Meataxe

 

ORIGINS: Hornsby, NSW

GENRE: Hardcore

YEARS ACTIVE: 1994-2001

 

MEMBERS:

• Damien Suplina - Vocals, Guitar, Bass
  
• David 'Mong' Mangnell - Drums
• David Ward - Guitar (1996-2000)
• Chris Shields - Bass (2000)
• Nick Russell - Bass (1997-1998)
• KT Spit - Bass (2001)
  

RELEASES: 

• Demo (1998) - Split with VBS
  

• Violent Hornsby Straightedge (2000) Compilation
  
• 1. Asshole Drug
• 2. Lukecrew vs. Kevindefence
• 3. Drunk Fuck
• 4. Thought You Were SxE
• 5. Spy vs. Spy
  

• Straightedge Thrash Violence (2001) - Download Here.
  
• 1. Defensive
• 2. Before We Die
• 3. Look At Me
• 4. Thank You
• 5. Ecstasy Raid
• 6. This is What We Do For Fun
• 7. SxE Violence
• 8. Go!
• 9. Little Boys
• 10. Take Hold of Your Life
• 11. Drug Abuse
• 12. One of These Days
• 13. Join the Trend
• 14. Lack of Reason
• 15. The Junction
• 16. Thought You Were SxE?
• 17. Outro
  

SUMMARY: Forming as part of the wave of hardcore that came out of Hornsby in the late '90s, Meataxe were a three-piece band who reached their peak with the release of an album and a tour to Adelaide, both in 2001. The band faded out shortly after this, with a reunion in 2011. 

 

SHOWS: 

• Hornsby, PCYC - 22nd January, 2000
• House Party, Sydney - unknown date, 2011

 

ORAL HISTORY:

DAMIEN: I was obsessed with Nirvana, which was a gateway drug into all things punk. My best mate at the time, Mong (David Mangnell) and I really didn't know how to play instruments but I remember writing lyrics and swapping them with him in Year 7 and then putting it to three chords that I knew. So yeah, it was 1994, in the conservative Hills suburbs, and we would go into my parents basement and just jam without any knowledge of what we were doing. That's where it all kicked off - two 12 year-olds playing punk 'cause we couldn't play anything else. Kinda funny thinking back at that... 12 years old! Fuck!

Damien Suplina (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

 

DAVID: My first band was Meataxe, with Damien who lived down the road from me. I started listening to Nirvana around '94, probably because of Kurt Cobain dying, then I was hearing punk played on skate videos. I met other guys at high school who were into punk as well and then it started from there. When we were first learning to play, it was just Damien and me in his parent's basement. After a little while we got Ward to play bass. We probably would have got Chris Shields to play bass in Meataxe as Ward was really a guitarist and Chris was a bass player, but by the time Meataxe had gotten going Shields was dead.

 David Mangnall (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

DAMIEN: What a shit / great name for a band, hahaha. The term 'Meataxe' was coined by Dave Ward (RIP!!!), a future member of Meataxe and it was actually what he (we) nicknamed a guy (Matthew Parkinson) at high school. There wasn't an obvious reason why we called him 'Meataxe'. Whenever we saw him, we all would shout out 'MEATAXE'. Very stupid kid stuff. Throughout the year after we came up with it, 'Meataxe' just became the thing we would shout out at random times. For example: we'd all go and terrorise the local shops, walk into them, and shout 'MEATAXE' as loud as we could. The challenge was to stay in the shop for as long as we could after, acting as if that was a normal thing. Once, when we did this, we got chased by the Belmonte's Pizzeria guy in Pennant Hills with a knife, hahaha. So... when it came to naming the band, Dave Ward suggested 'Why not Meataxe?' And that was that. We became Meataxe and the bad metal band name stuck.

Damien Suplina (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

DAMIEN: We started playing friends' places in 1995/1996 and maybe '97 was when we played our first gig in the real world.

Damien Suplina (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

DAVID: We played a lot of Hornsby PCYC shows. They were always great. Despite the death of my friend (Chris Shields) weighing heavily on my mind towards the end the shows were such a fun thing to be a part of. And the fact that we kind of did it all ourselves was a cool thing too. No internet and shit around back then really - just word of mouth and a few flyers. The older guys from the city scene were there too alongside us younger guys. I'd be drumming looking out at the crowd trying to remember how to play some shit two-minute song we made in Damien's basement, and I'd see a guy whose band I'd listened to and looked up to, and they'd be nodding along to our songs. People travelled from Wollongong and Newcastle to get to those shows. Damien's mum and his old Italian grandma would often come too and stand off to the side to watch. Who knows what his grandma made of it! When Chris died in May 2000, a lot of those older guys from the city scene - Jay Blurter, Hedge, Fingers, Dave Thommo, B.E. - they all turned up to his funeral. I didn't even really know them all that well at that point, I'm not sure any of us did, but I felt like it cemented the bond we all had together. I've always had time for those guys ever since then.

