VOLT 2023: A Volition Archive

VOLT 2023: So tell me about how Falling Joys started.

Suzie Higgie: My first band was called Get Set Go, and it was with Nic Dalton, my sister (Jennifer) on keyboards, and Stevie Plunder from The Plunderers. We thought we were The Velvet Underground, pretty much, and we had a lot of fun writing songs… you know, we’d go down to the park… there was a tunnel in Commonwealth Park in Canberra, and it had power. It was quite isolated, so we’d go down there and have the best fun and write stuff, a lot of stuff. I’m still thinking about putting out a Get Set Go album actually, you know in reference to Stevie too… so Nick and I have been talking about that.

Anyway, we broke up, Jenny went off to art school and everyone did other things.

I was working at the ABC, I did a communications degree, and I worked in TV. It was funny, when I got my communications degree I went for this job, and Stuart, the guitarist in the Falling Joys, he was … this is how long ago it was… he was in TAFE in video, like “Roll tape!” in the days of tape. He said, “Oh Suzie, there’s a job going at the ABC in Canberra doing vision mixing”, and I thought with my fancy-pants communications degree, no problem. I got the job, but I got it because I could play piano a little bit… they didn’t even talk to me about my degree. I’m good with my hands! (laughs) So I got that job.

So, I kind of knew Stuie a little bit, and so he and I became really great friends. But yeah, as I say, it was in the days of roll tape and it was just so long ago. I mean we were doing things like Beyond 2000, and all these kids’ shows, Mister Squiggle at times, which was hilarious. We did the news every night…it was a wonderful job though.

So Stuie and I formed a band, at that time with a guy called Ken… Ken Merrily, who now lives in Darwin. We were a three piece… we did a lot of supports at the Uni Bar, which no longer exists. There was actually a great segment on The Noise on SBS. We also did…who was that comedian on the ABC? You don’t see him anymore… with the glasses?

VOLT 2023: Andrew Denton?

Suzie: Yeah! We did his show as well. It’s really interesting just looking back at that footage.

So we were a three piece… I know that I came up with the name…I suppose I liked the negative/positive thing… Falling Joys. And I think a lot of our music does that too, like ending or beginning, you know, just in material. There’s a mixture of elements that are in play. So I just liked the sound of it, I don’t really remember what else we thought of it. So we were Falling Joys, three piece, did a few recordings then… I can’t recall… Pete and Pat… I knew the Hayes brothers; I used to go out with Bernie Hayes. I knew the Hayes family very well. Bernie Hayes was the brother of Stevie Plunder. They’re all musicians, those boys. There’s Justin as well, and Peter. They’re all incredible musicians. And the idea… Pete and Pat came to the band and said, “We’d like to be your new rhythm section.” I think things were getting a bit tricky with Ken, and he went off to be a lawyer.

So, we joined forces. After we’d moved to Sydney we both left the ABC…we moved to Sydney in the late 80s, probably about ’88. Yeah, and then just started recording, particularly at Electric Avenue… Phil Punch… in fact I was talking to the guys last night, telling them that I was talking to you today, and if there was anything else… you know they’re still thinking about stuff…and Pat Hayes, the bass player in the Joys … his daughters are in bands too … and I said, “Do you know what’s happened to Phil Punch?”, and he said one of his daughters recently, like a couple of weeks ago, did a recording there and it was going to be the last recording at Electric Avenue and then they were closing their doors.

VOLT 2023: Wow! End of an era!

Suzie: Yeah, end of an era. So we did a lot of recordings with Phil. “”Omega” was pretty much our first release, which had “Shelter” on it. It came out on vinyl as well. I think that song actually launched us, “Shelter”. And then we did “Wish List” with (producer) Adrian Bolland. It’s funny when people talk to me about that album too… I mean, I love that album.

As you’re aware, when recording albums they can be quite boring. There’s all this downtime, particularly putting down drums and all that kind of stuff. So, an indication of the period too… I became completely addicted to Tetris.

VOLT 2023: Hahaha!

Suzie: I literally did! Sometimes the guys would go, “Suze! Can you come and do the vocal please?” and I’d go, “Yeaaahh… hang on! Critical moment!” (laughs)

I’d walk around Sydney thinking, “That building would fit really well!”

