Angry Anderson, frontman of the cult Australian hard rock outfit Rose Tattoo, has died at the age of 79.
Anderson was born in Melbourne in 1947 and started his first band, Buster Brown, in 1973. Buster Brown played blues rock and recorded their one and only album, “Something to Say”, in 1974. Then in 1975 drummer Phil Rudd moved to Sydney and joined AC/DC.
Anderson followed Rudd a year later, only he joined Rose Tattoo, whose dirty, straight-to-the-face, blues-tinged rock’n’roll mirrored the singer’s own uncompromising nature. Back then Rose Tattoo shared a production team (Vanda and Young) with AC/DC, as well as a label (Albert Productions), and the two bands were also bound by a deep kinship and friendship.
The band’s self-titled debut (released in some countries as “Rock ‘n’ Roll Outlaw”) came out in 1978 and is best known for the track Nice Boy«, which Guns N’ Roses later covered on their EP “Live ?!★@ Like a Suicide”. Before splitting in 1987 they recorded four more studio albums – “Assault & Battery” (1981), “Scarred For Life” (1982), “Southern Stars” (1984) and “Beats From A Single Drum” (1986).
In their first era, Rose Tattoo built a huge reputation on a mix of bluesy hard rock and wild, often provocative gigs, fueled in part by a diet of cheap drugs. Their 1981 set at the UK’s Reading festival went down in legend when Anderson deliberately smacked himself in the face with the microphone. What followed was the singer, face covered in blood, hurling the mic stand with all his might across the wooden stage so that it flew off into the wings.
In the summer of 1987, Anderson scored an unexpected hit in the UK with the single Suddenly from his first solo album “Beats From A Single Drum” (that’s the Rose Tattoo album of the same name, which Anderson reissued in 1988), and it climbed to number 2 on the British charts.
That the single climbed so high was hardly a surprise. It had been used in the soundtrack of the hugely popular Australian TV soap »Neighbours«, which among other things featured the wedding of the very popular characters Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) and Charlene Mitchell (Kylie Minogue).
Angry’s second solo album, “Blood From Stone”, came out in 1990. Then in 1993 Rose Tattoo reunited for a short while for a brief Australian tour on which they opened for Guns N’ Roses. They got back together once more in 1998 and went on to deliver three more studio albums: “Pain” (2002), “Blood Brothers” (2007) and “Outlaws” (2020).
Beyond music, Anderson played the role of Ironbar in the hit “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” in 1985 and also went into politics as a member of the conservative National Party, later running on the ticket of the far-right Australian Liberty Alliance Party.
Rose Tattoo had planned their final shows for this year, but their European tour wrapped up earlier than planned, as Angry suffered a cardiac arrest at one of the August shows in Germany and was hospitalized immediately.
In the photo: singer Angry Anderson performing with Rose Tattoo on 14. 7. 2017 at the German festival Bang Your Head!!! (RockLine photo archive 2006-2026, all rights reserved). You can read the full RockLine review of that festival day HERE!
