Interview by Bill Burston

Oren Ambarchi's unconventional musical trajectories have lasted well over a decade - from free jazz as a teenager with saxophonist Eddie Bronson, through the '90s with the disconnected-cortex damage rock of Phlegm, and onward into the new century with a swag of releases on labels worldwide. Impervious to the edicts of digital electronica, he continues to utilize an electric guitar and four-track (viva electromagnetism!) - as well as the more upmarket analogue gear at the Big Jesus Burger studios in Sydney - coaxing out challenging and deeply satisfying soundworlds often with no discernable reference to what might spring to mind when one reads "recorded one afternoon to one-track cassette via one guitar" on an LP cover. In Oren's words: "I like limiting myself. I like the idea of just having a few things and seeing what can be done with them."

Bill Burston convenes the modest inaugural meeting of A.N.U.S. (The Australian Noise Users' Society) inside the Jerker house, with a few schooners of absinthe that started to take effect halfway through the interview. The mysterious Cassia and Fistula were present occasionally, whilst Rizilli was absent, sending his apologies.

Oren Ambarchi: We were doing Testicle Candy, which is me on guitar, Robbie Avenaim on drums, Lucas Abela on noise, Martin Ng on noise, and Ray Ahn from the Hard Ons on bass. A band called Curse Ov Dialect were there, and they're like this westie/wog hip-hop band. They're totally fucked up; they're doing an album with Otto Muhl, the Viennese actionist, so that gives you an idea of what sort of hip-hop act they are. They sample Merzbow and Harry Partch, they rap in Macedonian, they're naked, there's food and they're just off their fucking heads! Anyway, we're at the Big Day Out, which is like this big Lollapalooza-type event, you know, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Marilyn Manson. We were doing the last show of the day at the What Is Music? stage. About five minutes before the gig Dave Grohl from Nirvana and the Foo Fighters was backstage, and he knew Ray. He asked Ray if he could sit in with us, so we said sure. MC Sloppy Pop Ya Cunt was there, too. That day the Big Day Out didn't provide the What Is Music? stage a toilet, so all the musicians were pissing in a garbage bag underneath the stage. This huge rock festival, and we had to piss in a garbage bag. You'd be really cramped, hunched over, trying to piss in this garbage bag. It totally stunk. It was a twelve-hour day. It was disgusting! We started playing and it was total chaos, mayhem noise da da da da da! Dave Grohl was bashing away. Before you know it, the guys from Curse Ov Dialect were pulling out pumpkins, pineapples, mangos, potatoes, carrots, you name it. All this rotten food, and they were throwing it everywhere, all over us.
Everyone was taking their clothes off. The whole floor was covered with shit within two minutes. Dave Grohl got hit with a pumpkin in the head. His head was split open, bleeding. But we were all playing, enjoying it. Then MC Sloppy Pop Ya Cunt turned up with the garbage bag full of piss and threw it into the audience. All these Nirvana fans who just wanted to watch Dave Grohl were getting covered with piss. In the middle of the show, which didn't last very long, this guy jumped up on the stage. He looked pretty weird, stood in front of me, and while I'm playing started taking his clothes off. And he was doing all these weird symbols with his hands, all this mystical shit with his hands. He looked quite strange, very disturbing. He got down to his underpants and was running around the stage, not really bothering anyone, and I didn't really think anything of it. You know, just another freak! MC Sloppy Pop Ya Cunt walked up to him as he's screaming into a microphone, grabbed the edge of his underpants, and tore them off in one swoop. Then he stepped back a couple of meters and did the hugest spit into air. Straight up, really, really high. In slow motion, it was flying through the air and this golly landed on the guyÕs cock. Bang! It was fucking crazy.
The gig ended with five wedges of the PA slipping because of all the madness, falling off the stage and smashing. All the wires were tangled. Dave Grohl ran off with his head split open. Then the guy who ran the Big Day Out showed up and started screaming at us, "Look at this, this is thousands of dollar's worth of damage!" And it was thousands of dollars worth of damage!
We basically got banned from the BDO, we were in debt thousands of dollars. The next day, the thirty-first of January, all of us were sitting around, really depressed, thinking, how are we going to come up with thousands of dollars to pay this bill for all this destroyed equipment? The mobile phone rang and it was Dr. Jim from Dr. Jim's Records. He said, "You know who was on stage with you last night?" I go, "Yeah, Dave Grohl." He said, "No not that guy, the other guy. You know, that weird guy. Grab any newspaper and look at the front page." I grabbed two newspapers and there was the guy running onto the tennis courts at the Australian open -- the same guy who jumped on the stage with us, running onto the Australian Open, the same day.
They call him Australia's Serial Pest! He ruined the funeral of Michael Hutchence from INXS. When Australia was trying to qualify for the World Cup soccer, he ran on the pitch and just as they were about to score a goal, walked in front of the goal posts and fucked the whole thing up for Australia. He's like the most hated man in Australia! The Melbourne Cup, which is the biggest horse-racing thing -- he walked in front of the winning horse. He's done everything. He's just so hated!

Bill Burston: I think he got fined for running onto the marathon course last year during the Olympics. They locked him up for the recent election campaign!

His name is Peter Hore. He was very active around this time but they couldn't arrest him, so the news kept doing all these stories him. Dr. Jim said, "You're in debt, aren't you? I'm calling Channel 7." About five minutes later a guy from Channel 7 rang up, asking about footage of Australia's Serial Pest invading the Big Day Out -- because we had videotaped everything. At first I said no, but he kept pestering us. I said, "Look, we do have footage, but it's so outrageous there's no way you could show it on TV -- the Serial Pest looks normal compared to everyone else." I called Ken West from the BDO and apologized about the stage, told him Channel 7 wanted to see our footage of the serial pest at the BDO. He just cracked up and said yeah, yeah, go for it. So we showed them the footage and were thinking there's just no way they're going to use this footage, it's just too fucked up. There were like eight, balding guys in suits watching and it was incredible, the detail they could see. One of them said, "Man, that guy just spat on the other guy's dick!" They saw everything. That night it was on Channel 7. There was a serial killer on after us. We got paid a decent amount and we got out of debt. It was on for weeks.