Mark Easton Limousine - Sydney, Australia
Greener - CD review and interview with Mark Easton
By Patrick Ferris

Coming from a background of hard punk, hard drugs and hard living, Australian punk bad-boy turned blues man, Mark Easton has cleaned up his life, pulled together a project he calls Limousine, and released his first full length CD entitled Greener.

A native of Southeastern Australia, Mark Easton gained notoriety in the '80s as a guitarist and front man for several regionally popular bands. His increasing drug use led to a spiraling career in music that crashed and burned in the early '90s with Mark leaving the music scene entirely and changing his lifestyle to save his life. Now, when most rockers his age are either dead or sitting behind mixing boards in studios, Mark Easton's 13 year 'hiccup' in music has him back with a new band and a new outlook on life.

If sobriety is a testament of performance, Greener shows that Mark has evolved beyond his hard rocking days into a mature blues sound that he naturally seems suited to play. Greener isn't a blues album...it's definitely rock with a blues influence, but Easton's trademark slide-guitar makes this an album that can appeal to both rock and blues fans. Greener's eleven tracks range from hard driving punk-a-billy to moving ballads and express the diversity that makes up the sound and personality of Mark Easton.

Mark is one of the most outgoing and personable artists I've interviewed and was gracious enough to take time for an online interview.

Mark Easton - Hi Pat.

HotBands - Hi Mark. Since this is our first 'interview' even though we've chatted before, we're approaching for the person who hasn't heard of you...So, from that perspective, it's always good to start at the beginning. How did you get your start in music? Influences, schooling, etc, and when did you decide that this was what you wanted to do.

Mark Easton - My dad is a jazz musician so he got me started, but to be honest, jazz didn't really excite this 17-year-old boy enough, so I started playing in a punk band.

HotBands - Did you get started playing an instrument early?

Mark Easton - At 14

HotBands - Where did you grow up, and were you involved in any school programs?

Mark Easton - I grew up an hour south of Wollongong on the East coast of Australia. I took some piano lessons and some guitar lessons early on, but found them restrictive. They tended to keep you within the boundaries of scales and I feel it stunted my creativity.

HotBands - Even still, do you think the early formal training was helpful?

Mark Easton - Not really. I never wrote a song until I gave up lessons.

HotBands - Did your dad's music influence you at all?

Mark Easton - In general jazz bored me but my dad used to cover Black Night by Deep Purple, and that led me to investigate further.

HotBands - Which was the first rock band that got you excited?

Mark Easton - I remember hearing Chicago Transit Authority's 1st album and I thought that rocked. The first 2 singles I bought were by two Aussie blues-rock bands: Chain and Ladeda's which featured Australian Rhythm & Blues guitarist, Kevin Borich. The first two albums I bough were Chicago 5 and Deep Purple Machine Head. That was when I really got my head blown away! Ritchie Blackmore was amazing. After that I bought every Deep Purple album, and then went looking for other bands like Alice Cooper, Foghat, Stone the Crows, Heavy Netal Kids and Uriah Heap.

HotBands - Let's move the clock ahead through your high school years now. You joined a punk band late in high school, right?

Mark Easton - The reason I started playing punk was because I knew I was never going to be as good as Ritchie Blackmore. In a punk band, you could play like crap, and as long as it was fast and aggressive, people still loved it. That's why my blues music has so much energy. I found my niche when I started playing slide guitar. I was a huge Steve Jones and Chris Spedding fan.

HotBands - You play the hell out of the slide. Definitely one of the best I've ever heard! How long did you stay with the punk band? This is around the same time that AC/DC was getting going down there, right? Was that any influence?

Mark Easton - I loved AC/DC with Bon Scott, but by the time Back in Black came out, I wasn't into them at all.

How long did you play punk? Did you start as a guitarist or front man/vocalist?

Mark Easton - I started as just a guitarist. We recently did a reunion gig with a punk band from 1981 and 200 people showed up! We had made a compilation CD of everything we had ever recorded and sold 100 of them that night! http://www.i94bar.com/gigreviews/kelpies.html 

HotBands - Was this your first band?

Mark Easton - It was my 3rd punk band if you don't count Vic Vomit and the Varicose Veins.

HotBands - Gotta love those punk band names!

