“I really only became a reasonable human being ten years ago”

The Church’s Steve Kilbey is sorry (

Lead singer Steve Kilbey opens up about revisiting old tunes and learning to play nicely with others. By Meg Crawford

Once upon a time, Steve Kilbey was all angles. In later years, he’s not exactly mellowed, but he’s definitely become a more genial character, albeit still as eccentric, quick-witted and talented.

Kilbey, frontman for Aussie alt-rock deities the Church, is candid about his metamorphosis. “I think I have what people call Aspergers,” he says. “I know a lot of people self-diagnose, but I definitely have social problems. I could write songs and write music and play, but I didn’t know how to deal with people and I adopted this very abrasive personality – cold, nasty and rude. I guess it just took me a long while to figure out how to act with people and it turns out that all I had to do was be nice. It took a lot of stuff to knock off my rough edges. I really only became a reasonable human being about ten years ago. Before that I was fucking confused – being famous and in the public eye just made me worse.”

The Church have been difficult over the years too – bust ups and line-up changes (they’ve gone through four drummers; and Ian Haug, of Powderfinger fame, has just replaced long-time Church member and guitarist Marty Willson-piper). And then there’s the small matter of refusing to play their most popular songs (we can attest to this, having seen them play at the Palace in St Kilda before it was razed to the ground, where the buggers didn’t play Under the Milky Way’). It’s kind of surprising then that

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they’re touring their ’82 album The Blurred Crusade and playing it track for track, to be followed by a second set in which they’ll play highlights from last year’s album Further/ Deeper and a few other faves. Kilbey’s made no secret of the fact that he hates taking the retrospective road. What’s the deal?

“This is a tricky question,” he laughs. “I’m not bored by the prospect of doing it. I’ll reinvent those songs and rediscover them. It just seemed like a lot of people wanted to hear Blurred Crusade and we’ve never done it in its entirety. As a musician and singer it won’t be challenging. We’ve got a lot more chops now – I hate that word – I used to hate it when musicians would say, ‘I’ve got the chops man’, but we do. It’ll be fun – like an actor reprising a part after a long time.”

170 Russell 170 Russell St, Melbourne 3000. 1300 724 867. thechurchband.net. Fri Jul 10.

“I adopted this abrasivepersonality: cold, nasty and rude”