THE MEANIES are set to release their first new music since 2020 in the form of a new double A side single ‘Zamboni/I Agree’. Out Friday October 11, the new single will be available as a limited-edition vinyl 7” (in five colour variants ) and digitally, just in time before The Meanies head off to tour Japan.
The tour, a co-headliner with Cheersquad label mates Rocket Science, will be the Meanies' third tour of Japan, and their first in 25 years! It will be followed by a couple of local shows in November & December:
Sat 2 Nov at Volta, Ballarat, with Los Chicos (ES)
Sat 14 Dec at the Corner Hotel, Richmond, supporting Superchunk (US)
Another masterpiece from the brain of Link Meanie, ‘Zamboni’ (a vehicle that cleans and smooths the surface of a sheet of ice, for those playing at home – it also rhymes with baloney) is about “the darkest side of pragmatism in politics. Imagine an outrageous, hypothetical situation as a politician where you support and defend a pathologically lying, hate mongering, rapist conman and then justifying it to your children knowing full well that you lack any real conviction.” (Link Meanie)
Flip over to ‘I Agree’... do you have that friend that is an expert when it comes to politics and world issues? Rants at their friends about the atrocities out there, knowing full well that their friends agree, and they may as well just be shouting at the wind? Link says “This is about those people who want to throw the baby out with the bathwater; politically speaking that is. No babies were harmed in the making of this statement.”
Starting out in '88, following on from the late '80s GOD/Bored scene and anticipating the subsequent successes of Spiderbait and Magic Dirt, the Meanies are genuine Melbourne icons and national treasures. Arriving at the same time as grunge, they defied the odds with a pop punk-meets-hardcore sound that preempted what was to come out of the US on labels like Epitaph and Fat Wreck Chords. They became Triple J and Big Day Out faves (they did the BDO in 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1999!) and kings of the all-ages circuit, and they toured their arses off, playing with the likes of Nirvana, The Lemonheads, Redd Kross, Beastie Boys, Pearl Jam and Bad Brains along the way. They toured Europe, the US and Japan and retain an international following. And like their older and uglier brethren The Cosmic Psychos, The Meanies are now enjoying a late career revival, which begun with the release of their first album in 21 years, It's Not Me It's You in late 2015 on Poison City Records. Desperate Measures was released in July 2020.