Biography
TISM, an abbreviation for This Is Serious, Mum, functions as a faceless collective of Australian musical jesters who deploy their warped comic sensibility to mercilessly mock every conceivable target. Although the musicians show no reluctance toward media exposure, they conceal their faces behind masks during all public appearances, including concerts, while employing flamboyant stage aliases including Ron Hitler-Barassi, Humphrey B. Flaubert, Eugene de la Hot Croix Bun, and Tokin Blackman. Emerging in the early 1980s as an experimental rock outfit, the group soon shifted toward a more radio-friendly new wave and dance-rock approach and attracted attention through provocative stage behavior and stunts. Their studio albums entered the Australian charts; after incorporating techno and rave elements, 1995's Machiavelli and the Four Seasons climbed into the Top Ten and earned gold certification. Following the 2004 release The White Albun the band dissolved, only to reconvene for concerts in 2022 after a wave of reissues and archival projects, while also assembling their singles on Collected Versus.
The ensemble originated in Melbourne in 1982 and extended invitations to Eddie Van Halen and Australian politician Paul Keating to serve as lead tambourine player; both declined. After privately taping more than one hundred tracks, TISM delivered their first live performance in December 1983. Widely regarded as a fiasco, the show prompted a temporary split, after which every subsequent concert has been labeled a “reunion” by the members themselves. Following a brief phase of home experiments with industrial and dark ambient textures, they resumed composing pop material and resumed performing in 1984.
TISM’s recordings did not reach the public until 1986. Their debut single “Defecate on my Face” appeared that year, yet only the follow-up “40 Years -- Then Death” secured radio airplay. Momentum built in 1986 with the EP Form and Meaning Reach Ultimate Communion. When a prominent music magazine attempted an interview, the band responded characteristically: the journalist stood at one end of a football field and shouted questions through a megaphone while the members shouted replies through another, with a taut length of string stretched between them as an additional condition of cooperation.
The 1988 album Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance established the group on the underground circuit, delivering guitar-driven pop alongside the same irreverent and often crude lyrics that had already defined their output. Singles extracted from the record included “The Ballad of John Bonham's Coke Roadie,” “I'm Interested in Apathy,” and “Saturday Night Palsy.” The last of these grazed the lower reaches of the Australian charts and earned an invitation to perform on a popular television program. TISM accepted but exasperated the producers by appearing with twenty-eight costumed members. Phonogram issued the 1990 follow-up Hot Dogma, which attracted little attention and sold modestly; characteristic song titles were “(I'm Gonna Sit Right Down) And Whittle Away My Furniture,” “While My Catarrh Gently Weeps,” and “Leo's Toltoy.” The following year the label dropped the band for being unmanageable, yet Shock Records acquired the catalog and issued the compilation Gentlemen, Start Your Egos in 1991. That release prompted the Beasts of Suburban EP, which continued the anarchic approach and featured “Get Thee to a Nunnery,” an assault on Australian children’s-television presenter Sophie Lee that the band nonetheless claimed to respect.
Australia the Lucky C*** arrived in 1993 and, though commercially modest, proved highly contentious. Its original cover depicted a koala with a syringe in its mouth rendered in the style of designer Ken Done; Done sued one week after release, forcing withdrawal, after which the album re-emerged with new artwork under the title Censored Due to Legal Advice. Unable to replicate the impact of Great Truckin' Songs and increasingly known for controversy rather than music, TISM altered course with 1995’s Machiavelli and the Four Seasons. Synthesizers and dance rhythms supplanted earlier guitar pop, yielding the group’s strongest commercial showing and gold certification in Australia. Singles drawn from the album comprised “Jung Talent Time,” “Greg! The Stop Sign!!”—a track that lampooned road-safety advertisements and showcased Beach Boys-style harmonies—“All Homeboys Are Dickheads,” and “(He'll Never Be An) Ol' Man River,” the last containing the line “I'm on the drug that killed River Phoenix.” The song nevertheless became a major hit.
TISM resurfaced in 1998 with the dance-oriented www.tism.wanker.com. Minor-charting singles included “Whatareya?,” which divided Australian men into “yobs” and “wankers,” and “Thunderbirds Are Coming Out.” A third single, “I Might Be a C***, but I'm Not a F****** C***,” was issued but received no airplay. After touring with Regurgitator and the Fauves the album reached number 26. Following their departure from Shock, Festival Mushroom reissued earlier material before releasing De RigueurMortis in 2001, which charted for a single week at number 24; its single “Honk If You Love Fred Durst” appeared, and the 2002 compilation Best Off concluded the contract.
After member Jock Cheese issued the solo album Platter in early 2003, the band staged a “Save Our TISM” telethon concert to solicit funds that might avert a breakup. Sufficient donations arrived, yet the group dissolved anyway. 2004’s The White Albun paired a new studio album with DVDs of the telethon performance and a documentary. An animated clip for “Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me” gained online traction, prompting Sony BMG to release the track as a single in Germany, where it entered the pop charts.
TISM disbanded quietly. When inducted into the EG Hall of Fame in 2006, Humphrey B. Flaubert—later identified as Damian Cowell—remarked that the members were “slowly moving toward our deaths.” Cowell subsequently performed with the country band Root!, which became the DC3 in 2010 and released the single “I Was the Guy in TISM,” before issuing further recordings as Damian Cowell's Disco Machine. An updated version of “Shut Up -- The Footy's on the Radio” surfaced in 2010. Although fans periodically proposed TISM as Australia’s Eurovision representative, the group rejected the idea and dismissed any reunion prospect as “sh*thouse.” They nevertheless reissued their catalog digitally in 2020, followed by additional reissues, live sets, and archival material. In 2022 Collected Versus: The Complete TISM Singles appeared; the Australian CD edition also contained Collected Remixes, issued the next year on Negativland’s Seeland label—the band’s first American release—while a second disc, Kill Americans: A TISM Primer, gathered further fan favorites. TISM resumed live performances for the first time in eighteen years with guitarist Vladimir Lenin-McCartney added to the lineup.
