Boys Next Door/Birthday Party

The Birthday Party are recognised as one of the most influential and creative bands Australia has produced, launching not only the career of internationally renowned singer/songwriter Nick Cave but those of respected musicians/songwriters Mick Harvey and Rowland Howard.

Nick grew up in the Victorian country towns Warracknabeal and Wangaratta, during which time he spent five years in the church choirs and going to church three times a week. His parents were educationalists and his English teacher father read Nick ‘Lolita’ as a bedtime story. Between ‘Lolita’, the Bible stories and the rock and roll to come, Nick Cave was developing a potent creative outlook.

After a couple of unseemly incidents at the Wangaratta High School his parents were working at, Nick was bundled off to the city to attend and board at the exclusive Caulfield Grammer School. There The Boys Next Door started out in 1973 out as a band assembled by a bunch of arty students not at all attracted to joining sports teams. They played school dances, barbecues and parties, Nick usually picking a name on the spot if they were asked for one. The Boys Next Door was the name that stuck. They didn’t give their first real performance until they left school in 1977. By then the sixties rock/r&b, Lou Reed and Alice Cooper they’d been attracted to initially made way for punk rock, but specifically Australia’s own “version” The Saints and Radio Birdman.

The International punk brand (Sex Pistols, Clash) was creating music headlines and Melbourne’s Mushroom Records decided to get into the action by casting a net around for likely suspects for a compilation album. Not to tarnish its own reputation Mushroom gave the project its own label name, Suicide Records. Skyhooks’ Greg Macainsh recorded The Boys Next Door’s tracks. They were the only group on ‘Lethal Weapons’ other record companies were looking at. Along with the Teenage Radio Stars (Models-to-be) The Boys Next Door were also the only ‘Lethal Weapons’ act to go on the bigger things.

After recording the six songs for their first album at one studio, they were unhappy with the results and recorded the second side six months later at a different studio with producer Tony Cohen, by then having added guitarist Rowland Howard. Rowland brought with him the classic ‘Shivers’. After the release of ‘Door Door’ on Mushroom, The Boys Next Door shifted to the independent Missing Links Records for 1979’s mini-album ‘Hee Haw’ and took on the management of Missing Links’ owner Keith Glass (ex Cam Pact). Missing Links’ international contacts as a record importer and distributor as well as boutique recording label enabled the group to begin planning an international career. On the eve of their departure to England they also decided to change their name, and did it with the release of a single which acknowledged the name change ‘Happy Birthday’. Copies were given away at the group’s farewell performance at Melbourne’s Crystal Ballroom on February 16, 1980.

Fad-ridden English music had moved on to electro-pop, giving Birthday Party a chance to offer an intelligent but aggressive contribution to the post-script of the punk era. They returned to Australia in November 1980. They were never a group who wanted to be loved by their audience, and they were less so now. It was during this period of recklessness in the face of an international future that The Birthday Party’s reputation as a live act was forged. With Tony Cohen producing again they also spent time to record a full length album, ‘Prayers On Fire’ to critical acclaim both at home and in England where they were helping give rise to the goth movement. The Birthday Party was bouncing back and forth between Australia and England. A third album ‘Junkyard’ appeared in mid-82.

The Birthday party then relocated to Berlin, to be closer to it physically, but to keep from being consumed by the English music scene, and in search of a new direction. They also found a lot of distractions, cultural and otherwise. The band returned to Australia and played its final gig in Melbourne on June 9, 1983, leaving Nick Cave and Mick Harvey to continue together with the Bad Seeds after a brief moment as Nick Cave and The Cavemen.