Mark Easton - Yeh ill give ya the list:
Suicide Squad 1979 released 1 single. - http://www.suicidesquad.tk 
Bedhogs 1980
Kelpies 1981 released 1 single.
Soggy Porridge 1983 released 2 singles and an EP = http://www.soggyporridge.tk 
Candy Harlots 1986 - http://www.candyharlots.tk 

Mark Easton - Singles were 7 inch vinyl.

HotBands - A 45?

Mark Easton - A 45, yes.

HotBands - So Greener is your first full length CD? I know you've played on dozens of releases

Mark Easton - Yeh, its my first. The Candy Harlots released an album but I had left the band by then. After I left The Candy Harlots, I got clean and spent a lot of time surfing. I hardly played guitar at all for four years, and started to teach myself some harmonica because it was easy to lug.

HotBands - Your music is high energy, so if music is a reflection of the creator, is that you too?

Mark Easton - Well, my mum reckons I don't know how to relax. I have an anxiety disorder and too much nervous energy.

HotBands - What is the limousine?

Mark Easton - It's the vehicle for my music; a big black dirty limo with a thumping big V-8, no brakes, and a stereo that'll blow your head off.

HotBands - Good visual for your sound! Let's go back to your years from leaving the Harlots, your recovery and rebirth. What went down? Why did you see music as evil and what brought you back?

Mark Easton - 1980 to 1990 was the lost years; drugs, sex, frustration.

HotBands - But that was when you were performing regularly in good bands.

Mark Easton - Yeh that's right performing, but not happy.

HotBands - Why?

Mark Easton - I started playing punk as a rebellion, but now I'm happy with who I am and not angry any more. I love playing blues and slide guitar.

HotBands - Why did you think music was evil and what brought you back?

Mark Easton - It was what took me into a world where there was no love. I was strung out on everything and I was so out of it, I didn't know who I really was.

Mark Easton - If it weren't for an artist friend, Marcel Kinzet (rip), who talked me into playing again I wouldn't be doing this. These days I only drink Guiness and vodka socially.

HotBands - Sobriety has brought you back with a fury! Your release Greener is fantastic. It displays your prowess as a slide player, but you're playing nearly all of the instruments on most of the tracks. Tell me about Greener.

Mark Easton - Well as you know, I released the Coast to Coast EP in 2002. The original Limousine line up bailed on me 6 weeks after the Coast to Coast was released, so I quickly put a makeshift line up together that did more harm than good. They were all speed freaks that played to loud. People were walking out of the shows with their fingers in their ears so I decided to record an album with a couple of friends so I could re-establish myself to the fans.

I sent a copy of Coast to Coast to Bruce Igler at Alligator. He wrote back and went through the EP track by track. He said that he loved my slide playing but the songs were too 'Rock'. I took that to heart and recorded Greener with a great bluesy drummer and bluesy songs. Some of the songs were written 5 years ago, but the original Limousine wasn't interested in sounding so bluesy, so I gathered a couple of guys that I knew could cut it. I ended up doing all the vocals, all the guitars and half the bass tracks. We worked on it every other weekend for three or four months. I sold everything I had laying around the house over eBay to finance it. If Coast to Coast was a blokes record Greener is one for the ladies.

HotBands - It looks like Greener is going to write a new chapter in the Mark Easton story, and I'd like your opinion of what direction you'd like to take your music and where you see yourself as far as performing or recording? Are you interested in touring, studio releases, or releasing thru the Internet?

Mark Easton - Musically, I'm playing more acoustic guitar. I have already written six more songs for my next record and just scored my first blues festival this year at the Broadbeach Blues Festival in The Gold Coast Queensland on May 22, 2004. I'm seriously thinking about going to Europe mid-year, and now that I've put my own label together, I will be releasing another album around this time next year. Hopefully this time it will be done with someone else's money! I just want to play my music and stay in the real world.

HotBands - In closing, is there anything you'd like to add about your album, the music industry in general, any thanks or hellos to anyone?

Mark Easton - The best is yet to come. The music industry is tough, but there are a few including you, that are cool. Thanks to all the people who have stuck by me.

HotBands - Thanks for your time Mark!

Mark Easton - I hope we can share a Guiness one day.

HotBands - I'm sure we will

For more information on Mark Easton, CLICK HERE

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