A few days ago, Booga and I watched Swagger of Thieves, a documentary by filmmaker Julian Boshier. For five years Julian has filmed Head Like a Hole (after they reformed in 2009). He’s stayed at our house, hung out with our kids and shared meals with us. Julian has toured nationally with the band several times and he attended our wedding last year. So far, he has been committed to this project for half a decade. Seeing his first cut stirred something in me, enough for me to write about it.
Suddenly the release date is close. The process has been so long, I hadn’t thought about the practicalities of this until now. Exposing Head Like a Hole and its extended family is risky, I was always aware of that. There’s a lot of water under the bridge; friends who’ve become foes, deeply personal moments and hard times for each of the band members (past and present). It’s a brave move for the band to present such an honest story.
Julian has history with Head Like a Hole and he’s collected footage over the lifespan of the band. It’s taken him eighteen months to search through his archives and to chase people across the country (for any missing pieces of the band’s history). It was scary to think what content could have made it into the film.
There’s a bit of a villain and heroine thread to the story. Booga’s soft side will continue to elude his fans, and the editing has been kind to me. You’ll see (below) I refer to him both as Booga and Nigel, this is something I regularly do in everyday life. Our family and close friends know Nigel Beazley and everyone else knows Booga Beazley. They’re two very separate characters. Booga dominates the film, as he should.
Booga and I have known each other for about twenty years, we moved in the same circles and had mutual friends in Tom Watson and Andrew Durno (past members of Head Like a Hole). I always thought Booga was a bit too cool and confident, if not arrogant. We used to tease each other a bit, looking back it was probably playful flirting. But, I would never have expected he would become my husband and the father of my twins – how ridiculous!
When people ask how we met, some say, in a smarmy voice “were you his groupie?” They think nothing of their sexist and degrading comment (interestingly it’s mostly women). I’ve heard it many times and it increasingly pisses me off. For in fact – if there was ever a groupie – it was Nigel. He’s a romantic and very respectful of women, he understands them. Booga, on the other hand, can be a little cruder in his performance and lyrics.
Nigel and I reconnected late 2003 when Head a Like a Hole was over, kaput for good. 
With no band to boost his ego, I got to know the real man. He was shy, caring and very funny. It didn’t take long to fall in love with his humour and his positive dreamy ways. He wanted the same things in life as me, and this didn’t involve music.
Booga was lost without his band, but he had left that scene behind for a good reason. Some people thought I was mad; hooking up with a recovering ‘junkie’ that lived with his mother. In truth, he was on the road to getting clean and he was caring for, at the time, the most important woman in his world. I respected that.
There’s an assumption that drug addicts no longer have personalities or morals. Unlike alcoholism, drug addiction makes people feel very uncomfortable, especially intravenous use. In most people’s minds, it’s a short journey from the casual dabbler to a full-blown junkie. Drug users quickly become no-hopers, basket cases that can only change if they want to. It’s a sad mindset that lacks truth and is full of hypocrisy.
Nigel’s support for me, and anything I do, is huge. He’s my biggest fan, and me his. Together we’re raising an amazing family, I have a successful career and we’ve kept Head Like a Hole viable for another decade. I initially managed them from 2009, then I handed
the task to Booga in 2012. After many rejections from NZ on Air funding, together we found ways to record new material, tour nationally and get tracks in the charts on a tiny budget. We were dedicated to the cause and continue to be.
In this film, Julian has captured how Nigel and I work well as a team. It magnifies specific parts our life together, so understandably I’m nervous to appear in the documentary. Being filmed was easy – sitting down to watch it was difficult. I don’t like the limelight like Booga does, he owns it and I hide from it. It’s especially hard to see people you care about bare all, particularly clips of our innocent children being mixed in amongst stories of drugs, death and betrayal. But the band has never been so close, healthy or committed than it is today and this helps to ease any anxiety for us all.
Swagger of Thieves is not the stock-standard rock-documentary I was expecting. The result is an artful tale of hard times. A bit brutal, but very truthful. It’s sensitive to the cast, while still sharing a lot of emotion with the viewer.
The anticipation is over, I’m pleasantly surprised how beautifully this film has been crafted. I hope viewers enjoy the story that Julian has so thoughtfully created and passionately invested in.
Tamzin Beazley
cool article, i’d like to see the film. i knew booga when we wuz both junkies hanging round on k rd doing junkie shit so it’s cool to see he’s straightened his shit out & got a family & all that good stuff…good on ya. (me too, same, good on me)
they’re just not a very good band – I mean, their cover of Springsteen was out of tune, and the early material sounds much like a high school band recorded in a community project studio. Kiss it or Shoot it was their big (overlooked) album, I claim because the mix lacks definition and treble, although it’s held up pretty good if you look back. As for alcoholism; it makes families, partners and friends very uncomfortable, if not traumatised – my issue here is that it’s just a cliche, as if being half-conscious on medical painkillers is a “rock stance”. Its a boring, boring existence that effects peoples quality and standard of life and is basically a waste of money. 20th century rock = Catholicism, really, whereby the universalism and “saviour” of its male dominated mythos conceals a history of abuse and of course massive personal gains, none of which went to HLAH however, they were pretty much a bar band with handful of airplay tracks.
Wow, so glad you bothered to type out how you really feel. You’re the type of killjoy that exist in our midst.
But I’m pretty sure there’s a bag of dicks waiting around for you to munch on somewhere round here……
Dude, I’m not being negative, I’m stating the truth. The idea of a “feature documentary” about Head Like a Hole (Is that seriously their band name??) is like publishing a 300 page biography on the Hasselhoff Experiment. Who thought it was a good idea? Friends of the Hasselhoff Experiment. Who actually listens to their albums the whole way through? Um, no-one really.