 David Mangnall (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

 

DAVID: One time at one of the Hornsby shows, there was a solo Japanese hardcore guy that had stumbled across a flyer and turned up to the show that was on. We used to do a cover of a song by a Japanese band called Assfort, a hardcore band from Tokyo. We ended up getting the guy to do vocals on the song. Who knows if he even really knew the lyrics but at least it sounded authentic for once!

 David Mangnall (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

DAMIEN: As young teens, we weren't great role models. That's a nice way to put it. As I started to lose some of my teen angst, I was branching into other places and growing up. KT asked to join the band as a social experiment and I thought it was a great idea... two different worlds in the same punk scene colliding. It wasn't that fun in the end. I'm not sure why she wanted to do it, nor what she wanted out of it, but from my point of view it cemented me knowing that being a dickhead wasn't cool.

Damien Suplina (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

 

DAVID: We recorded at Zen. I hated recording - some audio guru having to sit through fifty takes of our horseshit, haha. At the time I wasn't a huge fan of the samples Damien used - fucken Russell Crowe in Gladiator. That was like the biggest fucking film in the world at the time; I liked the idea of samples being obscure and a bit mysterious. Although, hearing it again now, it's not so bad and oddly nostalgic and fitting.

David Mangnall (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

DAMIEN: The main CD was recorded at Zen Studios by some grumpy arsehole who didn't want a bar of us.

Damien Suplina (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

DAVID: Some time in 2000 we went to Adelaide and played a show there on a two-day metal festival type thing at a pub. I think it had something to do with Simmo, I feel like he had a hand in organising it or getting us on the bill. We flew down and stayed in this super hostel, haha. Neil from Undinism was a legend, he helped us out at the show. He was playing with his other grindcore band, The Kill, and they lent us their gear to use.

 David Mangnall (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

 

DAVID: Damien had this contraption where he taped a microphone to a stackhat and used to run around and scream and play guitar while wearing it. It was a funny gimmick. Well, not even really a gimmick, just a practical way of being able to move around. But of course, it would always fall off, get knocked off, etc.

David Mangnall (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

 

DAMIEN: The helmet contraption is a pretty depressing story. People who do remember Meataxe would point to the helmet headphone as a key memory, but that actually came right at the end of the Meataxe reign of shit music. We decided to go 'on tour' to Adelaide in 2000. I can't remember the exact show, maybe a Spiral Objective show, but it was a multi-day punk festival where we were playing on two of the three days. I think Captain Cleanoff played and I definitely remember Good Clean Fun (USA) playing plus Charcoal Human, who were also from NSW but we didn't know them back then. We were booked in for the shows and at the time we were a three piece - Mong, Dave Ward, and I. Wardo was going through his Christian phase so he decided he wanted out. A few months before the festival we got Chris Shields on bass. Shields was a pretty average bassplayer, hahaha, but we were all set to travel, and Shields passed away just before we were to leave. All us friends were broken. We were 18 years old and, for most of us, it was our first encounter with death. Little did we know back then what would come our way... We were going to cancel the tour but we had everything booked so at the last minute we decided to go as a two piece. Mong on drums and me on bass/screaming. How does this tie into the helmet? We got to Adelaide and we are angry, upset, excited, confused, all the emotions, and I wasn't in the mood to be behind a mic or guitar playing bad music. Randomly, just before the gig, Simon Slaughter and I walked into a Cash Converters. I saw a helmet and thought "Why not tie a mic to the helmet so I can move around on stage?" and yep, I bought the helmet, went back to the hotel, and attached a coat hanger to it. From then on, the helmet became t hing. It made for some great photos if nothing else. I still have the helmet!

Damien Suplina (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

 

DAMIEN: On the Meataxe front, we are taking a break for a while. We thought we might be breaking up as well, but that may be on hold 'cause we finally sounded like we are meant to sound at the show on the 8th. I personally was pissed off with Meataxe because the only ever time we sounded good was 4000km away from home in Adelaide. It pissed me off that we could sound 'good' in rehearsal but when it came to the show, something would go wrong. 

Damien Suplina (Vocals, Guitar), Meataxe Website, September 2000

 

DAVID: I don't recall why we finished. It wasn't for any real reason, it just kinda stopped. I was living in Kings Cross and selling porn, and I guess our lives just kind of went in different directions.

David Mangnall (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

DAMIEN: Meataxe wasn't really any good and I think a lot more people hated us than liked us as were pretty antagonistic back then. Sorry - we were young and stupid.

Damien Suplina (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

RELATED BANDS: Headless Horsemen, S. Van, Bad Skate Unit, Nintendo Police, Arkanoid, The Spitz, Zond, THIS is