The Prodigy - Notes from Pig City

The Cosmic Psychos: 40 years of drinking, fighting and roadkill

Music / January 10, 2024 / 6 minutes of reading

Ross Knight – bass player, singer and mainstay of Australian punk heroes the Cosmic Psychos – tells a good yarn that deftly illustrates his group’s public image.

The Psychos, who are celebrating 40 years since their humble beginnings in central Victoria as a school band originally named Rancid Spam, were unlikely guests of honour at the Australian embassy in Berlin in 2013, commemorating 60 years of friendship between Australia and Germany. The band had driven all night from Utrecht in the Netherlands, arriving in Berlin about 3am. Of course, they found a bar before rolling up to the embassy a few hours later, very much the worse for wear.

As they slid open their van’s side door, beer cans spilled out, rolling towards the assembled dignitaries like unexploded mortar shells. The band followed the cans into the light, blinking, Knight dressed in Blundstones, jeans and a Yakka shirt and their guitarist, John “Mad Macka” McKeering, in a tracksuit.

“We were standing next to generals and majors and ambassadors and goodness knows who else, going, ‘Bloody hell, how did this happen?’” Knight says, chuckling.

The Cosmic Psychos are an Australian institution. Sounding like the Ramones fronted by the Crocodile Hunter, they write songs in a distinctly local vernacular about drinking, fighting, roadkill and punching above your weight.… Read more..

The Cosmic Psychos: 40 years of drinking, fighting and roadkill Read More »

The Great Australian Songbook II (40-31)

As promised from yesterday. I’ve tried to cover as many bases as possible in terms of decade and genre, avoiding multiple selections for the same artist.

Without further ado, here’s the list from 40 to 31.

40. COSMIC PSYCHOS – Lost Cause (1988)

It was Spinal Tap who pointed out the fine line between clever and stupid. In Australia, you won’t find three smarter beer-swilling yobs than The Cosmic Psychos. This isn’t a song about punching above your weight – it’s about being out of your weight division entirely. “Dr” Ross Knight, the band’s bass player, is a farmer from outside Bendigo who’s been known to cancel tours when his tractor breaks down. At the time he wrote this song, he was working part-time in the medical records department of a local hospital, where he fell under the spell of an attractive young lady who’s “only 19, not a has-been!” “I was about 25, 26 at that point, a bogan fucking pisshead,” Knight recalls. “I said to a mate of mine, ‘I wouldn’t mind taking her out,’ and he goes, ‘Nah – have a look at you! She’s a lost cause, mate!” The song was later covered by L7 and The Prodigy.… Read more..