Hasselhoff Exeriment and HLAH aren’t even on the same page. So, what can we celebrate via a feature film in NZ’s musical bubble? Throw out a few ideas rather than just sucking the joy out of something that does not come often.
The Skeptics doco was, perhaps, interesting – because their recordings and videos were strange for the time, and the bands story was unusual. HLAH are basically a) all males, b) they like guitar riffs and drumming, but don’t write particularly good songs and c) they got into drugs. Um, hate to point the obvious out here but “drugs” ain’t actually cool, nor is it page turning fiction. Brain damage, impact on quality of life, sex work, hepatitis, stolen and borrowed money, cheap living, accidental heart failure or amputations all go with the territory. I mean – you can make a doco about drugs, I never suggested otherwise and nor is it for me to judge, but HLAH just aren’t really a focused act. It almost seemed like two decades until they produced a radio single with any punch. The only people who seem to be reacting positively on social media are direct friends or contacts of the group. More people were hyped about Hip Hoperation – the 80+ urban dance group that went to America via a doco, or the one about arguing chicken breeders in Canterbury. Obviously, making a film about an actual real life success story that overcame the odds (Taika Waititi) would be worth seeing but he has an actual life to live and probably doesn’t want to be immortalized in sexy, disposable digital video by his mates.
Obviously you’re not a fan. I get rt. You’re high brow, elitist and believe that time and energy could be placed elsewhere in other areas. You say you don’t judge, but that’s what you’re doing. Your opinion counts, to yourself. Let others enjoy the tales of HLAH and the dirty, sleazy road to rock n roll fame. Have you finished that bag already………….?
I’m not highbrow dude I’m annoyed about the people I grew up with ended up with issues involving brain damage, accidental heart failure, amputations, sex work, theft, hospitalization, cheap living, unemployment etc. That and the fact that their “greatest hits” such as, um Hootenany and some other shit they came up with in 1998 sticks to your brain about as well as pancake batter. Beazley was on winz payments for seven years in the 90’s – that’s how HLAH “kept going”; they didn’t have success from gigs or recordings, and they HATED each other.
yes, I agree – ditto HDU, a doco on them could be interestin’, except for the bits where they’re actually playing music !!
Indeed, “one” can only imagine how pretentious and dishonest the record deal must have been between talentless Ewen Mcgregor lookalike Tristan Dingemans, f*cked up on boiled down post op painkillers and cheap shit that gives you liver damage and pissed-for-decades Roger Shepard.
RS: “Do you guys want a record deal?”
HDU: “Oh yeah – definitely, and Flying Nun are the ONLY label we’d sign with frankly. We only listen to COOL BANDS like UM, SLINT and MY BLOODY VALENTINE”.
RS: *belch* slur *belch* mkay
I’d bet u $24.99 in NZ Studylink payment money that Shepard, nor the later guy Ben Howe actually ever listened to an HDU junk/noise record the whole way through ever. So be it, they say. Uh, yeah – also the only shit white people in Dunedin ever listen to is like Jack Johnson and old Iron Maiden cassettes basically. Good reason, too, re: HDU etc
OK. So rather than wasting time on me and this thread, why don’t you write a treatment for the real story. You seem to know so much, almost like someone who auditioned and didn’t make the cut and has a chip on the shoulder. But hey, rock and roll can be greasy, filthy and full of disasters, blah, blah, blah. Not the only band to succumb to this
I don’t have a chip on my shoulder, or any more than everyone else with “the system”, HLAH aren’t famous – except for their non-hit single “Wet Rubber”, the occasional airing of “Hootenanny” on the rock and something they released about four years ago they just don’t have the impact or audience to wallow in glamour. Like I said, the singer was on winz for seven years in the 90s – even in interviews when he said they were all moving to Berlin, nothing happened, so why believe “their story” now? I have nothing further to add here actually, since you seem to think my complaint is that I’m dissing them for being “sleazy” or “greasy” or something?? Um………
Good riddance. Go away. Fall in a drain and get washed away like the judgemental overbearing opinionated pond scum you are .
sorry bro, didn’t spend ten years of my life on the dole, being hated and hating people and shooting cheap boiled down painkiller meds because of some shit I read on a metal band when I was 15. Dumb? Yes. Good? Almost, but no not really at all.
Go listen to yourself for once, perhaps – and NO – not that annoying voice in your head that keeps distracting you about your own shortcomings etc. Comprende?
Still munching on that bag of dicks I see
I don’t eat processed foods either, bro. Thanks, bro.
Im not your fukn “bro” never will be . I do not need or want people like you in my life.You are as they say a negative creep
sorry, bro
Come on out from behind your keyboard.
I don’t own a keyboard
they’re and OK band, but nah wouldn’t bother listening to them now. *(or then) – not sure why NZ funded that doco on SHihad either, ugh sick of their horrible rugbyhead/powerchord rock music before Y2K
Thanks for your biased input Julian. You’re well known for being an angry little man with a chip on your shoulder.
I bet you would’ve grabbed that missing treble and given it a good olde fashioned spit and polish and made it shine like the sun. Hurrah for you!
spitting and polishing was a different issue in the 90’s, to be honest.
Wow. You quite like yourself. Just a bit more than a bit ..
they’re bad – as a metal band, were good, in a teenage sort of way, but as a rock singles band, no – they hate each other and they regret their lives. Have you actually worked with these people? It’s 2017 pal – there’s a doco out there for everyone, I hear.
Pingback: Swagger of Thieves: Film
Pingback: Sweetman Podcast: Episode 76 – Tamzin Beazley