This was originally published in The Conversation.
“I’m not a nice boy and I never was,” Angry Anderso n sang on Rose Tattoo’s 1978 debut album.
Gary “Angry” Anderson became a well-known figure in Australian popular culture. As frontman of Rose Tattoo, he was central to the hard-edged Oz Rock tradition that grew from Australia’s pub circuit.
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Much of that influence came from how successfully Anderson built a public image as Australia’s rock ‘n’ roll outlaw.
Born in Melbourne in 1947, Anderson began performing in the early 1970s with the bands Peace, Power and Purity and Buster Brown.
Rose Tattoo released its debut album in 1978, and international success soon followed. By 1981, the band were touring Europe and appearing at England’s Reading Festival.
Their influence reached Guns N’ Roses, who covered Nice Boys in 1986 and later asked Rose Tattoo to reunite for their 1993 Australian shows.
Anderson’s fame branched outside of hard rock.
After the episode aired in the United Kingdom, the song reached No.3.
Rose Tattoo disbanded in 1987, briefly reunited in 1993, then reformed in 1998 and returned to recording with Pain in 2002. Their place in Australian rock history was formally recognised with induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2006.
Anderson’s legacy was built through a masculine image Rose Tattoo embraced from the start.
Songs like Tramp and the histories built around bands like Rose Tattoo centre male experience, influencing whose stories come to represent Australian rock to the wider public.