Tracy Pew

After spending his early childhood in New Zealand, Tracy began attending Caulfield Grammar School in 1972 when his family relocated to Australia.

There he became friends with the "art house gang" which included his eventual band mates. Upon discovering he'd been secretly learning Bass Guitar he was immediately adopted into the band at the expense of Brett Purcell who had, anyway, allegedly sold his bass to buy a telescope.

Tracy’s personality is legendary, and his individuality suffused everything he came into contact with. The power of his playing style was such that many of The Birthday Party's best works were written with his awesome undertow in mind.

During 1981, he developed the sartorial cowboy look for which he was renowned and instantly recognizable. In contrast to his image as a wild man and renegade, Tracy was an inveterate reader and after the band's breakup returned to university in Melbourne where he set about studying literature and philosophy. Unfortunately, his years of excess had contributed to the onset of an epileptic condition, and he died as a result of a seizure in November 1986. His colleagues always felt he would have gone on to become a great writer. Sadly, we shall never know.