After an absence of ten years, hard rockers The Poor, are back and according to singer Skenie, their plans for the future can be summed up in two words âWorld domination!â
And which corner of the world do they plan to dominate first?
âWeâll start with the Gold Coast,â he tells me. âThe first gig is next Saturday night. (21st November)â
Well, thatâs a pretty good place to start, especially as the boys will be supporting the very popular Screaming Jets. âYeah,â says Skenie âWeâre all friends from years back.â
The Gold Coast gig will be followed by shows in both Sydney and Melbourne in December, to launch the new album, âRound 1â.
The fact that the album is finally seeing the light of day is truly a cause for celebration for the band. For a long time, it looked as though it would never happen due to a series of unexpected and unfortunate events. In 1998, they started recording at Billy Thorpeâs Sydney studio. When Skenieâs daughter became ill, her care and recovery was, naturally, his main priority. âThe band slowly just slid apart and we all sort of went our separate ways for ten years.â
Thankfully, Skenieâs daughter is doing better these days but it has obviously been a long and difficult journey. Then, there was the sudden death of rock legend, Billy Thorpe.  âIt came as a bit of a shockâ he admits. âWhat happened was that he had a bit of debt that he left behind and the Taxation Department came in and liquidated all of his assets and basically, everything that was in his studio, that included our tapes, we couldnât get to for about three years. We only just heard the tapes at the start of the year, after not hearing them for ten years. We didnât realize how close we were to the finished product. And weâve used some of those songs and done a bit more work on them for this album. The idea that weâve got at the moment is âRound 1â is the first album of three that weâre bringing out over the next twelve months.â
Skenie assures me that the boys already have plenty of material available for the three albums, as well as some new ones on the way. âWeâre back writing too so weâve got a few new songs up our sleeves and thereâs some older stuff that weâve never released. We donât play them any more but weâre just going to give them to the fans, you know. Better than them just sitting on the shelf for us. Thereâs a âRound 2â and then, the last one.â He goes on to explain the bandâs plans for âRound 3â. âWhen we split with Sony back at the end of â96, they took our album off the shelf because we got all the rights to it back so weâre thinking that weâre going to release a double album. Itâs been ten years now that we couldnât re-release it but weâre going to release that as a whole other album with new tracks.â
After all those years away from life on the road, 2008 saw The Poor reform to support U.S. heavy metal band, W.A.S.P. According to Skenie, it was this tour that eventually set the wheels in motion for the band to give it another go. âThatâs what sort of sparked the fire back into us again. Matt, the bass player, was living in Townsville and he moved back down (to the Gold Coast) and Julian, the guitarist, moved down from Brisbane. Weâre all on the Gold Coast after those shows with W.A.S.P last year and itâs just a lot easier to get together and then we got the tapes back and everything started. The ball started rolling which feels great. It feels right, you know.â
Skenie is adamant that the bandâs sound is, overall, still the same. âWeâre still the same âdickhead boys from Darwinâ that just love to have fun and it jumps straight out of the new songs. The first single from the album, âKill My Faithâ is just a straight, in-your-face, full rock song. The second single is really the catchy one that we hope gets played on the radio and gets up there.â
The video of the song will be going to Channel V within the next couple of weeks and the guys will soon be shooting another clip for the next single.
It seems like everything is finally falling into place for The Poor, and that fate has played a hand in ensuring the timing of their comeback is just right.  âYeah,â he agrees. âIt does, doesnât it? It just seems like, itâs time!â
One final word from the singer about the new album: âGet out there and buy it, everyone!â
 by Sharyn Hamey
Copyright © Sharyn Hamey 2009.  All rights reserved