Aaah those Ladyboyz, is there anything they can’t do??
Hi, my name’s Tex Perkins and I was huge during the early 90’s (a golden period for scumbag indi rockers). Having endured a 25 year career in the music biz, I’ve done and seen it all.
So here we are at the beginning of the new century and the record industry is on its knees, ravaged by years of careless self indulgent big spending and a complete inability to understand the potential of the new technologies, poor fools. It was within this context that I began work on my last contracted recording for Universal music. All was going well, and I was 3/4 way through the writing and recording of this ALL original album, when I was called in for a meeting with the biggest heads of the company. They showed me the figures, and they were very grim indeed. If things continued to slide, George Ash, the head of the company may have had to sell his private helicopter! They then began to openly beg me, that’s right, BEG me to help save the company and perhaps the entire record business.
It was then we came upon THE IDEA: I would record an album of classic cover versions, songs so good, so irresistible, so well known, so…classic, that the general public would have no choice but to hunt down, buy and love a bunch of songs that they can hear on Gold fm pretty much every day of the week anyway….. hmmm….
We then decided we’d need something a little extra….. I know! Duets with stars!... how about the most popular male artist of the last 30 years? “FARNSEY!! Fuck yeah!” No not him, the other one! “BARNSEY!! Really?? Can we get him?” “Personal friend of mine” I said. “Wow, you really are the shit Tex” they all said. (A term they assured me all the kids were using for something that was really quite good.) “How about Nic Cester of million sellers Jet? The Queen of indie pop, Adalita of Magic dirt? and Suze De Marchi of 90’s hit machine The Baby Animals?”
The meeting then erupted into unbridled celebrations; champagne was opened, oral sex was offered, but for me it was time to get to work. The classics as I saw them were written and recorded by the greats: Toto, Dr Hook, Eric Carmen, Hall and Oates. You know, “The Greats” – timeless material that the whole world loves, and would have no problem loving again.
What I really needed now were players with the courage to tackle this mighty material, players with world class talent, players with the kind of chops that would not only equal the originals, but better them! My search was fruitless, so I got a bunch of my mates (Charlie Owen, James Cruickshank, Joel Silbersher, Pat Bourke and Gus Agars) and then began months of backbreaking studio work. I drove my men hard and cracked the whip often, no effort was spared in our quest for the perfect take. Tempers flared, relationships were destroyed, lives left in ruins – all for the sake of this magnificent recording! But it was worth it, for now you hold in your hand an album full of number ones and number twos.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you THE LADYBOYZ!!
