Australian Crawl recently announced their return to New Zealand in 2027, 40 years on from when the band last performed here under that name. For vocalist James Reyne, he isn’t someone who has spent the intervening decades looking back in the rear view mirror, but rather focused on his substantial solo career and looking forwards.
Australian Crawl’s band name has had a small complication over the years, with a former band member registering the trademark in his own name, preventing the other members from being able to use it. Earlier this year, the founding members challenged and recovered the rights, and suddenly, the possibility of using the Australian Crawl name became real. Four decades on, it’s not simply the band cashing in on the nostalgia of the name – it’s the first time that the opportunity has been possible.
For James, the heyday of Australian Crawl was far from the peak of his career, but rather the beginnings of his musical education. “The past was the past, and as far as I’m concerned, Australian Crawl was my apprenticeship, you know? I learned not only how to be in a band, and the dynamics of being in a band, and the dynamics of being in a band, they’re always interesting. You talk to anybody who’s been in a band, ever, they always have all sorts of things. But also learning about the music business, and record companies, and how to maintain, it becomes a business. You’re touring people, you’re touring not just the members of the band, you’re touring a road crew, you know, you’re trying to equip the logistics of all that sort of stuff, the people and the music, it’s a learning curve. So, I’ve looked at that sort of as my apprenticeship. But yes, I live in the present, I look forward to the future, in fact I made a new song just a couple of days ago, so I’m always doing stuff.”
Reclaiming the name has perhaps prompted Reyne to reconsider what Australian Crawl’s catalogue means, not so much for himself, but for other people. “I realised the idea of getting the rights to the name back, why not go out and celebrate this? A lot of these songs are, they mean a lot to a lot of people, and I’ve grown to understand that, and I respect that. You know, I quite like the idea of just going out and celebrating these songs, you know, these songs of Australian Crawl. Maybe I’m just getting more mellow. But I also get that, and I’ve been saying for years, you know, people ask me about certain songs, and I go, well, if I write a song, what it means to me is one thing, but what it means to you or anybody else is just as justified. Once you’ve written a song, what someone else gets out of a song is their own thing, their own personal thing, and that’s great. It means something to somebody, and has nothing to do with what I might have intended, if I had any intention at all when writing it, then that’s just as justified.”
Over the years, Reyne has been touring and performing consistently, with several of the old tracks forming part of the repertoire. Revisiting the wider catalogue has however produced a few surprises, with songs which he may have barely considered previously now revealing a new energy which he appreciates. “We play some of the songs all the time anyway, you know, because I’d get lynched if I didn’t play Reckless and The Boys Light Up, for instance, and a song called Errol. So we do them in my shows, you know. Revisiting some of these songs, it’s been interesting, because you find, where before I might have been, nor dismissive, but it’s kind of ‘oh yeah, that funny old song’, but then we’re sort of enjoying a couple of them because they’ve got this kind of energy. They were written from a fairly naive point of view, so you know, it takes you back sometimes. There’s a song called La Califusa which I wasn’t going to do, and we’re going to do it, and it’s really fun to play. I think you find certain things and sometimes you go, oh, okay, okay, I’m just not doing it. So it’s sort of interesting, everyone there is funny. They’re always telling me, I’m going ‘this thing’ and they’re always going ‘no James, we’d love this song’, you know? Because I can’t be objective, we’ve got a lot of them. I’m just glad it’s a celebration of these songs, you know?”
It may be strange to some, but one of Australian Crawl’s biggest hits is also one that Reyne previously never thought of as being all that good. “You know Reckless? I had a real problem with Reckless for ages, because I never thought it was that good. And I stood in Australia, and people were saying things, and I go ‘really?’ It’s one of those songs that sort of wrote itself, and I never thought, I thought lyrically it didn’t make any sense to me, and it didn’t hang together. One bit didn’t fit the other bit. And then now, if I think about it, which I hardly ever do, I go, oh yeah, I can see how that might connect. So yeah, as I got older, I found things in the songs that give it some sort of sense to me.”
