PERKINS AND RODGERS KICK UP THEIR LEGS
Interview: September 2006
Tex Perkins is in rare form. The frontman for the splendid Beasts Of Bourbon, Cruel Sea, latterly one-half of T’N'T with his mate You Am I’s Tim Rogers, and solo artist in how own right, barely stops laughing for the entire interview. It has been a splendid year, he enthuses, something he knew it would be from the very beginning when the Beasts monstered the Big Day Out. And with the splendid Legs 11 show in the Domain beckoning at which T’N'T will perform with The Sydney Youth Orchestra, and head a fabulous bill that includes Sarah Balsko, Little Birdy, Bob Evans and Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set it could get even better.
Add to that the success of the T’N'T album, My Better Half, its uproarious overseas tour and a new Beasts album in the can which he describes as “a fucking killer” and it isn’t hard to see why the big man is ready to trip the light fantastic.
“There may be a Perkins renaissance going on,” he enthuses. “I’m treating time as precious and making as much hay as I can while the sun shines. I’m on a roll, get on me.”
When he is in this kind of mood he is usually unstoppable and so it proves.

Overseas it was all expats and beer, basically.
“Apart from one show that was a dud , we might have described the rest as an uproarious success. We’ve even been smiling.” This has a lot to do with the fact that they’ve become a bit of a Derek and Clive, Dean and Jerry, kind of combo. Think about it: here you have two big men, two big front men, two big frontmen with big personalities … they aren’t exactly gonna be shrinking violets on stage.
“Oh no, definitely not,” he says. “I think what has been amazing is that laughs have been so constant. The theory is that the laughter battles the hangovers. We both spend a lot of time of time making each other laugh. I can’t remember having any significant hangovers on tour although that was mainly because as we got up we started drinking again.” He rumbles anotehr chuckle down the phone line.
There was the odd bad day - Perkins nominates getting stuck at Chicago’s O’Hare airport - not once but twice - as a lowlight but other than that the US and Europe crumbled in the face of their, err, explosive onslaught. That T’N'T works so well is interesting in itself - two giant buzzin’ flys like this pair could have been a case of too much when it came to getting along onstage. Obviously not so.
“‘Apart from the fact we share a similar sense of humour, it’s just great to play with somebody who’s a great singer/songwriter and rock star and a great frontperson. I’m really enjoying playing second fiddle. The fact we are both lead singers hasn’t caused any problems at all.”
The sense of humour has also made its way into the T’N'T stage setting. When they played with the WA Symphony Orchestra at an outdoor bash in Kings Park in March they had a bar on stage. This began a trend. “Yes, it was something our manager started,” Tex says. “So now our contract includes a line which says something like ‘must have a random stage prop’. We’ve had everything from giant inflatable penguins to a couple of hookahs [I did actually hear that as 'hookers' but he spells it out when I quietly mention The Stranglers once having strippers on stage] and gym equipment.”
When asked who picks the random prop he replies, “We have a very mysterious and creative manager. Basically, he gets us drunk, we say stuff, he makes it happen.. Actually, everything we do happens like that …
“For instance, we said ‘Get us a world tour’, and he did. Everything is done with the dodgiest of intentions. We have absolutely no ambition whatsoever. We do have a lot of belief in what we do though. And I’m not saying we don’t care about or have complete disregard for the highest standards of musical performance. We do. We care a lot.”
That bit is true. Perkins and Rogers always have. Underneath all the smoke and bullshit these two are old rockers at heart, liking nothing better than to get onstage and bang out a classic performance.
And Perkins echoes that a little later in the conversation when he says, “I’m an entertainer, a song and dance man.”
As for Legs 11, expect a big night. “I can’t giveaway what the stage setting will be or exactly what we’re doing, mainly because we haven’t worked it out yet,” he says. “We are doing that soon. We have to because by the time people read this Tim will be on You Am I’s overseas tour for three weeks. I think he gets back the day of Legs 11 so he’ll have just stepped off a 16-hour flight … I can say though that I’m sure there’ll be an orchestra there and we will be playing hits from our back catalogues, all the biggies.”
And it’ll probably be dynamite.