vanilla chainsaws

A rocking Sydney country band with a serious underground heritage, Broham, is back on the boards after a year’s break and will launch their debut album, “Buckle Rash”, with a free show at  The Golden Barley in Enmore on Saturday, February 22. 

The no-support-three-sets show runs from 8-11pm.

“Buckle Rash” is 15 tracs on CD and was produced by Golden Guitar nominee Michael Carpenter at The House Studio, and mastered by Rick O’Neill at Turtle Rock.

Broham is the country vehicle for former Vanilla Chainsaws frontman Simon Chainsaw aka Krysler Broham.

Krysler and his band used the lay-off to good effect, finishing the long-player, working in new drummer Frank Rosetti and pumping out four video singles in 2024, all of which are viewable here.

“Buckle Rash” might have a country heart but its soul belongs to the sounds of inner-city Sydney circa the 1980s, and  one of its prime cuts is a rolled gold cover of the X classic “Don’t Cry No Tears” which you view after the READ MORE fold.

Former Celibate Rifles guitarist Kent Steedman has teamed with onetime Vanilla Chainsaws frontman Simon Chainsaw for an incendiary project called Bullet Tram. The first result of the partnership is a dirgey, bluesy  track called “Bought The Lie”.

Simon, who sang the vocal, says: “’Bought The Lie’ was inspired by the famous Hunter S Thompson quote: ‘The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side’.” 

Since the passing of Damien Lovelock and the end of the Rifles, Kent Steedman has embarked on a solo career and has a growing back catalogue of projects, including Deep South and Radio KSG. He also records and tours with Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie.

Simon Chainsaw started Vanilla Chainsaws in Sydney in the 1980's with a sound that was a thick roar of layered guitar chords that was reminiscent of Husker Du.

It’s the match made in Cowpunk Heaven - those hard drinkin’, Slip Slap Fishin' men, The Johnnys, going Stetson-to-Stetson with unruly, Spurs For Jesus, in an all-hitches-no-britches rock and roll rodeo deep in the heart of Sydney’s Inner Western Delta.

Saturday, August 4 pitches this mighty pair at each other in the main paddock of Marrickville Bowling Club, presented by the I-94 Bar.,

Opening the gate will be Broham, the new country band for globe-jaunting Vanilla Chainsaw frontman Simon Chainsaw and assorted reprobates, making their world debut.

The Johnnys wrote the book on Cowpunk back in the ‘80s; Spurs re-worded parts of it a decade later and Broham intend on tearing some pages out.

Who will come out on top after the hay-bales disintegrate and the rodeo clowns vacate the ring is anyone’s guess.

Wear your best Western wear (double denim is cool) and expect a few surprises along the way, as well as prizes of a Johnnys pack for the Best Dressed Cowgirl and Cowboy.

The last Johnnys show at the Bowlo sold out so get in early for this one and pre-book. You won’t see ‘em again in Sydney any time soon and the girls and guys from Spurs don't play that often, either.

Book by phone on 1300 762 545 or online here. 

There’s a familiar sound to all Simon Chainsaw records and it’s not going to change radically any time soon. It owes much to Sydney’s mid-‘80s underground scene - Simon being the one constant member of the Vanilla Chainsaws - and adds dashes of punk, pop and hard rock from myriad other places. 

So of course “Thirteen” sounds a lot like the preceding 12 Simon Chainsaw studio albums. You expected techno? Simon’s distinctive vocal rasp, chunky guitars just this side of metal, an inherent sense of melody and lyrics about girls, the road and the resilience of rock and roll are all a given. 

Even so, there are stylistic departures (keys on “Cried a Million Tears”, lap steel on the anthemic “Take My Rock ’n’ Roll Back”) and the classic Oz Rock influence cuts through elsewhere, notably on “Firestorm” which features AC/DC session drummer Tony Currenti.