In fact, when we toured “Wish List” in the States – we did an incredible tour, we literally did the circumference, starting in Vancouver right around America and all that – you could play Tetris in bars, and you could compete. Every so often we’d have bands that were playing with us I’d go, “Hey, do ya wanna go have a… (laughs)” The bus would be waiting – we had this huge Winnebago, and after the gig we’d take the drinks rider and jump on the bus – and I’d be like, “But guys, there’s a competition” (laughs).

And thinking of that too, Twin Peaks was really the soundtrack of travelling in America. We would get back on board and it would be the next Twin Peaks.

We went through a Canadian label called Nettwerk who produced a lot of our stuff too. And that was the thing with Volition, they had lots of networks I suppose, with putting out stuff. And also I.R.S., I think, in the States, was another label.

There was a Canadian band and if you can get your hands on any of their stuff, it’s amazing. They’re called Consolidated.

VOLT 2023: I know Consolidated! I haven’t got any of their stuff, but I used to play them on radio back in the day.

Suzie: Ohhh, so powerful where they involved the audience and this kind of thing. But hilariously, Nettwerk had a batch of records that went out labelled with Falling Joys but it was Consolidated…

VOLT 2023: Oh no! (laughs)

Suzie: …And Consolidated was Falling Joys’ music. Like chalk and cheese! (laughs)

And then “Wish List” really took off. We toured extensively. Honestly I think in the early nineties, ninety-one, ninety-two… we were doing three shows a week. It was full on. Touring, touring, touring.

But then doing “Psychohum” in London, Jessica Corcoran [producer] I think was an affiliate with Pat Collier who did The Wonder Stuff. And I think with Andrew [Penhallow] and the English connection too I think he could see that potential you know, with a different producer. Which was interesting. I don’t know how expensive it was, but it was also just a good PR idea too, to go to London and record.

Jessica Corcoran was a complete dynamo, she was like twenty-one, really interesting. Working with a young engineer. She was great fun.

I think “Psychohum” actually is very underrated.

VOLT 2023: It’s a great album! I actually received my copy in the mail a week and a half ago. Volition stuff is getting really hard to find through any avenue locally. So I bought “Psychohum” and Single Gun Theory’s “Flow, River Of My Soul” on CD both from Denmark on Discogs. But please, go on.

Suzie: It was really great fun. You know, renting a place in Valham, I think. in South London. In fact, Ratcat had just been there too. They were doing stuff over there, so we’d see a lot of Ratcat. But you know, Jessica was great. I had a lot of fun writing that album and experimenting too.

Things like “Fortune Teller”. In fact with the track “Fortune Teller”, the studio that we were recording in, get this, was owned by Gary Glitter.

VOLT 2023: Ohhhh…god…

Suzie: I know. And, of course we didn’t know then what we know now. Noddy, the keyboard player, he dropped in to say hello. And he plays on “Fortune Teller”.

But you know… that was really great fun recording that [album]. A lot of it was sort of written on the run as well. Yeah. Pat Collier was interesting too. He just did a couple of songs. I don’t know if he was worth it. He was probably the most expensive element, but he kind of flew in like Doctor Who or something. Very kind of, flamboyant. He literally had these things, these things that he plugged in, you know.  Machines. You know they literally looked like they were from Doctor Who… huge knobs on them. And I was like, maybe there was nothing in them!  Maybe it was just a complete facade, I don’t know. But yeah, it’s really interesting working with well-known people and all that kind of stuff because most of the songs too, I demo and I normally did most of my demos on four track.

VOLT 2023: Yeah?

Suzie: Just to give the guys a sense of the songs. And, you know, they didn’t have to, obviously, we were good enough friends that they could say, you know, that’s crap. Or that’s okay. We’ll try that one. And in fact, my latest release is called “4 Track Mind”.

And it’s all those four-tracks that weren’t covered by the Joys. But in this instance, for example, there was one song, and I can’t think of what it was … but I love the Casio,  you know that meek little Casio and it’s got five different drum sounds to it, but that’s all I need.

VOLT 2023: Nice.

Suzie: Yeah, that’s all I need. And then it’s got your really tacky kind of great keyboardy sounds, like trumpet. You know, anything like a trumpet. But it works for some things. Yeah. And on one of those tracks the keyboard featured and stuff. And so there was Pat Collier replicating the song, but with the Joys, obviously.

