Bentley Rhythm Ace: Aces High.

Bentley Rhythm Ace play Splendour In The Grass at the Belongil Fields, Byron Bay on July 21

Those crazy beat-boys from Birmingham are back. A couple of likely lads who love to take the piss and get around under a band acronym that belongs in a women’s lingerie boutique. The last time I caught a double-D dose of BRA was when they toured here in 1997 with Vibes On A Summer’s Day and I spoke to wise cracking geezer Mike Stokes before he and his partner turned up on Australian stages with a large, polystyrene car and wind-up air-raid siren. This time around, with a few more years in the music biz pinned to their chests, it’s a more considered Bentley coming down the wire, as BRA’s other half, the affable Richard Marsh talks more seriously - in amongst the band’s trade-mark chuckling.

“We’re really looking forward to it,” says Marsh about coming to Australia for the third time. “We just like to get out and about and meet people. It’s our whole raison d’état! (laughs). It’s my eighth or ninth trip. I use to play with a band called Pop Will Eat Itself… and we came out a good few times, so we’ve got quite a few friends (in Australia)…”

Although Marsh hasn’t seen many changes during his experiences of touring Australia over an extended period - “hotels and nightclubs don’t really change” - he does perceive a turn for the worst in the music industry as a whole.

“In the UK it’s really changed over the last 18 months or so. These shows like Pop Stars and Pop Idol, they’ve just killed it for me. I just can’t see why they have to force this rubbish down the kids’ necks and as an artist it’s difficult to see how you can compete with these people if you’re a musician doing some music that you really believe in, that you think is innovative and interesting and exciting… I find it really depressing.”

Depressing is not a word I associate with BRA so I quickly suggest that there are many discerning listeners seeking out good music in the world.

“The problem for us of course,” continues Marsh, “is that a couple of years ago when we first came over and everyone was excited about Bentley Rhythm Ace and we had a big record label in to bank roll our touring experiences, we could come across the other side of the world with a band. Now all the accountants are saying: ‘We’ll get this pop-idol guy and do a cover version and it’ll rake in loads of cash and it won’t cost us anything… Why should we give these jerks from Birmingham the ten thousand bucks so they can go on stage on the other side of the world’.”

“For artists like ourselves, it’s kind of pulled the rug out from under our feet a bit, because we can’t afford to take our band with us and actually perform…. It’s getting more and more difficult. The older you get, the less saleable a commodity you are.”

While he finishes off with a long hearty laugh, Marsh is obviously disappointed with the way the industry does things. As he goes on to advise that the pair are branching out by working with loads of singers and live players on various projects (“it’s refreshing for me to work with real musicians rather than samplers and sequencers”), I ask him whether he thinks the whole electronic music trip has come full circle with producers rediscovering a respect for live musicianship.

“There is definitely an element of that. Me and Mike did a couple of shows last week, DJing but with a live drummer and it was an amazing difference. As for things coming ‘full circle’… I’ve been involved in creating music for so long, that it feels like the tenth time the circle’s been round! (laughs). You find yourself getting a bit cynical about it; ‘Oh I’ve heard it all before.’ But you know you haven’t.”

“I can’t help going back to my old Stooges records or even Rage Against The Machine,” admits Marsh. It’s not only an antidote for tired ears - some of it just might end up in a DJ set. “I’ve been working with a guy who’s introduced me to a load of wacky big band jazz stuff from the 30s, which to me really sounds like techno, you know it’s really syncopated on the beat. These guys were doing this like 60, 70 years ago! The recordings are really tinny and crackly and it don’t sound any good for a big club sound system, but you know we do play stuff from across the whole spectrum when we’re DJing.”