Bones Hillman - Give It A Whirl Interview

2023

Twenty-three full-length, in-depth interviews recorded for landmark music documentary series Give It A Whirl. Packed with never-before-seen material, the extended chats feature some of the key contributors to Aotearoa's musical heritage.

In this interview for 2003 TV series Give It A Whirl, bass player Bones Hillman (aka Wayne Stevens) recalls punk's Auckland heyday, kicking off his career in neighbourhood band The Masochists, and joining Suburban Reptiles. He describes a vibrant late 70s scene when teenage punks scared the daylights out of established bands like Hello Sailor, his time in The Swingers, and how smash hit 'Counting the Beat' hastened the band's demise.

Hillman also touches on:

Growing up in Avondale listening to The Chicks and The Fourmyula
Clashes between suburban punks, the art school crowd and "disco kids" at Auckland's Zwines nightclub (3 minutes in)
Joining Suburban Reptiles and taking punk to Wellington (7 minutes in)
Being impressed by the songwriting chops of Dunedin band The Enemy (10 minutes)
Forming The Swingers with Phil Judd and Buster Stiggs, and moving to Australia (12 minutes)
Living hand to mouth in Melbourne while The Swingers' record company held back on releasing 'Counting the Beat' (18 minutes)

Bones Hillman died in November 2020. Read more about him, and bands Suburban Reptiles and The Swingers, on AudioCulture (NZ On Screen's sister website)

“I'd rock up to a car yard on a Saturday morning with this beaten up old Vauxhall Velox, and pretend I wanted to buy a van. "Can I take it for a test drive?". The guy would say "yeah, leave your car here". I'd whip around, we'd pick up all our gear, drop it off to the gig, take the van back and go "I'll give you a call".”

Bones Hillman describes how band gear was transported to a gig in the early days of The Swingers

“...it was the biggest, fastest-selling single in Australia since 'Eagle Rock' [by] Daddy Cool, so yeah: you know, 'whoosh!' Then everyone wanted you, and everyone wanted something from you ... we were still in 15 dollar a week mode...”

Bones Hillman describes the sudden success of the 'Counting The Beat' single, late in this interview

“Sometimes a hit single can be like the first nail...in the coffin, so to speak. It's like "that's the first one boys!”

Bones Hillman on the pressure of sudden pop success, near the end of this interview

“I kind of went back to New Zealand and just gave it up really. I kept one bass and threw it under the bed, because it was such a rotten experience.”

Bones Hillman on life after The Swingers broke up

“...we used to scare the shit out of Hello Sailor and Th' Dudes and Hammond Gamble and Street Talk ... because at that period of time they'd play The Windsor Castle, The Gluepot. They used to have Buck-A-Head concerts, you know ... you'd pay a dollar to see a New Zealand band ... and then you got this big swelling of all these other young kids, and we somehow bullshitted our way into the Windsor Castle that we could play, and got in there on a Saturday afternoon and jumped up on stage, and everyone realised that you couldn't... and all their fans really freaked out...”

Bones Hillman describes taking on the old guard in band Suburban Reptiles

Copyright

This interview was recorded for the 2003 season of TV series Give it a Whirl. All audiovisual content is copyright to Visionary Film & TV, and may not be reproduced.

Copyright

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