Being a city resident, it started out being ‘fuck you, I don’t need to wear a suit to drink beer in the city’. I go to the door and get treated like an animal when all I want to do is have a beer? I’m classified by my clothes. It shows you how small-minded people can be. It was out of pure resentment and disregard for authority, the fact that bouncers would stand there and have instructions from an owner regarding shoes and shirts. It borders on discrimination. St Jerome’s was meant to be the polar opposite of all those venues.
I was in VCAT and Fiona McLeod, the state ombudsman for water, has got enough taxpayer’s money and time to spend at VCAT so she can tell me, ‘we know what you do at your establishments, we know this, we know that…’ I said, ‘that’s interesting, I’ve never been fined by the liquor commission.’ We never did anything illegal.
What is it that I do?
I encourage people not to have to conform to mainstream society. I hated it as a kid, I hated it as I grew up, I hated it in other venues, and still to this point I can’t stand when people try and control other people’s lives. What’s wrong with you? Where did you get the idea you were better than someone else? It’s quite frightening to think that somebody who owns a bar is then qualified to tell you who can drink in there as well. The way you design a venue determines that, not the attitude of an owner. And unfortunately around 2003, when they were handing out licenses without any consideration, a lot of idiots and wannabe rockstars got licenses.
My first experience in a hotel was when I was five, and I don’t profess to be an expert or suggest I know more or less than anyone else, but what I do understand how to pay some consideration to people. St Jerome’s, without putting a negative slant on it, was really my way of fucking the establishment. That’s why there were plenty of times I just stood naked at the bar. What’s the difference? I had the most fun standing at the bar in my pyjamas. I can’t live with being controlled.
I’m not the only one out there that feels it. The city’s a tough place to live. That’s why St Jerome’s worked, because it gave you the freedom to express yourself. It gave you the freedom to get away from the bureaucracy.
I first went three or four years before I bought it. It was just a hole in the wall café back then. Ernie, the old Swiss guy who owned it, probably had 15 of us regular customers and it was always an open forum for discussion. You weren’t judged for what you thought because you’d be back there the next day. And I’m not talking about people my age; there were 20-year olds to 75-year old people. I told him I would continue that legacy.
There was a massive heroin problem in that laneway. It was the second highest spot for collecting needles in the city of Melbourne, so it wasn’t frequented by a lot of people. But even if you had an argument with a person in the bar (never physical, just intellectual) you’d be back the next day and friends again because there were no boundaries and no judgement. I think I carried that on at St Jerome’s. There was no violence, and why should there have been? We’re having a drink; we’re relaxing.
It was so much fun there, it was incredible because nothing ever broke a law, but it just seemed to be out of control in a positive way. I feel that was because of the surrounding environment, that place was no different to my house. My house was busier than that place sometimes, carrying on that European tradition of welcoming people into your home. I was really fortunate to attract amazing staff. The problem was the authorities couldn’t put a finger on what it was that we were doing. Nobody could put a finger on it. It was actually treating people like human beings, not like fucking bank accounts, ‘thanks for your money, sucker.’
I had so much fun building the place because I got to do it with my friends, and that’s how it stayed. It was always friends of friends. At any given point you could walk into that place on your own and run into all your friends. It was like a clubhouse.
I found it interesting that people didn’t think it was going to work. It’s okay. I didn’t plan for it to work, and I didn’t care about it working, it’s not what it was about. I started it with my sister and Danny and one of my best mates Kirk. We had a cracking time, and everybody else had a great time with us. It wasn’t a skilled decision to employ the staff we had. As each day goes by it’s more about who I want to spend my time with — my friends. We made thousands of friends. I’m not necessarily very skilled at technical things, and I don’t actually know what else I would do. I think I made it up so I could just do this. I never really wanted to work. I hate working, irrespective of the fact that I seem to be doing 15 hour days. It was really an anti-establishment thing for me.
The motivation wasn’t about building a bar; I’d already owned 10 before it. It was about guys like Carlson, and Sam and Ben Totty, and Liege, the sexy dance parties, and the wedding after parties. Every day was like a TV sitcom in there. There’s no one day that stood out more than another. Seeing Architecture in Helsinki play there, The Presets, The Avalanches, seeing Nicholas Cage in there, Garbage, Metallica, Chemical Brothers, it was fucking hilarious because the joint was just about having a good time. It was a piss take. Not in a nasty way. It was such a high every night. It was always positive. There was no negativity in the place.