The ensemble originated in Melbourne in 1982 and extended invitations to Eddie Van Halen and Australian politician Paul Keating to serve as lead tambourine player; both declined. After privately taping more than one hundred tracks, TISM delivered their first live performance in December 1983. Widely regarded as a fiasco, the show prompted a temporary split, after which every subsequent concert has been labeled a “reunion” by the members themselves. Following a brief phase of home experiments with industrial and dark ambient textures, they resumed composing pop material and resumed performing in 1984.
TISM’s recordings did not reach the public until 1986. Their debut single “Defecate on my Face” appeared that year, yet only the follow-up “40 Years -- Then Death” secured radio airplay. Momentum built in 1986 with the EP Form and Meaning Reach Ultimate Communion. When a prominent music magazine attempted an interview, the band responded characteristically: the journalist stood at one end of a football field and shouted questions through a megaphone while the members shouted replies through another, with a taut length of string stretched between them as an additional condition of cooperation.
The 1988 album Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance established the group on the underground circuit, delivering guitar-driven pop alongside the same irreverent and often crude lyrics that had already defined their output. Singles extracted from the record included “The Ballad of John Bonham's Coke Roadie,” “I'm Interested in Apathy,” and “Saturday Night Palsy.” The last of these grazed the lower reaches of the Australian charts and earned an invitation to perform on a popular television program. TISM accepted but exasperated the producers by appearing with twenty-eight costumed members. Phonogram issued the 1990 follow-up Hot Dogma, which attracted little attention and sold modestly; characteristic song titles were “(I'm Gonna Sit Right Down) And Whittle Away My Furniture,” “While My Catarrh Gently Weeps,” and “Leo's Toltoy.” The following year the label dropped the band for being unmanageable, yet Shock Records acquired the catalog and issued the compilation Gentlemen, Start Your Egos in 1991. That release prompted the Beasts of Suburban EP, which continued the anarchic approach and featured “Get Thee to a Nunnery,” an assault on Australian children’s-television presenter Sophie Lee that the band nonetheless claimed to respect.
Australia the Lucky C*** arrived in 1993 and, though commercially modest, proved highly contentious. Its original cover depicted a koala with a syringe in its mouth rendered in the style of designer Ken Done; Done sued one week after release, forcing withdrawal, after which the album re-emerged with new artwork under the title Censored Due to Legal Advice. Unable to replicate the impact of Great Truckin' Songs and increasingly known for controversy rather than music, TISM altered course with 1995’s Machiavelli and the Four Seasons. Synthesizers and dance rhythms supplanted earlier guitar pop, yielding the group’s strongest commercial showing and gold certification in Australia. Singles drawn from the album comprised “Jung Talent Time,” “Greg! The Stop Sign!!”—a track that lampooned road-safety advertisements and showcased Beach Boys-style harmonies—“All Homeboys Are Dickheads,” and “(He'll Never Be An) Ol' Man River,” the last containing the line “I'm on the drug that killed River Phoenix.” The song nevertheless became a major hit.
TISM resurfaced in 1998 with the dance-oriented www.tism.wanker.com. Minor-charting singles included “Whatareya?,” which divided Australian men into “yobs” and “wankers,” and “Thunderbirds Are Coming Out.” A third single, “I Might Be a C***, but I'm Not a F****** C***,” was issued but received no airplay. After touring with Regurgitator and the Fauves the album reached number 26. Following their departure from Shock, Festival Mushroom reissued earlier material before releasing De RigueurMortis in 2001, which charted for a single week at number 24; its single “Honk If You Love Fred Durst” appeared, and the 2002 compilation Best Off concluded the contract.
After member Jock Cheese issued the solo album Platter in early 2003, the band staged a “Save Our TISM” telethon concert to solicit funds that might avert a breakup. Sufficient donations arrived, yet the group dissolved anyway. 2004’s The White Albun paired a new studio album with DVDs of the telethon performance and a documentary. An animated clip for “Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me” gained online traction, prompting Sony BMG to release the track as a single in Germany, where it entered the pop charts.
TISM disbanded quietly. When inducted into the EG Hall of Fame in 2006, Humphrey B. Flaubert—later identified as Damian Cowell—remarked that the members were “slowly moving toward our deaths.” Cowell subsequently performed with the country band Root!, which became the DC3 in 2010 and released the single “I Was the Guy in TISM,” before issuing further recordings as Damian Cowell's Disco Machine. An updated version of “Shut Up -- The Footy's on the Radio” surfaced in 2010. Although fans periodically proposed TISM as Australia’s Eurovision representative, the group rejected the idea and dismissed any reunion prospect as “sh*thouse.” They nevertheless reissued their catalog digitally in 2020, followed by additional reissues, live sets, and archival material. In 2022 Collected Versus: The Complete TISM Singles appeared; the Australian CD edition also contained Collected Remixes, issued the next year on Negativland’s Seeland label—the band’s first American release—while a second disc, Kill Americans: A TISM Primer, gathered further fan favorites. TISM resumed live performances for the first time in eighteen years with guitarist Vladimir Lenin-McCartney added to the lineup.
Albums
Singles
