T J Honeysuckle, Last Tram Home, 2nd November, 2006
My older brother was 16 in 1976, and an early fan of punk rock. He would go visit his new friends and bring home cassettes of local alternative radio station 3RRR- their signal wasn’t strong enough to pick up out where we lived- and I’d sneak into his room and borrow them. On one tape, sandwiched between the Boys Next Door doing “A Catholic Skin” and the Little Murders’ “Things Will Be Different” was X doing “Delinquent Cars”. That clanging guitar, the bouncing bass line, the strange lyrics in that deadpan voice…I was intrigued and got hold of more, a whole album’s worth in fact, including “Present”, “Suck Suck”, and the anthemic “ I Don’t Wanna Go Out”. Read the full article at Last Tram Home.
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…)
spindoctor, Faster Louder, 15th February, 2006
There was no way in hell I was going to miss the chance to catch Ian Rilen and The Love Addicts on one of their rare forays north to Sydney. This trip saw them out of their familiar surrounds of Surry Hills/Darlinghurst pubs and joining the dinner and show circuit at The Vanguard. Read the full article on Faster Louder.
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
Houseboy, Faster Louder, 27th April, 2005
If Gene Vincent were alive today, and not at the birth of rock ‘n roll as we know it, he’d arguably be recording songs like Booze to Blame. Read the full article on Faster Louder.
The Rockbrat Blog, 20th August, 2010
Hell To Pay were a Melbourne band who existed from around 1991 to 1993. They were, to coin an often over used phrase, ‘the real deal’. Read the full article on Rockbrat.