I’m talking to a 71-year-old coffee farmer who lives near Kona in Hawaii. He’s got a small operation there on around four hectares of land, and also grows macadamias. Before life on the farm he was an emergency medicine doctor, a flight surgeon with the US navy and a jet pilot.

What has any of this got to do with a story about Radio Birdman, the iconic band that burned brightly for a short time in the mid-’70s, then reformed 20 years later and is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary with an Australian tour?

Well, that coffee farmer is none other than Deniz Tek, the band’s co-founder, lead guitarist and spiritual figurehead. Born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he was in exactly the right place at the right time to witness local incendiary bands of the late ’60s such as The MC5 and The Stooges.

When he moved to Sydney in 1972 to study medicine at the University of NSW, he started playing in bands, eventually linking up with intense long-haired frontman Rob Younger, bass player Warwick Gilbert, drummer Ron Keeley and keyboard player Pip Hoyle, forming a group influenced by the loud, intense, uncompromising rock and roll they all loved.

In those pre-punk days, Radio Birdman’s musical style, volume and attitude weren’t exactly appreciated by many of the publicans and bookers in the Sydney scene.

“Sometimes it was like going into battle,” Tek recalls. “Things would get physical at our earlier shows. If we didn’t comply with what the management wanted us to do, sometimes they would sick the bouncers on us. We just wanted to play and do our thing without compromising, but what we were doing wasn’t going over very well with the establishment.”

It got to the point where they decided to open their own place in 1977, founding The Funhouse at the Oxford Tavern in Sydney’s Taylor Square. It became their nerve centre and a clubhouse for like-minded bands and their fans. There was a sign above the door that read: “One buck – no trendies.”

Younger drew up a manifesto, outlining the kind of bands that were not wanted at the Funhouse. The criteria included fashion choices (no platform shoes, overalls or hippie gear) and, most importantly, musical taste, outlawing bands who played Status Quo, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Queen, ZZ Top, Bad Company, and, with hilarious specificity, “Ted Nugent post-1972”.

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“I see it as humorous now, and a little embarrassing,” says Younger, from his home on the NSW south coast. “We were incorporating people’s music tastes and a dress code, which I know is terrible. But the intention back then was that there’s something happening here, and certain people won’t be interested. In retrospect it was fairly carelessly worded, but we were trying to generate something for ourselves.”

The band’s shows whipped up a fanatical fanbase, with followers adopting the group’s striking, mysterious symbol on armbands, patches, badges, T-shirts (and eventually, tattoos) and holding fists aloft like power salutes, reaching a peak with the band’s youth anthem New Race (“there’s gonna be a new race, kids are gonna start it up”).

There were criticisms at the time that the group was flirting with militaristic and even fascistic imagery, something that still makes them bristle.

“That was just absurd,” says Younger. “It’s not what we were about at all. It was all about like-minded people getting together and letting off steam.”

The band was eventually signed to US major label Sire, joining like-minded labelmates The Ramones, The Saints and The Flamin’ Groovies, and flew to England to tour in early 1978. The label almost immediately went into financial difficulties, at the same time as the group’s interpersonal relationships fell apart. By the end of the year it was all over.

But, as it turned out, it was just lying dormant. In 1996, they reformed for the Big Day Out and in 2007 they were inducted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame. Younger Australian bands including The Vines and The Chats have claimed them as a major influence, while Silverchair (along with Tim Rogers of You Am I) performed a rousing live version of New Race at the 1995 ARIAs, a teen anthem performed by teenagers.

Birdman has fans in high places. In 2018, Anthony Albanese stood up in parliament and sang their praises while urging the ABC to buy and screen Descent into the Maelstrom, a documentary about the band. Albanese said that Radio Birdman, along with The Saints, “cemented the foundation of Australian punk rock”. “Radio Birdman’s visceral performances, attended by thousands, are an important part of Australian musical history,” he said.

And now, a half-century since they formed, the group – featuring original members Younger, Tek and Hoyle – are doing an anniversary tour that is being billed as their final performances. But as fans of John Farnham know, the end is not always the end. Or is it?

“It could be a Dame Nellie Melba situation,” says Younger. “If it is the end, then that’s fine. But I’d be happy to do the odd gig here and there later.”

Tek is more circumspect: “What we do is very physical and we don’t want to be a bunch of old guys on stage sitting in chairs. We all share the idea that it has to be at full power. That can’t go on for too much longer. It’s just a reality. We’ve all got health problems of one kind or another, and the horizon in front of us is a lot closer than the one behind us.”

One thing is certain. The legend of Radio Birdman has only grown over the decades. How do they perceive that kind of adulation?

‘We don’t want to be a bunch of old guys on stage sitting in chairs.’

Deniz Tek

“The words legendary and legacy … I don’t handle them that easily,” says Younger. “It sounds conceited to take on those terms. You are what you are. I don’t walk around thinking I’m a legend. I look in the mirror and mostly I’m appalled.”

“It’s been blown up over the years,” says Tek. “I know we were a great rock and roll band on a good night. But that’s all it was.

“What I do know is that we made a lot of people happy and we’d like to keep doing that for a little while longer if we can. I know there were young bands that we inspired by what we did. That’s enough for me. It’s not about being a legend, but it’s good to add a link to the chain. We took from the bands that inspired us and we gave some of it back.”

Radio Birdman play Melbourne’s Croxton Bandroom, June 21-22; The Triffid, Brisbane, June 28-29; Manning Bar, Sydney, July 5-7.