But then at the end of the day, it came down to “Susie, how did you get that sound?” You know, that keyboard sound, and I pull out my Casio. “Suzie, can you do that?” It’s so funny.

That happened quite a bit, actually, in the history of the Falling Joys recording. But Psycho Hum was great fun.

VOLT 2023: So how did you come to be signed to Volition?

Suzie: I mean, as Pat pointed out too, with the styles of music that predominantly Volition were putting out, we were really different. We were a rock band. So it was kind of interesting that (Andrew Penhallow) took us on. I can’t remember that first conversation or how we hooked up with him. Smash, our manager at the time, probably would’ve organised that first union, I imagine.  It was so much fun visiting the Volition offices that were in Surry Hills. I think it was Surry Hills there just off William Street.

It was just such a lovely atmosphere visiting, you know, it was a really, really small setup. And Andrew was just so much fun, you know, he had a great sense of humour. ‘Suuuze! How ya goin’ Suuuze?’ Loved his footy and all that. Yeah, we just loved kind of popping in and just hanging out.

VOLT 2023: I wanted to ask as well, you guys were an indie rock band who were on this label that was ninety-eight percent dance music, rave, electronic…And the only other sort of bands I guess that were on Volition that were rock would have been Swordfish, Ups And Downs-slash-Big Heavy Stuff for a little while there.

Suzie: Yeah, that just sort of came after us too.

 VOLT 2023: When it came to the electronic and dance stuff you had Robert Racic and Kathy Naunton, you know, producing and engineering and mastering and all of that, but you guys were a different entity in that sort of sense. So how much was creative control entirely up to you guys? 

Suzie: Well, I was just thinking as you were speaking, I mean having said that we were a rock band, we did do a lot of different stuff. For example, “Amen”, which Boxcar did several renditions of. So we were kind of open to that. So that was kind of an interesting sort of marriage. So we were sort of open to that and with that kind of stuff we were becoming slightly more creative.

But I suppose we were sort of siloed in, you know. Everyone at Volition… like we never really saw anybody. When you dropped in, you didn’t really see… it wasn’t like a hub of everyone dropping in. So we weren’t even aware of a lot of the acts on Volition really.

 VOLT 2023: And you were sort of in a different community, in a sense, because you were a rock band as opposed to the…

Suzie: Yeah.

VOLT 2023: …because I know a lot of the electronic acts were all really quite tight knit. Plus they were sharing gear, as in keyboards, and all that sort of thing. So that’s sort of why I asked that question. I was interested in where you guys kind of sat amongst all of that.

Suzie:  But I don’t know where it kind of all I mean…We did “Aerial” which is terrific and we went and took everything down with Paul McKercher to Kangaroo Valley and recorded “Aerial” there. And yeah, that was a wonderful experience. Apart from that there’s “Universal Mind” (VOLTCD 103, and EP released in June 1995, and the last Falling Joys release on Volition) too… a lot of kind of different releases.

I think there was a feeling though, which was probably unfair, that just things felt like we weren’t getting enough kind of international exposure… and that’s very Australian too… Like, it’s so hard to be an Australian act and really, you know, to make it. Yeah, you know, we did tour America. In hindsight, we probably should have toured Europe. Just looking at my kind of my APRA (Australian Performing Rights Association, pays artists royalties) stuff it’s funny. Like, Brazil likes the Falling Joys.

VOLT 2023: Yeah? Oh wow!

Suzie: You know, there’s odd little countries and it’s just really interesting to see what appeals. But I don’t know. I think we were just frustrated that  it wasn’t going further and I think…but they were a small label and you know, Andrew was passionate and as lovely as he was, I just don’t think had the kind of clout. Or for whatever reason. Why don’t bands get huge? But yeah he was… he was just always great fun. And his enthusiasm, you know, his energy. He was always endearing and we were all very good friends.

VOLT 2023: Yeah, that’s the sort of impression I get from everyone that, you know, that I’ve had a chat with or whenever I’ve mentioned him. I’ve got a page at the website which at this stage is kind of the Andrew and Volition story. So I’m just sort of going to continue to add little dedications to him there, comments from people and whatever. So just as a kind of memorial thing as well, because yeah, I mean, I think had I known him, we would have got along pretty well.

Suzie: Oh, you would have for sure!

[This interview was conducted via Zoom]