Great Balls Of Fire

The sound of laughter and clinking glasses comes through loud and clear as Eddie Fury picks up the phone. It's 11am on a Saturday morning in Victoria, and Fury is sitting on a property in country Victoria, surrounded by friends, sipping cocktails and eating pizza, ready to engage full-throttle with his second day straight of partying. On the face of it, very little would appear to have changed for this veteran of the Australian psychobilly scene. “It doesn't seem like 22 years,” Fury confides. “Time flies when you're having fun! We pretty much do what we like at the moment, which is different than what we did in the '90s, touring incessantly and having to do a million and one shows in a year and totally burning ourselves out. I don't really envy people that do 322 gigs in a year. It doesn't leave much time for down time. If I had to do that at this point, in my life I'd be dead! That being said, I don't really think that sort of thing happens that much anymore. The internet's killing it all. People are quite happy being on Facebook and social media having a bitch and a moan. Then they go to gigs, and go, 'how come there's no-one here?' Well, there's no-one here because they're all talking on Facebook and not paying attention to the gig that's happening right in front of them!” he insists.

Ironically Fury, a self-confessed Facebook addict, spends a lot of time on the internet not only updating the Fireballs' Facebook page, but networking and making contacts around the world. Despite feeling that the internet and social media have contributed, in part, to the music industry “fizzling out a long time ago”, Fury does recognise the internet as integral to Fireballs' current career. “The internet made the world a little bit closer. This is how we are getting to tour Finland in April this year. We're going over for one show at a club. This is the perfect example of how good the internet can be. We got that gig from people who heard our stuff in the '90s and wanted us to go over. So, they just contacted us on the internet. They didn't have to go through management or anything. I just got an email, opened it up and went, 'hey guys, d'ya wanna go to Finland?' That wouldn't have happened in the '90s, because we couldn't get to the people that we really wanted to get to. So really the internet is the lesser of two evils. It's great because I can talk to people all over the world and it sucks because people spend so much time on it. I admit, I'm one of them! Although I don't feel the need to update that I'm having a pizza and a Bloody Mary at 11 o'clock in the morning.”

Of course, with the internet comes piracy, and the broader issue of charging for content that most users can now get for free; an issue that hasn't escaped Fury. “Like everything else, there are pros and cons,” Fury qualifies. “If someone in Baghdad wants to download Fireballs and likes it, I think that's great! It has opened the door for a lot of people. Although the kids of today are less prone to media hype. They already know what they like. And a lot of people then go and buy the stuff they're really into. After twenty-two years in the industry I've seen things go from vinyl to CDs to mp3s, and now it's all going back to vinyl. Work that one out!” he ponders.

Fireballs will be playing the following dates:

Thursday 14 February - Surfers Paradise Tavern & Beer Garden, Gold Coast QLD
Saturday 16 February - Civic Hotel, Inglewood, Perth WA
Sunday 17 February - Newport Hotel, Fremantle WA