6ft Hick: Notes from the Underground

Strip the money out of rock and roll, bring back the danger and you’re left with the raw force of 6ft Hick. Armed only with strut and pure provocation, 6ft Hick level a rock ‘n’ roll sucker punch you would lean in for. Slog 6,000 kms across Europe with Australia’s mangiest Rockabilly Punks through 15 shows in 18 days, in a world where managers, roadies and riders give way to blood, sex, and pure adrenaline. Raised on a chicken farm in rural Nambour, on Australia’s northeast coast, Geoff and Ben Corbett (the Hicks’ front men) sought their artistic beginnings in the 80s, dabbling in punk and performance art. They milked their North Queensland roots relentlessly for its inbred, bigoted imagery, filtered through such wicked wit and self-deprecation that it was sent skittering into the realm of parody, gathering in the ensuing years touches of the surreal and the dirty lustre of big-city degeneracy. Inspired by the success of their early 90’s death-country musical Country Style Livers, the boys realised they might be onto something. Promptly scraping up the afterbirth and breathing life into the remains, they formed the legendary ‘cane-swamp rockabilly punk’ machine known as 6ft Hick. Through shaky beginnings, the Hicks would slowly build a repertoire, and, more importantly, a reputation. Their stage antics would gradually become a thing of urban myth. Their shows engender an atmosphere of trance and possession as the duo lurch around the stage, barrel into the crowd, stand simply staring, hang upside-down from lighting rigs, drink beer from boots, eat the contents of ashtrays, and blood let. Their lyrics weave profanity, drugs, religion and violence into horny, lovelorn, pain-laced paeans to perspective. There’s a decidedly Tom Waitsian revelling in the peculiar charms of gutter trash, over-indulgence, and balancing on the knife-blade between salvation and damnation.The next fifteen years sees them touring incessantly. Indeed, compulsively. Recordings dribble forth (two EPs over 5 years; their first LP came in 2000), however commercial success doesn’t. While for some bands this issue is the make-or-break factor: the elusive glimmer on the horizon that justifies any amount of tweaking (of sound, of image, of direction), for the Hicks - perhaps through resignation, perhaps through sheer pragmatism - focus is locked myopically on the performance. Holding true to their core values of pure entertainment and zero compromise, 6ft Hick would build a fervent following across Australia and Europe, one beer-soaked venue at a time. However, staying true to the underground can leave a flimsy financial buffer. All tour takings feed directly back into the mouth of the beast in order to cover costs. Beds are found on venue floors or fans’ couches, or else nights are spent on the road en route to the next gig. Yet the perks of the underground are such that its inhabitants tend to be warm, dedicated people in love with music, not image or spin, putting emphasis on people, not money or acclaim; loyalty, not limelight or fame. This film is a rock ‘n’ roll thrill ride that investigates what it means to care more about the journey than the destination, and what it truly means to sacrifice for your art. It lets you inside the minds and inner dynamics of the hardest-working band in Australia that no one’s ever heard of. Trends arrive and pass, and with them the bands that represent them.