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Excerpted from Bananafish #15

Ant-honey is the 2001 incarnation of the vocalist for Volvox, an Australian rock'n'roll organism that existed between 1991 and '96, when he was known by the name Lester Vat. Ant-honey has always been an aurally unusual musician. He is visually striking as well, partly due to a brain injury he suffered in his youth, which is plain to anyone who sees him, but probably not to someone just hearing a recording. His injury causes everyday movements like walking and talking to be jerky and slightly violent. Verbal and written communication can be difficult. Ant-honey suffers no damage to cognition, but strangers sometimes guess that he does, or that he is drunk. Ant-honey does not try to hide his disability, and has participated in support groups. His unusual, sometimes frightening movements and vocalizations are an unavoidable and confronting feature of his life and performances.

A typical Volvox show saw instrumentalists Dave Taskas (aka Reg Egg) and Glenn Norman (aka Reg Egg) propped up onstage while Lester (aka Reg Egg) lurched about the venue, interacting with the audience in odd ways, including bellowing and licking. Guest musicians often joined them; instruments included manipulated tapes, synths, bass, bouzouki, and mechanical devices. Christine Thirkell (aka Regina Egg) could be found behind the mixing console, until she simply couldn't take it any more.

Before Volvox, Ant-honey lived in Sydney and performed in a number of ensembles including The Good Chamber and King Carbon and the Enemies of Algebra. Volvox recorded a lot of material, but released only a couple cassettes, and contributed to several compilations, including The Rebirth of Fool, Eet-Air and Spill. Following the split-up of Volvox he has continued to live in Melbourne and perform under the names Lester Vat and Transparent Skin. He recently appeared at the 2001 What Is Music? festival.

In addition to music, Ant-honey has published writing and drawings for several years. These have a similar feel to his musical output, and describe wildlife in alien though familiar settings, with jumpy prose and spiky illustrations. In the early '90s Germ, The Return of Doug Dog, and others were published by Dave Metcalfe, a printer and Melbourne musician, as small, unbound, four-page comics. They were distributed free of charge through local record shops, where they were quickly snapped up. Eventually, Ant-honey and Metcalfe collated the comics into a book, which they published in 1996 under the name Thumb. Since then Ant-honey has continued to write and draw, and has since published his first full-length novel, Betrayed by the Senses. Another book has just been completed. Ant-honey is also a member of Weave Movement Theatre.

Gregg Wadley: I saw Volvox play at the Spill-1 launch, up at the Empress.

Ant-Honey: The egg one.

Gregg: Why do you say that?

Ant-Honey: I wore the contents of some eggs against my forehead.

Gregg: I'd forgotten that. You did one song where no one made any sound at all--

Ant-Honey: It was not a song.

Gregg: You just sort of stood there andÉ

Ant-Honey: We swayed. That was how we directed the orgone within ourselves and arose. It was very good to have done that before playing; it allowed for goodness. It focused us. Things and moods were kinder. We may have to do that again.

Gregg: You did a thing in April 1995 that was really good.

Ant-Honey: Was it? I didn't think it was.

Gregg: You had that mechanical device going up and down.

Ant-Honey: That was crushing the Foodfoot.

Glenn Norman: Foodfoot got squashed in the compressor.

Ant-Honey: We were trying to destroy Foodfoot but it wouldn't get destroyed. It bounded back after we pressed it down on Foodfoot. It was a revolting furry thing, a toy that I got from an op-shop in Coburg.

Christine Thirkell: That was at the Punters Club and no one was on-stage except Foodfoot and Lester.

Glenn: And he spent most of his time among the audience.

Christine: Biting their ankles.

Glenn: Yes, and me and Dave sat at the mixing desk firing in the sound. There was that good one at the Hard Times Club, where ever that was, St. Kilda or somewhere. They thought that were getting a disco group.

Glenn: Trevor was breathing fire toward the audience and at the band.

Christine: And didn't we almost get kicked out that night? There was a bit of an altercation, "You must not do this" and "You must not be doing that. . . "

Glenn: I remember Lester had piles of cardboard tubes and was handing them out to people. Lester was playing them, people in the audience were throwing them about and I think we were really loud. The club had no idea what they were getting themselves in for when they hired us.

Christine: And you certainly gave it to them. The last time I ever mixed you had your amps louder then the PA. The audience was screaming for me to do something, and I was screaming at you to turn your amps down, and all you were saying was "I can't hear what I'm doing."

Glenn: That was good. What a bunch of bullshit, though.

Christine: I pretty much gave it up after that. I figured, "Why not let the band take control? Why bother mixing this lot?"