To paraphrase Camille Yarbrough’s “Take Yo’ Praise,” the members of Spiderbait have come a long, long way together.

Mark “Kram” Maher, Janet English and Damien “Whitt” Whitty all grew up in Finley, a small farming town in New South Wales’ Riverina region. They started jamming together more than a quarter of a century ago.

A tally of Spiderbait’s subsequent achievements would fill a truckload of notebooks. Their 1996 single “Buy Me A Pony” was the first Australian song to top triple j’s Hottest 100. Its follow-up, “Calypso,” peaked at #13 in the ARIA singles chart, and the corresponding album, Ivy and the Big Apples, went double-platinum.

Ivy won Best Alternative Release at the 1997 ARIAs, while the band’s next album, 1999’s Grand Slam, reached #3 in the ARIA albums chart. Spiderbait went on to tour Japan and support the Beastie Boys on their 1999 Australian arena tour.

All of this happened before 2004, when Spiderbait – already on the Mt. Rushmore of 90s Australian rock music – released their most commercially successful single: “Black Betty.”

“Black Betty” is a Black American folk song first recorded by Lead Belly in the 1930s. However, Spiderbait’s version is based on Ram Jam’s 1977 hard rock interpretation. “We just loved how bombastic it was,” says Kram, the band’s drummer and co-lead vocalist.

“Black Betty” was released as the lead single from Spiderbait’s sixth album, Tonight Alright. It topped the ARIA singles chart in May 2004 and earned double-platinum accreditation. Spiderbait are marking the 20th anniversary of its release with an Australian tour this August to October.

Ahead of the tour, Kram speaks to Check Check about growing up Finley, playing footy, watching Countdown, and owning the success of “Black Betty.”

Check Check: Spiderbait started out in Melbourne. What age were you when you moved down here?

Kram: I came down when I was 18. Straight out of Year 12. Came down to study music. Then we pretty much started the same year. I mean, Whitt and I had already been jamming for three or four years, since we were about 15.

Part of the reason I like Melbourne is I’m quite sentimental. And the whole premise of this tour is quite sentimental. Janet sent through this photo of our very first jam on her farm in the front yard. I’m wearing footy shorts, I’ve got this old kit, I’ve got a really short haircut. Whitt’s wearing a Pixies t-shirt, no shoes. But, essentially, you look at the photograph from my perspective and it’s exactly the same band.

Were you quite different to the people you grew up around in Finley? Wanting to be in a band and being Pixies fans, was that unusual?

I don’t think so. I loved playing footy and my mum was a hairdresser and my dad was a builder. But when I started playing music, something changed. A music-oriented school from Seaford came to play at our school and just the quality of musicianship and the amazing playing of these students really blew me away.

But every kid wants to be a rock star, especially if you grow up watching Countdown.

Whitt and I used to play cricket together when we were 13. Then he went away to school – he went to St Bede’s [in Melbourne] and he got influenced by a lot of independent music. He would actually sneak out to gigs and do all sorts of stuff. When he came back, he brought an electric guitar with him and he said, “Do you want to have a bit of a jam?” And that’s basically the first formation of the band.

But it would be remiss of me to say I was some weirdo walking down the street. I was school captain and first in the state for music and captained the footy team. I was pretty fucking straight. Although, I was in the Adam and the Ants club.

So, you enjoyed life in the country, but you felt a bit of wanderlust.

I think there’s also an element of how – especially back then, in the 1980s – the limitations of information had a big affect on you. We would come home from school and always watch The Goodies and then the Kenny Everett Video Show and Doctor Who. So, I grew to love British television, British drama.

There was a limitation on the amount of stuff that was on the radio. I remember coming down [to Melbourne] to stay at my cousins’ place, the first time I ever heard Triple R. I think they were playing some offcuts of a Human League record and I was like, “What is this weird music?” And at night in Finley, you could get AM radio, and we used to get 2SM out of Sydney, which back then was a pretty edgy radio station and would play a lot of really awesome 80s stuff.

I just remember getting these influences from afar and you kind of piece together a scene from these little tiny bits. It’s not like in Melbourne where you walk out your door and you’re transfixed by everyone walking along the street. Where I was, you really had to search for it, and in some ways that gave it a bit more potency.

Did the Ram Jam version of “Black Betty” reach Finley?

That’s absolutely the version we covered. Countdown was a pretty important show for us as kids. Every Sunday you would watch Countdown at six o’clock and see your favourite bands and check out what was on the charts, and then everyone would talk about it on Monday at school.

It’s funny, because watching old Countdown reruns on ABC – one of my favourite bands was The Police and I can remember when they did “Walking On the Moon” on Countdown. It came up and I’m like, “Oh, I can remember that,” and then the band that played after it, I had no memory. Your memory’s very selective. You remember the stuff you’re a fan of and the rest completely disappears.

So, we all remembered that Ram Jam version. It’s such a weird song and at that stage I had no idea about Lead Belly’s heritage and the fact that he had written the song. We just loved how bombastic it was and it just had a big affect on us. So, that’s kind of the idea we were trying to cover.

Are you surprised by how successful your version has been?

Having all these years go by and all the success of the song and then to end up doing it with Dom Dolla last year at the Myer Music Bowl, it’s a total trip – it’s nothing I ever would’ve imagined.

Do you have any misgivings about one of your biggest songs being a cover?

If we had reservations about it being a cover, we never would’ve fucking covered the song in the first place. If we’d never had any other hits and people didn’t know us for any other song, maybe I would say yes. But everyone knows the complexity of the band and the songs that we’ve released. So, no, we’re stoked.

It’s like someone driving the Charger around. You gotta own it, man. Don’t be embarrassed. If you were embarrassed about it, you wouldn’t have bought the fucking car in the first place.

Spiderbait – Black Betty 20th anniversary tour

with guests Polish Club*, Abbe May^, Private Function#, Adalita°

Tuesday 13 August – Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane, QLD*
Friday 16 August – Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide, SA*
Saturday 17 August – Odeon Theatre, Hobart, TAS*
Friday 30 August – Bar On The Hill, Newcastle, NSW*
Saturday 31 August – Waves, Wollongong, NSW*
Saturday 14 September – The Astor Theatre, Perth, WA^
Sunday 15 September – The Astor Theatre, Perth, WA^
Thursday 19 September – Forum, Melbourne, VIC#
Friday 20 September – Forum, Melbourne, VIC#
Saturday 21 September – Enmore Theatre, Sydney, NSW*
Sunday 20 October – Miami Marketta Laneway, Gold Coast, QLD°
Friday 25 October – UC Refectory, Canberra, ACT°

Tickets on sale via Frontier

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