SINGER, songwriter, playwright, and pub owner Mick Thomas has been a stalwart of the Aussie folk and rock scenes since the late ’80s.

He led ARIA-winning group Weddings, Parties, Anything (WPA) to fame, the band finding success here and abroad.

With their name inspired by lyrics in The Clash song Revolution Rock, WPA combined the spirit of punk with folk and country.

Thomas has remained super active ever since WPA split in the late ’90s, touring, writing, recording, and forming current folk-rock outfit Roving Commission, with ex-WPA bandmate Mark Wallace and a handful of talented musicians, including other Weddings’ alumni, members of The Waifs and the backing bands of Aussie luminaries such as Archie Roach, Tex Perkins and David Bridie.
The Victorian musician is now on the road promoting his new album, Where Only Memory Can Find You.
Six of the nine songs on the album are co-writes with prominent Australian female singer-songwriters; two tracks with Amy Saunders from ’90s Indigenous folk trio Tiddas, and one each with Saunders’ bandmate Lou Bennett, country legend Sara Storer, Melbourne veteran Barb Waters, and Brooke Taylor – a recent addition to the band.
The album release coincides with the publication of Volume I of Thomas’s new graphic novel Away Away, that tells the story of Rudi Pruckner, about a young man who became a soldier, then a prisoner, a refugee and ultimately a father.
By any standards, Thomas shows no sign of pulling out his pipe and slippers and resting on his punk-folk laurels.
He will board a UK-bound plane when the tour wraps up along with bandmate Jen Anderson with dates including an appearance on Billy Bragg’s Left Field stage at Glastonbury Festival.

“We all spent plenty of time with nothing going on,” Thomas said.

“Being locked down, unable to perform, made me realise just how much I wanted to keep making records, play shows and stay creative.

“I keep finding projects and things to do so it hasn’t been a problem for me.

“Some people get towards the end of their career, and say I wish I had done this or had done that, but I don’t think I’m one of those people who will die wondering.”

Where Only Memory Can Find You takes him back to his roots – the album title acquired from the chorus of WPA’s classic 1987 single Away Away.
The album is a meditation on the relationship between memory and the passing of time, and how the past is a place never to be revisited.
Thomas said his latest work remained true to the DIY punk ethic.

“Most of the sales of the albums are out of my back room, with me taking them down to the post office to mail out,” Thomas said.
“People seem really surprised about that, but everyone works, don’t they?
“It’s still better than sitting on a freeway a couple of hours a day, commuting to work.

“I’ve had the whole streaming thing shoved down my throat, but I’ve done these experiments where I haven’t uploaded my albums to streaming to see if it affected sales.
“It didn’t seem to make a difference one way or another.
“The whole physical element of an album has been debased over time.
“I recently rebought The Clash’s Sandinista album. It meant so much to me when it first came out. These guys were so adventurous. The whole package, it’s so magnificent.
“And that is the sentiment I am trying to get across with this new album and the graphic novel which accompanies it, to create this value-added feeling, a super-deluxe version that people can lock into.”

The tour will feature songs from the new album plus WPA material.

“Hitting that sweet spot, when the band is cooking and your mind is totally clear, that’s what I am looking forward to but that is never a given when on stage,” Thomas said.
Mick Thomas’s Roving Commission, Can You Keep a Secret, South Brisbane, May 27.