“LAST time we played in Warrnambool I woke up on a sheep farm covered in shit 30kms out of town,” joked Painters & Dockers frontman and founding member Paulie Stewart.
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It’s probably true. The brassy punk band rocked an Old Collegians footy club ball back in the day and headlined a couple of crazy nights at the Lady Bay Hotel more than two decades ago, back when they were regularly touring the nation.
“We definitely played the Lady Bay many times – I’m blaming Warrnambool for my liver transplant,” Stewart laughed.
Painters & Dockers’ reputation for hard partying and raucous live shows are as much a part of their legacy as their music, so it can be easy to forget the impact they had.
In the late ‘80s, they had a top 25 album (Kiss My Art) and two top 50 singles (Nude School and Die Yuppie Die). They played tennis centres opening for Billy Idol and shared the stage with Iggy Pop and Nick Cave. In 2009 they were inducted into The Age Music Victoria Hall of Fame, where they reside alongside the likes of The Seekers, John Farnham, Archie Roach, Paul Kelly, Daddy Cool and TISM.
Not bad for a band that was only supposed to play one gig – a fundraiser for Cosmic Psychos’ member Bill Walsh back in 1982.
But Stewart played down the band’s legacy, saying Painters & Dockers had only ever tried to be entertaining.
“We’ve done the indie thing, we’ve done the major label thing – we still didn’t make any money,” he laughed.
“We (recently played in) Sydney and the promoter said he didn’t know how many punters we were going to get, he just wanted to see the Dockers – we got 1000 people. Why didn’t all those people come and see us when we were young and I had my first liver?
“Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t tell the difference between half the songs on the radio, but a Dockers song definitely sounds like a Dockers song … partly because I’m a shithouse singer.”
As it was in the good old days, Stewart said the whole thing was about having fun.
"The emphasis was on a good time,” he said.
“We slipped a few social messages in there. But we’re not full of ourselves – we’re not being ‘artists’ who have to share their wisdom.
“We were only supposed to do one gig. I was only supposed to play trumpet for one song and I ended up singing. But I remember walking off stage after that first gig thinking ‘this is what I want to do for the rest of my life’. What’s better than standing up there with a microphone and having girls look at you?”
Painters & Dockers perform at The Loft in Warrnambool on Friday night with support from The Monaros.
