the story behind the photos: the church

Marty Willson-Piper, 1984
Malibu, CA



I don’t know if it is a good thing, a bad thing, or simply just the way things are – when I am interested in something, I have to immerse myself in it.


me, Steve Kilbey, Roxanne Fontana
NYC, 1984
(photo by Martina Stanek, taken with my camera)


In 1981, I met Roseann Fontana (she now goes by Roxanne because over the years, so many people just called her “Roxanne” by mistake that she simply changed her name. Legally.) She was the friend of a friend, and unbeknownst to both Roseann (and I have always called her by her proper name, so I can’t switch now!) and I dated the same guy in the recent past. That’s how we met.

When she came to Los Angeles, we started to hang out and found we had the same taste in music. We were both listening to a new release by the Australian band called The Church. She was crazy about the single, “The Unguarded Moment,” a jangly Rickenbacker number, dark under its seeming brightness. Because I booked shows at the Whisky, I suggested that we bring them to the States.

It was that simple idea that started a 20-year relationship with the band that bore all the marks of a sibling relationship, with all the love, hate, roses and thorns that come with it.

The portrait of Marty Willson-Piper, above is an enduring artifact of the early, halcyon days of being in world of The Church. Also, a group photo I took from the same day is included in the Rhino Records box set, Children of Nuggets – perhaps an artifact with greater distribution than my portrait of Marty, and one that will keep people asking me, “what did you do with The Church?”


The Church at Stage Door Rehearsal Studios in Sydney, Australia, March 2000


Stage Door

Twenty years is a long time to cover in just a blog post on a blog that's really meant to highlight the photos. We were like family, all of us, and families know how to push each other's buttons.


Steve Kilbey, 1984
Malibu, CA

We lived and worked with each other through several changes of management, record labels and booking agents, investors, friends, lovers, wives, children, deaths, arrests, band break ups, band reunions...we traveled the world together and found great solace, comfort, support in friendship with one another. We bonded over music, art and literature; we debated philosophy and vegetarianism. I learned all their eating idiosyncracies and we all stayed in one another's homes in various parts of the world over 20 years. They thanked me publicly, and I have thanked them. We have also fought publicly.

Just like family.


Tim Powles Hands

In 1999/2000, I went to Sydney as the band tried to start recording a new album. Like Dickens wrote, "It was the best of times; it was the worst of time." Sydney was delightful, and there were great times, but I guess that's where the seeds of the immediate near future were sown.



We're estranged now to say the least. Marty and I did see each other in 2005 however. NYC, he was playing in The Saints, who I booked to play the intimate Ding Dong Lounge. I think we both feared the worst, but it was OK. In an "just like old times" moment, I drove him from 106th Street to St. Mark's Place in between the sound check and the show. There were awkward moments, however, nothing with Marty, though...nothing worth discussing in public, that's for sure!