On the Road Again: A revival for The Church

On the Road Again, Paste BN's spotlight on artists on tour, this week looks at Australian alternative rockers The Church.

Get ready for The Church. "Some people say we're the best guitar band on earth," says Steve Kilbey, bassist and singer for Australian rock bandThe Church. And Kilbey isn't one to argue with those people. On the group's upcoming co-headlining tour with the Psychedelic Furs, Kilbey's band will play sets that spans from '80s hits Under the Milky Way and Reptile to last year's well-received Further/Deeperalbum. Though the Church has never toured with the Furs before, Kilbey likes the pairing. "I can't imagine anybody coming to see us that wouldn't like them," he says, "and I can't imagine anybody coming to see them that wouldn't like us."

Church membership. When founding guitarist Marty Willson-Piper left the Church in 2013, the remaining members added Ian Haug, formerly of Australian rock band Powderfinger. "He has brought some intangible muscle" to the group's sound, Kilbey says. "Marty was an incredible guitarist, and he was a rock-and-roll star, but he wasn't as much of a team player as Ian." Original guitarist Peter Koppes and drummer Tim Powles, who joined in 1993, round out the lineup.

A chilly reception. The Church first toured the U.S. in late 1984, playing in front of audiences that ranged from a few dozen to a thousand. Mostly, though, Kilbey remembers the cold. "In Denver, the dressing room was across a courtyard and there was no room on stage," he says. "The roadies were tuning our 12-strings in the dressing room, then running across this snowy courtyard. By the time they got them to the stage where we were, the guitars had all gone out of tune."

Sticky fingers. While the lower melodic range of songs like Under the Milky Way allows Kilbey to avoid wear and tear on his voice, he does sometimes get blisters from playing bass. "When I get blisters, I cover my fingers in Super Glue, which usually wears off as I keep hammering at the bass," he says. He's been playing bass regularly the past several weeks to build up calluses, he says, "so that by the time I get to America, my fingers have toughened up.

Power surge. During an Australian club show back in the '80s, Kilbey was holding his bass and its strings when he reached out and touched an ungrounded microphone, completing an electrical circuit. "Next thing I knew, I was up in the air," he says. "Then the next thing I knew, I was on the ground." He says his roadies pulled him off the stage, made him smoke two bongs, then put him right back out. "I couldn't even remember my name or what I was doing," he says. "Somehow, I got through the gig. It must have been pretty weird."

Keep an eye out for this one. Backstage after an Ohio show several years ago, Kilbey was talking with several women when another approached him and asked if he'd hold something for her. "She said, 'Close your eyes and put your hand out,'" Kilbey says. "I put my hand out, and she put something in it. I opened my eyes and looked, and she had taken out her glass eye and put it in my hand. She looked at the other women and went, 'Ha!' Then she took it off me, popped it back in and walked away. It was a strange, symbolic statement I've never really fathomed."