In the early years, Australian Crawl was a band which became deeply associated with the Australian coastal lifestyle, surfing culture, and the carefree young identity of its era. Emerging from the Mornington Peninsula, surfing and coastal culture was naturally part of their environment, with the connections to the band being a natural and organic reflection of the band’s origins. And yet, for Reyne, he never quite rated the band as highly as others around at the same time, and the appeal of Australian Crawl was a bit of a mystery for him. “We were alright, you know, but compared to a lot of the bands that were around at the same time, the Cold Chisels and the Midnight Oils, the Split Enz, and Dragon, and all these bands that I thought were just great, great bands. I thought we were a pretty good bar band, but I never put us in that league… You know, we looked like fun loving lads, we had a few good tunes, it looked like we probably had a good time. We looked like we might go to a party or two, probably that, and the beach thing seemed to attach itself to us more than us attaching ourselves to it. I suppose that was, if you look at it, it looks sort of sunny and I guess happy, I suppose. And lots of, you know, we’re drinking and partying because we’re young. We’re just, you know, wow, we could do this. I suppose, as far as I could tell, that was the appeal.”
If anything, it’s Australian Crawl being the kind of band you could imagine finding down at your local pub, enjoying a beer and a chat, the accessibility perhaps adding to the appeal. “They’d probably come off stage after some rackety old set, come up over a beer with you, and go back and play another rackety old set. So maybe that’s part of it, because we were certainly, you know, the other guys were certainly amenable to ‘yeah, there’s a party going on? Yeah, we’ll come,’ that’s when we were very young. Which reminds me, there’s a great quote. The two saddest words in the English language. The two saddest words ever: What party?”
The appeal of Australian Crawl’s songs to a range of different generations is something which surprises Reyne. For many of us, we grew up listening to bands like Australian Crawl on the family summer road trip, with this upcoming tour being an opportunity not only for the fans who have been there from the beginning, but also for those who may be discovering their music for the first time. “It always astounds me, I see so many young people, and I keep going, especially at my shows, we’re going ‘why?’. I want to ask ‘what are you doing here?’, I think it’s probably their parents played if for them, and they know it. They know every word, and they’re singing along. And I look at them more, if I do it at all. When I’m singing, I’m often not really aware. I’ll start a song and suddenly we’re at the end, and I’ll go ‘did I just sing that?’, and I’m not aware that just went by, because some of them are so second nature. But I’m a better musician, I’m a better musician than I was when I was young, so I can look at them [the songs] from a more musical point of view, I suppose. Whereas when we were young, we were just bashing away really.”
Over the years, Reyne has become a much better songwriter than during the early years of Australian Crawl. Perhaps one of the biggest things for Reyne has been learning not to panic and trust the process when the ideas aren’t free flowing. “I sort of got it early on, going don’t freak out when suddenly you’re getting nothing. I mean, you could have this period, so I would have these periods where I could go and write 3 of 4 songs, over a little period. And then suddenly for it seemed like months, I’m getting nothing. And the first time, the first couple of times, you sort of freak out a bit because you’ve got to come up with songs, you’ve got a band, you’ve got to have songs, and there’s a record company, you’ve got a record deal, you’ve got to make a record. But then I understood that it ebbs and flows, and then suddenly ‘oh I wrote a couple of songs’, you know. That sense of inspiration or whatever you want to call it, comes and goes, and sometimes it hits you at the most unusual times. Suddenly you just go ‘why did this suddenly come out of me?’. But, I would tell myself doesn’t worry about that stuff, and enjoy the process. And trust the first thing that comes out of your mouth, or comes into your head as the first line, because that’s often the interesting line. And sometimes it’s weird and doesn’t make sense, but you stick it in because it sings phonetically across, it scans, as they say, it scans well and the word sounds sort of interesting against the tune.”
As the band gear up for this upcoming tour, Australian Crawl is a larger lineup than in the early days, with a nine-person lineup, featuring members of the original Australian Crawl as well as more recent additions from Reyne’s current band. The upcoming run is intended as a celebration of the band that was, a chance for audiences to come along, enjoy themselves, and celebrate the music with them. This isn’t a tour about a band trying to reclaim the past, but rather a band looking to celebrate and have a good time with the audiences who kept the songs alive. “My memories of the band, there’s lot of driving and lots of laughter. And I hope people come and just enjoy it for that reason. You know, forget your troubles for the hour and a half we’re on stage, there’s no agendas going on, just come along and enjoy this band, they’re a great, great band. There’s nine people on stage, for goodness sake, so it’s a big fat sound, and it’s a great band. You’re going to hear these songs probably better than you’ve ever heard them, to be honest. So pack up your troubles in your old kit bad, and come along and just enjoy this experience.”
Australian Crawl are on tour across New Zealand and Australia in early 2027.
