“I play rock’n’roll for a livin’, I ain’t doin’ all that well,
I play rock’n’roll for a livin’, as if you couldn’t tell.
I’m a rock’n’roll man,
We’re just doin’ it ’cause we can”
– Ian Rilen, “Rock’n’Roll Man”, 1999
Ian Rilen was doing a short stretch at Long Bay in 1970 when he made the decision that changed his life. He decided he was going to be a bass player, and not just any bass player, but a great bass player. There were nights, later – and more than a few – when he was just that; when, in fact, he was one of the great rock’n’rollers. The story goes, as he’d told me, that when he was inside there was another young inmate there who wanted to be a drummer, and so the pair would run their exercise in the yard like a rhythm section, stamping out and mouthing their respective parts. (more…)
I knew Ian Rilen as well as some but not as well as others. In common with everyone that came into the Rilen orbit, however, I have a few stories. Many are about his penchant for living at or near that rock and roll place called the edge. Others that you won’t hear so often are about a loving father to four people, a de facto husband to another and a friend to many, many others. Read the full article at I-94 Bar.
Jen Jewel Brown, Sydney Morning Herald, November 25, 2006
Ian Rilen, 1947-2006
WHEN a man has lived as wild a life as the rock’n’roll musician and songwriter Ian Rilen, it might come as no surprise to hear he has checked out early. Yet his far-flung admirers are shaking their heads over his loss to bladder cancer at 59. Read the full article at Sydney Morning Herald.
Of all the misfortunes that could have taken founding Rose Tattoo member Ian Rilen from this earth, few in Australia’s music community would have been laying bets on cancer. Notoriously hard-living, Rilen was often compared to Keith Richards, Iggy Pop and Motorhead’s Lemmy – both for his authentic rock ’n’ roll spirit and for his freakishly robust constitution. He seemed genuinely indestructible. (more…)
Daniel Ziffer
Hard-living Australian rock band Rose Tattoo have suffered another loss, with the death today of former bassist Ian Rilen. Read the full article at The Age.
Mark Mordue
Former Cold Chisel songwriter Don Walker calls him ‘a national treasure’. Hunters and Collectors made his song ‘Stuck On You’ a live anthem. Rilen even sparked a minor craze for singlets on Oz Rock front men when Mark Seymour, then Tex Perkins, imitated his on-stage look. Indeed each new generation seems to rediscover Rilen as an inspirationally authentic figure akin to a modern-day bluesman. Read the full article at The Basement Tapes.
First published Drum Media, 11th May, 2005
It’s all there in his gritty, streetwise, bittersweet sings, all delivered with a voice Tom Waits could comfortably put a harmony to, simple songs of love, booze, rock ‘n’ roll and the bruises each of them leave behind, all wrapped up in the kind of angry, dislocated guitar sound that makes the White Stripes and Blues Explosion so exciting. The title of the new album from Ian Rilen and The Love Addicts says it all – Passion Boots and Bruises (Phantom/MGM). (more…)
The Age , 18th March, 2005
“I been tryin’ to change, tryin to change my life, been married 27 times but just met my future ex-wife; we’ll have it: passion, boots and bruises”
– Ian Rilen, the title track off Passion, Boots and Bruises
Ian Rilen is an Australian rock institution. The Keith Richards of Australia, or “a national treasure”, according to Cold Chisel songwriter Don Walker, the 57-year-old lives and breathes the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle – you can hear it in his gravelly voice and see it in the crevices of his face. Read the full article at The Age.
I-94 Bar, January 15, 2004
Ian Rilen wants an orange juice. Freshly-squeezed. And the restaurant serving three of us breakfast this humid, wet Sydney Saturday afternoon can’t comply.
Their orange juice is freshly-squeezed, the waitress says. Freshly-squeezed at a factory and sent here. Not good enough and Rilen bounces outside and hits the Darlinghurst footpath, in search of Vitamin C.
It’s an image a world removed from that of the Ian Rilen the public thinks they know – the Dirty Degenerate Boy of the most visceral, intimidating Australian band of the last 30 years, the mighty X. Read the full interview at I-94 Bar