THE NINETIES was a vibrant time for Australian live music. Despite the slow eradication of venues and build-up of pokie-dominated spaces where bands had ruled in the seventies and eighties, city pubs and clubs were still healthy breeding grounds for energetic and exciting rock bands of all stripes.
One of those bands was Nitocris, who stuck out from the crowd in more ways than one. An all-female band of teenagers playing brash heavy rock that touched base with classic punk and metal, they were stirring up pits in pubs when they were still too young to drink in them and played the Sydney Big Day Out four months before their debut EP was even released.
A popular drawcard for the remainder of the decade, Nitocris went on to share stages with acts like The Cult, Deep Purple, The Pursuit of Happiness, The Screaming Jets and The Angels, toured nationally with the Big Day Out in 2001, were nominated for an ARIA the same year – and that November at the Newtown Festival in Sydney, in torrential conditions that ultimately cut their set short, the band played for the last time. There was no major announcement. They just decided to do other things with their lives.
Twenty five years later and a multitude of musical projects behind them, the members of Nitocris are reuniting in Sydney in October for the first time since a one-off show in 2009. This one was also meant to be a one-off thing, but it seems Nitocris underestimated how much they had been missed.
“It sold out within twenty hours,” says drummer Andi Dyson. She’s just finished doing social media promo for a showcase at local venue Link and Pin featuring her latest band Sand Viper, husband Kane’s group Spurs for Jesus and The Sugar Beats, a trio that includes former Nitocris members Morgana Ancone and Sara Graye. It’s just one thing keeping her busy.
“I just keep adding things for myself to do,” she says. “I’m going to do this band now, now I’m going to do this project. I just have to curb it a little bit… or just delay it, which is what I’ve ended up doing. The Nitocris show is just so overwhelming. It’s a different beast to anything we would normally do.”
It certainly took on a life on its own. Not even the band figured it would do so well, so quickly. Less than a day after they announced their return – at Sydney’s Marrickville Bowlo on October 3 – the full house sign went up.
“”We were pretty shattered about how quickly it sold out before people had a chance to get in there,” Dyson admits. “We were really shocked. People just come out of the woodwork. I was getting harassed by people at the gym, and I don’t live in Sydney anymore. I was getting harassed by people who missed out on tickets and they were getting really mad at me! I was like, ‘It’s not my fault!’ It’s really funny.”
The band sprang into action and managed to nail down a second show for the 17th at the Crowbar: “We worked quite hard to get that second show going and making that work. To this day I still don’t know how we managed to get a second date, but we just said, ‘Let’s do it, we’ll make it work’.”
That same philosophy is how the reunion came to be. The band’s members – Dyson, Ancone, Graye and guitarists Jess Finlayson and Kirra Brown – have remained firm friends and most of them have continued to work together in various musical projects since Nitocris ended. They were just never able to find a moment to resurrect their first band.
“We’ve talked about it several times and there’s always somebody who says ‘I can’t because of this, I can’t because of that’. Most of us have got our own musical projects and very busy lives with families and real jobs and stuff! Because we’re adults now… kind of.” She pauses. “I still don’t feel like one. Anyway – it just never really worked out.”
Early this year, the pieces seemed to fall into place at last and Nitocris began foreshadowing some big news through their socials. Dyson is a bit vague on exactly how the whole thing got finalised though.
“I can’t remember,” she says. “I think someone… maybe Jessie was wrapping up the Raising Ravens project she’s been working on for years and just went, ‘I think I can do this. Who’s in?’ And for once, I couldn’t believe it, but we all managed. It took a while to find a date. It took forever to get that first date locked in. And we got it and then it was like, ‘We’re actually doing this!’”
With members in Sydney, Wollongong, the Central Coast and southern Queensland these days, getting together even to rehearse hasn’t been easy, although since this interview was done they have managed to jam.
“We’ve got a weekend coming up in a couple of weeks and they’re all coming up to me,” the drummer says, “which I’m really happy about. We’ve got a studio up here that me and my band and Kane’s band all rehearse in. We’re set up, so they’ll all come up here for the weekend and we’ll just go hard! Then we’ll rehearse again before the gig, too.”
The other thing that sealed the deal is the re-release of their 2000 self-titled album, a gloriously green swirl twin-vinyl issue* that also includes a track from most of their other releases: 94’s Ten Stories Down EP and album Screaming Dolorous, and the subsequent EPs Hyperland and Butter.
“Behind the scenes – and I think that was part of the drive, as well – was working with the Farmer And The Owl guys on the LP. That had been going on in the background for about a year, [trying to get] the masters and getting that done. If we’re going to put the album out on vinyl, let’s do a gig as well. So it was just a perfect storm. It’s a good time to play.”
Since Nitocris ended in 2001, four of them have continued to play in a long string of other musical projects including Morgana and the Monstars, Boxing With Ghosts, the Fyreflies, Cousin Betty, Fangin’ Felines, Raising Ravens, Sand Viper and The Sugar Beats, among others. Guitarist Kirra Brown headed in a different musical direction.
“She’s a child psychologist who’s been working with these young kids in the school system,” says Dyson, “and one of the things she introduced was a band. So she’s been playing with these young guys and helping to build their self-esteem and their knowledge, and that band [The Spunkers] will be opening for us at the Marrickville Bowlo gig. She’s been working in music, but in a different capacity. Less in performance and more as a tool for learning and outreach.”
Using her powers for good, then.
“A lot of musicians I know do that now. They work in aged care, disability care, they go into the prison system and they go and teach music therapy and I think it’s really interesting that you can use your skills that way. The power of music, man.”
Ironic, considering they only started a band in the first place because they failed music class in high school. Somehow, four 14 year olds who couldn’t play their instruments got together with an 18 year old singer and became one of Sydney’s most popular live bands, forming a lifelong bond in the process. The line-up never changed, and they still support (and play in) each other’s bands.
“I was saying to somebody the other day who asked us how long we had been together… It was ten years – less than ten years – but because of the bond we had and what we went through, and also because of the age we were at when we went through it all – it was very formative years – it felt like we were together for way longer than that. We’ve all remained friends since, and […] it’s more like family than friendship. We are like sisters. We fight like sisters and we love each other, and we can be honest with each other more than we can be with a lot of other people in our lives.”
When they return to the stage in October, for the first time since 2009, Nitocris don’t really expect to be slick. Andi Dyson reckons they’ll be a much more chaotic proposition. But if you were a fan, you’d already know this.
“[Nitocris] was always about having a good time and playing our music together, and that’s what this gig’s going to be about too. I go to gigs and I watch how slick people are and how professional they are and I think, ‘I don’t think we’re going to be like that’. I think it will be a lot more hectic! But that will be the joy of it. Having a really good time on stage and playing music and connecting with each other and the audience. I think that’s going to be the beauty. You won’t get this perfectly performed, slick, production. You’re going to get us and our usual chaos.”
*Now sold out: Black vinyl editions are available here.
NITOCRIS 25th YEAR REUNION
OCTOBER 2: Marrickville Bowling Club, Sydney (+ Nunchukka Superfly + The Spunkers) – SOLD OUT
OCTOBER 17: Crowbar, Sydney (+ Private Wives + LauraPanic)
