itself we cover and Ollie song called Sometimes, which he did with Michel Hutchins from the Max Q record. Ash Wednesday on keyboard, Chris Willson or harmonica, in the early days we had different people guesting with the group and sometimes even writing with the group. You can’t look at the cowboys as a fab four type thing there’s been many people working with us along the way

Munster: that said, would you say for it to be the Sacred Cowboys it has to be you and Mark in the band at least?

Garry: I think its highly desirable for Mark and myself in the group. People have to realize not everybody continues on, there’s a sort of ebb and flow of life. You definitely want to be with everybody all of your life, but people pass away, it’s not always, I think a realistic expectation. Making another Scared Cowboys LP, its really important Mark s there, he knows everything about where were from so that aspect is important, I think generally specking its great to do the Sacred Cowboys with Mark its very special.

Munster: How was the first gig back at Shotkickers?

Garry: it was great Tim, Anthony, and Damian. Mark and I, we know there just fantastic, I can do what I need to do and know that the bands there and we have each other’s back, there’s a great energy playing with these chaps. We had a hit out at the Town Hall in August. That was the same kind of fun, the audience was great at Shotkickers, was pretty special.

Munster: Usually when a band does this kind of two disc release and has a live recording, it’s usually just one gig they throw on a CD, so that’s cool you made a compilation of live recordings through the years paying respect to all the previous band members.

Garry: it was important to me, the other goal of the anthology, of equal measure, was to highlight everyone I’ve worked with, that was extremely important, I think because there’s a stock standard way of doing the live record, but one of my favourited live records is the Seeds Live LP, which has canned applause, which I think comes from a  Beatles record. But its still a great record and that’s what its about. Its good because in a parallel universe the live disc takes us from when Spencer joined the group to the 2006 incarnation and Spencer was in that, and back to disc one with Spencer as a member of the fabulous Sixth Circle so there’s a few threads within the passage of time of course.

Munster: are you working on new Cowboys material?

Garry: absolutely. I haven’t really stopped writing, so from my part I continue to write with the guys here, we have some musical idea’s beginning to emerge, when we get past this second show, we’re going to hunker down and see what comes of it.

Sacred Cowboys southside launch for Cowboy Logic, with JJ McCann Transmission and Murrays Bay Country Club, St Kilda Bowls Club, November 22. tickets at https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1306688 

Cowboy Logic out now via Kasumuen Records  https://kasumuen.bandcamp.com/album/garry-gray-sacred-cowboys-cowboy-logic