Not many Australian musicians could make claims like Kevin Bloody Wilson.
Not many Australian musicians could make claims like Kevin Bloody Wilson. In a career spanning 25 years he has conducted countless sell-out world tours, played at the Royal Albert Hall and the London Palladium and sold close to four million records. These achievements are made even more impressive as he has received no commercial airplay and few mainstream interviews due to the bawdy and often lewd nature of his work. Among his fans are Prince Charles and Billy Connolly who described him as “the world’s funniest Australian.” All this from a man who grew up in Kalgoorlie working as an electrician and playing songs to amuse his mates.
Yet his biggest achievement to date came last year thanks to a letter from Adam Gilchrist.
“I received a letter from Adam who apparently runs the gig saying that I was officially nominated for Australian Of The Year due to my service for the Arts. The irony is 27 years ago I was being arrested for the same shit and it’s now viewed as art. I’m a very, very passionate and proud Australian and just to know that a normal bloke can get nominated is very important. Mind you, I didn’t win Australian Of The Year, total failure. But just to be recognised at that level I thought, ‘Fuck, that’s pretty cool.’
“Really, I’m nothing but a recycled bass player or something, a recycled musician. I think with my stuff its not stuff that’s been forced into people, it’s something you discover yourself. I had a bloke come up to me about two years ago and he said, ‘I remember where I was when JFK was killed, I remember where I was when Lady Di got killed and I remember where I was when I first heard one of your records.'”
One reason Wilson’s music is so memorable is because it appears that nothing is taboo as his song titles Do You Fuck On First Dates, Rootin’ In The Back Of The Ute and You Can’t Say Cunt In Canada might suggest. Yet Kevin Bloody Wilson insists that comedy is a very subjective thing and that for him certain things are off limits.
“The tsunami thing; I’ve heard some really, really bad and crass stuff about that, stuff I wouldn’t repeat onstage but there’s some very funny stuff as well like – my mate reckons he bought a Japanese car which was a beauty, it only had 15 nautical miles on the fuckin’ clock. And that to me is funny, because it’s not slamming the Japanese. Yeah there are certain subjects that you wouldn’t touch on but I’ve written a song about incest, Don’t Touch Your Sister She’s Mine, which is really funny. My definition of what’s funny and what’s not is ‘Will my mate Reg the butcher at Boulder Butchers enjoy the story or this song?'”
This definition of what’s funny seems to resonate very well with audiences but some critics have accused him of bigotry. Wilson maintains that his work is free from hate and he is just making fun of the differences.
“I talk about a mate of mine on the show, Nigel, but his Aboriginal name is Nunga Nunga. He’s a fuckin’ legend, [and] the whole audience considers my mate Nige to be a legend. The best Aboriginal jokes I get are from him. He passes them on to me and they’re piss-funny and I pass them on to my audience. We’re all different and I think that if people managed to learn to laugh at the differences then it would be a whole lot friendlier place to live.”
Kev describes his show as a mix between Eminem and Debby Does Dallas and would also like Beat readers to know that he is hung like a horse.
Kevin Bloody Wilson will be playing a string of shows in and around Melbourne over the next two weeks. For dates and further information hit up kevinbloodywilson.com .
