Nice boys don't play rock 'n' roll, but they still get a bit choked up when thinking about the end of their band.
Gary "Angry" Anderson is the vocalist and longest tenured member of Rose Tattoo. He's helped raise hell and bang heads as the frontman of the Australian rock band since the group's inception in 1976. With 2026 marking Rose Tattoo's 50th anniversary, the group will call it a career with a final show planned for New Year's Eve.
"The end of the year, when I wake up on the morning, the first morning of '27, I'll wake up, and the band will be gone," said Anderson, 78, during the Jan. 25 episode of Rock Daydream Nation.
When asked whether the decision to end the band left him with "mixed emotions," Angry Anderson let out a sigh and nodded. "Yeah. I thought I was fine," he said, as translated by Blabbermouth.net.
"I thought when you preempt something, or you have pre-knowledge, and I don't mean to be gloomy, but when you know someone — I've just lost someone rather dear to me, yet another person, to cancer just recently, and we knew she was terminally ill. And so we had this two-years-plus of leading up to it — constant treatment, talking about it, blah, blah, blah — but it didn't prepare me for the shock," said Anderson.
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"And it reminded me of losing the other members of the band. We all knew, months in some cases, years ahead of time, that they were terminally ill, but when it actually happens," he said. "And that's just human nature. That's just what happens."
Rose Tattoo has endured its fair share of heartache. Founding members Pete Wells and Ian Rilen have both passed away, as have guitarist/songwriter Mick Cocks, drummer Dallas "Digger" Royall, guitarist John Meyer, and bassists Lobby Loyde and Nell Smith.
But Rose Tattoo won't go out on a sad note. "Three years ago, when I first went to Scot Crawford, our manager, and said, 'Are you aware of the fact that the band is 50 years old in a few years?' two and a half years, whatever it might've been," said Anderson. "And he went, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' And I said, 'Well, we'll do another album.'"
Rose Tattoo's last major release was 2020's Outlaws. The band first released its self-titled LP in 1978. They followed it up with 1981's Assault & Battery, before achieving international success with Scarred for Life in '83 (establishing them as more aligned with the hard rock of the early 80s than with that of the prior decade).
Rose Tattoo would release two more albums—Southern Stars, and Beats from a Single Drum—with hit songs in their native Australia like "Bad Boy for Love," "Rock 'n' Roll Outlaw," "We Can't Be Beaten," "Branded," and "I Wish."
Anderson took a break from the band to play the character of "Ironbar" Bassey in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. And at that time, the group was ready to go its separate ways.
Rose Tattoo disbanded shortly afterward, reforming briefly in 1993 to support Guns N' Roses (who covered their song, "Nice Boys," on their 1986 Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide EP). Rose Tattoo reformed for a second time in 1998 and have remained rockin' ever since.
The group will go out on a high note with a new album that will appeal to both new and old fans. Anderson credited slide guitarist Mick Arnold as being "very prolific, musically" and having a modern "bluesey" approach to songs.
"I was home by myself [this past] New Year's Eve, and I thought, 'I'm gonna drink some beer and bourbon and smoke a cigar and go to bed a happy man,'" said Anderson, who said he started listening to some of the new songs on the upcoming album. "The new songs reminded me so much of the old songs, and when you hear them, you'll know what I'm saying."
This left Anderson reflective. "Because by this time, midnight had come, and I just thought, well, [in] a year, I'll be sitting there possibly…' Well, I'll be with the band, 'cause we'll play on New Year's Eve into the New Year's morning of the first morning of '27, because that's how the band started. We took our first gig from the New Year's Eve gig at the Chequers nightclub here in Sydney. And I thought, I'll wake up to a new year, and I'll be bandless."
Rose Tattoo announced their farewell plans in April 2025. "We will be 50 years old in '26 on New Year's Eve," said Anderson, per 3AW. "I am proud to say – because I have survived all the original members, and a few along the way – we have achieved what we set out to achieve. At the end of the day, if you can say that you are a lucky man."
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