Tracy Pew - Biography

Biography

Tracy Franklin Pew was born on 19 December 1957 in Australia, he moved with his family to New Zealand in 1959, they returned in May 1964. From 1972 Pew attended Caulfield Grammar School in Melbourne. He lived in Mount Waverley and learnt to play bass guitar from his friend, Chris Walsh. In 1975 Pew joined a rock band, The Boys Next Door, which included his school friends Nick Cave on vocals, Mick Harvey on guitar and Phill Calvert on drums. In May 1978, they provided three tracks for the Suicide Records compilation by various artists, Lethal Weapons, including two tracks each by Teenage Radio Stars and JAB. In December 1978 The Boys Next Door added Rowland S. Howard on guitar and in April 1979, they issued their debut album, Door, Door on Mushroom Records. In October that year they released a shared single, "Scatterbrain" backed with "Early Morning Brain (It's Not Quite the Same as Sobriety)" by alternative rockers, Models. The Boys Next Door and Models were "the first Melbourne bands to rise out of the ashes of that city's hothouse punk/new wave explosion of the late 1970s with a clear vision and wider appeal. While The Birthday Party was hell-bent on kicking down the established parameters of rock music, Models were more clearly pop-oriented". In February 1980, The Boys Next Door renamed themselves The Birthday Party and relocated to London. In November that year they returned to Australia, released their debut album, Prayers on Fire in April 1981, and were back in London by August. Pew wrote a track, "The Plague", for Prayers on Fire but it did not make the cut – it later appeared on Drunk on the Pope's Blood (1991).

In 1980 James Freud from Teenage Radio Stars had also travelled to London, upon his departure he described The Birthday Party as "a bunch of talentless bums and will never amount to anything". When Freud returned to Melbourne, during his band's performance at the Crystal Ballroom, Pew threw dog faeces at him and some landed on his guitar. Freud later joined Models, in his 2002 autobiography, I Am the Voice Left from Drinking : the Models – from the 'Burbs to 'Barbados' and Beyond, Freud remembered the incident. He later explained to the The Sun-Herald, "If a critic comes along and writes something nasty, that's one thing, but to have some idiot bring dog shit in a box to a gig and then stick his hand in it and throw it at you ... it was probably one of the most humiliating experiences of my life". The Birthday Party also played at the Crystal Ballroom, as Ashley Crawford of Melbourne International Film Festival later recalled "he only one who looked part of a more-or-less traditional rock’n’roll band was Tracy Pew, inevitably resplendent in fishnet singlet and ten-gallon Stetson, wielding a bass guitar like an AK47 and known to occasionally stuff his head into the centre of the bass drum as he flailed at his bass guitar".

On 16 February 1982, Pew was imprisoned on charges relating to driving under the influence of alcohol and a series of accumulated fines, he was sentenced to ten weeks in HM Prison Won Wron, a minimum security prison farm near Yarram. During Pew's stretch at Won Wron, he was temporarily replaced in the band by Chris Walsh (The Moodists) for the band's subsequent Melbourne shows, and Barry Adamson (Magazine) and Harry Howard (Rowland's brother) for their UK shows. Pew returned to the band after his release with a gig in Hammersmith on 26 May 1982. In August the group relocated to Berlin. According to rock music historian, Ian McFarlane, "Rivalries within the group had intensified, and the prodigious consumption of drugs and alcohol by various members began to undermine any sense of unity. Matters came to a head when Harvey refused to undertake a tour of Australia at the end of May 1983". Gerald Houghton found the group "was a jolly adventure in drugs, alcohol, and more drugs and even more alcohol. Here if you want them are the king-size fuck-ups of guitarist Roland S. Howard, Cave and particularly leather-trousered bassist Tracy Pew. Stories are rampant about the congenial, erudite Pew's excesses, of OD-ing offstage and collapsing on".

The Birthday Party played their last gig on 9 June 1983, although early in 1984 Pew briefly played bass guitar for Nick Cave – Man or Myth?, the fore-runner of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, on a live tour. Pew returned to Melbourne to study literature and philosophy at Monash University. In mid-1984 singer-songwriter, Chris Bailey, asked Pew to join a touring line-up of his punk band, The Saints, alongside Chris Burnham on guitar and Ian Shedden on drums. Former The Saints' member, Ed Kuepper, agreed to return and toured with the band, replacing Pew on bass guitar, but left after several weeks due to old conflicts resurfacing. Pew contributed to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' cover versions album, Kicking Against the Pricks (August 1986), and performed on Lydia Lunch's concept album Honeymoon in Red (1987).

During his musical career, Pew was credited with bass guitar, double bass, wind, and clarinet. Pew received songwriting credits for "She's Hit" on Junkyard (May 1982), "Sonny's Burning" on The Bad Seed (October 1982) and "Swampland" on Mutiny (1983).