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Source: Goldmine Magazine (Iola, WI, USA)
Issue: 211, Volume 14, No.18
Date: Aug, 1988
Subject: Biography - The Church
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THE CHURCH
REMOTE LUXURY
BY Michael Heatley

If AC/DC lays claim to being Australia's top international hard- rock band, the Church represents the continent's softer pop side. The group was formed in Sydney in 1980 by British- born singer- songwriter Steve Kilbey, who hailed from Canberra, and guitarist Peter Koppes. Their influences were predominantly British glam-rock (T.Rex, Cockney Rebel) and American folk- rock (Dylan, Big Star and, especially, the 12- string guitar of the Byrds). They played a few club dates with drummer Nick Ward before Marty Willson-Piper appeared from England to pick up lead guitar.

The Church's first Parlophone single, "She Never Said," failed to sell, but the second, "The Unguarded Moment," remains their most requested track. A combination of electric 12- string guitars and typically obscure lyrics from Kilbey and occasional co-writer-cum- backing vocalist Michele Parker, it reached the Australian Top 10 and made their name.

Boosted by the hit single, the Church's first album, Of Skins And Hearts, went gold Down Under in 1981 before personality clashes saw drummer Ward replaced by Richard Ploog; the lineup remained constant ever since. Meanwhile, the band put out a double single, "Too Fast For You," three tracks of which replaced others on the U.S. version of the Capital LP titled simply The Church. England got a less modified version under the same title with just one track change and the new line-up on the cover.

The album employed EMI A&R man Chris Gilbey. who'd spotted the band, as producer and Bob Clearmountain as mixer. (Clearmountain's sure touch later helped Springsteen and Huey Lewis onto the radio.) Clearmountain co-produced 1982's The Blurred Crusade, which is still regarded by many as the Church's most complete album. The single "Almost With You" was an Australian hit.

The group then took on side projects: Kilbey wrote a near-hit for Ignatius Jones (former frontman of Jimmy and the Boys), whose "Like A Ghost" proved popular in the U.S. gay dance clubs in 1982, and played along-side Willson-Piper with James Griffin and the Subterraneans. Ploog played drums with the saints and others, and Koppes and his wife recorded as Melody. More seriously, the group's future seemed in the balance and they were in danger of losing their record contract: the 1982 sing songs EP was supposed to prove they still had commercial potential. Four self composed "hit singles" were added to a cover of Paul Simon's "I Am A Rock" for a hard- to- find record which is much prized by fans.

As if uncaring about their record sales, the group went back underground in early 1983 with the densely layered sound of Seance. The following year saw them turn their backs on albums altogether in favor of two EPs - Remote Luxury and Persia - only to find Warner Brothers sticking them together as the Remote Luxury album after signing the group in the United States as part of the new guitar movement and finding they had no new long- playing product to promote. College radio took up their cause, and a U.S. tour supporting Echo and the Bunnymen honed their stage act to a hitherto undreamed- of tightness, though they lost some of their subtlety in the process.

The groups progress in Europe was not helped by being signed to a small French label, Carrere, so big things were expected from 1986's Heyday when it found U.K. release on EMI (though still on Warners in the United States). It was the first album to feature lyrics in the packaging, and in an unusual departure, most of the music was band- credited rather than to Kilbey alone. The result, Kilbey claimed, was "the loosest, warmest album we could make in a week or two of spontaneous creativity." Surprisingly, Willson-Piper (who lives in Sweden) left during the band's promotional tour spell in London and auditions were announced for a replacement, but he returned to the fold just as quickly as he had let it.

Despite the differing albums, double singles and 12- inchers, the group's rarest recording is probably a flexidisc they gave to British fanzine Bucketfull Of Brains in 1986 entitled "Warm Spell."

As the group took another sabbatical during 1987, Steve Kilbey had a chance to get some of his more personal songs out of his system. He'd already released a solo single, "Asphalt Eden," and followed it with Unearthed, released in the United States on the independent Enigma label in the summer of 1987. It gained appreciative reviews if not platinum sales. Koppes cut a mini-album, When Reason Forbids, and a full- length LP, Manchild & Myth, for the Australian Session label, while Willson-Piper recorded his own long-player, In Reflection. More recently, he released a new solo album, Art Attack.

When the Church came back with this year's U.S. chart album Starfish, it was on another new label, Arista, and with new co-producers in Greg Landanyi and Waddy Wachtel. Another American, Greg Kuehn, guested on keyboards, as he had on several previous occasions. As in their stage act, guitarists Koppes and Willson-Piper were allowed a song apiece on which to show their vocal and songwriting talents, but Kilbey still dominated in a cool yet very much more commercial sound exemplified by their first U.S. hit single, "Milky Way."

Like R.E.M., the Church invites comparison with groups of yesteryear in their use of identifiable building blocks of sound. Now in their eighth year of development, they can claim to have made their own distinctive mark - and finally have the commercial recognition to go with it.

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