Cosmic Psychos

Cosmic Psychos stand out as one of Australia's most infamous pub rock outfits, delivering straightforward punk that draws from garage traditions and packs a heavy punch while remaining free of frills or affectation. The group formally came together in 1985 and soon earned a reputation for valuing free beer, laughs, and the odd overseas trip far more than any financial rewards that might accompany life in a rock band. Lacking any drive toward professional ambition, they nevertheless built a durable run that has stretched across more than four decades, yielded over a dozen albums, featured a vocal collaboration with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, fostered friendships with Mudhoney, and included supplying beer to the then-underage Silverchair during Australia's Big Day Out Festival.

Bassist Ross Knight spent the late 1970s performing in a high school punk group called Rancid Spam in Victoria, Australia, roughly two hours north of Melbourne. Guitarist Peter Jones and drummer Bill Walsh were meanwhile active in the Melbourne ensemble Spring Plains. When Spring Plains lost their bassist in 1982, Walsh and Jones turned to their acquaintance Knight for help on bass; he accepted, and by 1985 the trio dismissed their original vocalist. Once Knight assumed lead vocals, the band adopted the name Cosmic Psychos.

The newly christened Cosmic Psychos played their debut show at the Stockade Pub in Carlonand, Australia, sharing the bill with the Moodists. That same year they cut their first EP, Down on the Farm, on a two-track recorder inside their rehearsal room and issued it through Australia's Mr. Spaceman Records and Europe's What Goes On label. Two years elapsed before the full-length Cosmic Psychos appeared, with Mr. Spaceman handling the vinyl edition and Shagpile managing the CD version via distribution through Shock Records. By 1989 the second album, Go the Hack, emerged on Australia's Survival imprint and marked the band's initial American release when Sub Pop issued it stateside. The group followed that record with their first live album, Slave to the Crave, captured at Melbourne's Palace venue during a June 1989 performance and released in 1990.

Guitarist Jones departed in 1990. Knight and Walsh recruited their friend Robbie Watts, a self-taught player, to fill the role. Watts accepted, and Cosmic Psychos traveled to Wisconsin to track their third album, Blokes You Can Trust, at producer Butch Vig's Smart Studios. Issued in 1991 on the American noise rock label Amphetamine Reptile, the record arrived after the members had become drinking companions with label chief Tom Hazelmeyer; Amphetamine Reptile later paired Down on the Farm and Cosmic Psychos on a two-fer CD reissue. During a European tour the band established an unusual custom: after watching other acts bow at the close of sets, they chose instead, at a show in Potsdam, Germany, to drop their trousers and moon the crowd.

The 1991 single "Dead Roo" preceded the Back to School EP, which featured a cover of L7's "Shove" as a tribute to the Los Angeles all-female rock band that had previously covered a Cosmic Psychos song on a 7" EP. Amphetamine Reptile also enlisted the group for a contribution to its Dope, Guns and Fucking in the Streets, Vols. 4-7 compilation. In 1993 Palomino Pizza appeared, a six-song EP containing three covers of vintage Australian pub material by Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, Buffalo, and Guitar Overdose. The members later admitted in interviews that they viewed the release as a half-hearted effort, yet they still toured behind it, playing U.S. dates alongside Superchunk and the Onyas. Later that year the band recorded a split 7" with Vertigo on Hippy Knight as a salute to noise rock outfit Halo of Flies, whose ranks included Tom Hazelmeyer, offering their own take on "Garbage Rock."

Throughout 1994 Knight collected song ideas on his Australian farm, accumulating 40 riffs on a single cassette. Cosmic Psychos mined that material for what critics deemed their strongest album to date, 1995's Self Totalled, which the group completed during a weeklong session financed in part by a thousand dollars spent on liquor. They played several U.S. shows and concluded the tour in Australia by opening for Pearl Jam in Sydney at the suggestion of Mudhoney's Matt Lukin, who had recommended the Psychos to Eddie Vedder. A crowd of 37,000 responded with boos to the 45-minute set, prompting the band to deliver their bare-bottomed acknowledgment. The Self Totalled tour finished at Australia's Big Day Out festival, which also featured the Screaming Trees, Hole, Silverchair, Primal Scream, Luscious Jackson, the Offspring, and Ministry.

Early in 1996 Shagpile issued a 7" single pairing the Self Totalled track "Whip Me" with acoustic versions of "Crazy Woman" from Down on the Farm and "Lost Cause" from Go the Hack; the CD edition added two further unplugged cuts. Never having recorded acoustically before, the members decided to lampoon the popularity of MTV Unplugged by producing their own unplugged session at Birdland Studios with producer Lindsay Gravina and a pre-recorded audience. To their surprise, the acoustic tracks received substantial airplay on numerous Australian stations. A condensed edition of the session later surfaced in the United States on Man's Ruin Records. At the start of 1997 the band finished their seventh studio album and, indulging their fondness for Australian meat pies, titled it Oh What a Lovely Pie. The record appeared that summer on Amphetamine Reptile in the United States and Europe, containing ten songs that addressed topics ranging from dominatrix girlfriends to serial killers. A 24-date European tour with the Melvins followed, after which the two acts cut a split 7" for Gearhead Records featuring the Psychos' cover of Racey's "Some Girls"; Gearhead also placed the track on its Runnin' on Fumes: The Gearhead Magazine Singles compilation.

Cosmic Psychos maintained touring momentum behind Oh What a Lovely Pie through 1998, with the Onyas supporting their Australian and European dates while Gaunt, Mudhoney, and Nashville Pussy joined them in the United States. Following a three-month hiatus in Australia, the band returned to America in July 1999 alongside their longtime associates the Melvins to promote the split 7". By year's end work commenced on a retrospective LP surveying their first fifteen years. With the arrival of 2000, Cosmic Psychos issued 15 Years, A Billion Beers, gathering rare outtakes, B-sides, and earlier material, and scheduled a European tour supported by the Mobile Homos. Watts opted out of those dates, so Knight and Walsh enlisted Mike Mariconda of the Raunch Hands to handle guitar.

Drummer Bill Walsh exited in 2005 and was succeeded by Dean Muller, previously of Ross Knight's side project Dung. Muller made his studio debut with the Psychos on 2006's Off Ya Cruet, which included the pointed farewell "Kill Bill" aimed at Walsh. On July 1, 2006, while the band toured in support of the album, Robbie Watts died of a heroin overdose. Cosmic Psychos continued with John McKeering of the Onyas on guitar, soon returning to the studio to record Dung Australia, issued in 2007 and dedicated to Watts' memory. Four years later Glorius Barsteds appeared, followed in 2012 by a series of performances at Melbourne's Tote Hotel just before the venue shuttered. Those shows were filmed and recorded, resulting in the 2013 live album I Love My Tractor: Live at the Tote Hotel, Melbourne; footage also featured in Matt Weston's documentary Cosmic Psychos: Blokes You Can Trust, which incorporated testimonials from Eddie Vedder, Buzz Osborne of the Melvins, and Mudhoney's Mark Arm and Steve Turner. The 2015 studio album Cum the Raw Prawn emerged in Australia on CD and on LP pressed in a special beer-colored edition. The band's eleventh studio album, Loudmouth Soup, arrived in 2018 and was supported by an exhaustive 28-date Australian tour.