The world of the bikie is as much about myth and fantasy as it is about bikes and territory.
The clubs do little to counter the legends that surround them. They provide the aura of invincibility that encourages many likely enemies to give them a wide berth. They create outrage among the straight citizens, something the clubs revel in as a sign they’re no longer part of the normal world. However, I’ve found the legends also create problems for the clubs. The notion that the clubs are huge organised-crime outfits is largely a myth for most clubs, yet it puts incredible pressure on them from the police. I know the clubs would love to rein in this myth, but once the myth has been established it’s almost impossible to dispel. The outrage of regular citizens also makes life difficult for many members. They find themselves shunned by former friends, their families tarnished by the clubs’ reputations and their job prospects diminished.
Yet some aspects of club life that may, at first glance, appear to be myths are in fact true.
Take God, for instance. Religion plays a bigger part in club life than many realise; perhaps even more so than the clubs themselves care to admit. It’s an area I’ve been interested in for a long time, as the clubs are contradictory in so many ways. I was keen to find out if religion was in the same boat.
From 1986 to 1990 I conducted a survey on religious orientation within the Australian biker scene, with respondents from Motorcycle Riders Association clubs and outlaw clubs. The majority (78 per cent) claimed ‘none’ as their religion, 11 per cent claimed to be Satanists while a meagre 7 per cent nominated Christianity. None claimed to be agnostics. When I looked at outlaw club members only, 52 per cent said they had no religion, while 23 per cent claimed to be agnostics. Christians accounted for a respectable 20 per cent and the Satanists came in dead last at 5 per cent. The surveys were not exactly scientific, conducted mainly at runs and parties, but they give a reasonable snapshot of the place of religion in the biker world.
You would presume religion is a part of mainstream society the bikies would want to reject, yet religion is never far from the surface. One of the main reasons for this is the work of the Christian motorcycle clubs. They’re such an anomaly, hanging around the fringe of the bikies.
The members of these clubs see themselves as having a calling, yet they want to express it through motorcycles. They perform the role of traditional holy men in the biker world, officiating at marriages, christenings and funerals. They also see themselves as counsellors for outlaw bikies. Many of them know their stuff. A former president of the God Squad, for instance, is a Baptist minister, while another member is a Jewish Talmudic scholar, so it’s not as if they’re rank amateurs.
I remember coming across the camps of the Christian motorcycle clubs at Broadford one year. They were no different from any other clubs, with signs out the front of the camp having the bikieesque ‘Show us your tits’ scrawled on them. They had a mountain of beer cans any outlaw club would be proud of. However, these camps offered ‘chill out’ zones for bikies who’d drunk or smoked too much, where they could get their shit together or stop getting into further trouble. Many bikies steer clear of the Christian clubs because they fear having religion shoved in their face, as some Christian club members are prone to do. But, conversely, many outlaw bikies have seen the light, so to speak, and jumped over to the Christian clubs.
In many ways, the Christian motorcycle clubs are identical to the outlaw clubs, with colours, tattoos and slogans. Of course, the tattoos and patches have Christian themes, not the usual Satanic images of the bikie clubs.
The chapters are also roughly the same size, and they ride identical bikes. They attend church once a week, as the outlaw clubs do, and have fines for infringements such as not spending enough time on their bikes. They act like outlaw motorcycle clubs. They’re relatively guarded and secretive about their colours, ride in similar formations and have outlaw organisational structures.
Admission as a club member involves roughly the same process as for an outlaw club. First, you must ‘hang around the club’. Then someone from the club has to agree to be your sponsor in joining the club. There is then a vote to allow you to be an official prospect of the club. The prospect period is several years, due to concerns about the quality of applicants. You have to be dedicated to be a Christian biker. And you have to know your stuff. As part of the application to join the God Squad, prospects are required to complete a 24-page questionnaire and are subjected to oral exams on their religious beliefs. They also must know certain parts of the Bible.
Prospects are also required to keep a log of the kilometres ridden and the number of club functions attended. The patch can be taken back by the club for various offences.
The largest Christian club in Australia is the God Squad, which has four Australian chapters—Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Launceston—and two international chapters. At any one time it has up to 150 members. The Longriders, with about 50 members, has chapters in Murray Bridge (SA), Melbourne and Perth, while the Pilgrims, Ambassadors, Holy Ghost Riders, Saint George, Balaams Ass and The Brotherhood are single-chapter clubs. The average membership age across the clubs is late 40s to early 60s.
John Smith was the bikies’ preacher. Retired as international president of the God Squad, he’s been involved with outlaw motorcycle clubs for many years. He’s in a unique position. His club is not actually a 1% club, but a 10% club, which puts him firmly on the edge of the outlaw clubs. I’ve known Smithy for many years and count him as one of my good friends from the biker world.
The last time I caught up with him was at a Coffin Cheaters’ party. It was magic. Smithy even went so far that night as to confer upon me the title of ‘tribal elder’. I’m not sure what that means, but as a fellow tribal elder who is four years older than me, he can make all the decisions and shoulder whatever responsibility comes with the title. That night was an incredible reminder of the bizarre world in which the bikies exist, with Smithy pointing out the background of some of the people at the party. Among the hardcore club members were several God Squad members, some converted 1%ers, a sprinkling of graduates from the staid and conservative University of Melbourne, and some full-on preachers like Smithy.
Smithy and I bought reams of grog tickets and got down to the business of chatting about his life. Smithy was drinking two or three whiskies to my one beer or whisky. Our interview plan soon flew out the window as I became too pissed to string two words together, let alone take notes. We did have the sense to agree to sit down after a service he was holding the next day at the campground outside the Coffin Cheaters clubhouse. Incidentally, the clubhouse had recently been re-zoned so the club could establish a brothel. Smithy didn’t seem too phased about doing a sermon there. Something about going to the sinners . . .
By the time he conducted the service the next day, I’d hauled my sick and sorry arse out of there. I was actually glad to get away after Smithy showed me something that shook me up. We were chatting about his place in the biker world when he pulled out a photograph. As I said, I’d known Smithy for many years, yet I was shocked when he showed me a picture of himself wearing a long Kentucky coat and holding a 357 Magnum pistol in one hand and a long barrel Colt 45 in the other. His arms were crossed over his body so the barrels of the guns rested at shoulder height. His greying beard and piercing eyes only added menace to the picture.
What shocked me more than the image were Smithy’s words, that this was how he saw himself in the biker world. The shock that someone of such spirituality could be seduced by such a violent notion really jolted me.
John Smith was born in 1942 in the working-class Melbourne suburb of Reservoir. His grandfather was a working man who underwent a religious conversion upon meeting Smithy’s grandmother. His grandfather quit his job and became an evangelist and missionary based in the suburb of Preston. His father was one of three children, becoming a fitter and turner with the railways until he also underwent a religious conversion and became a Methodist Minister when Smithy was seven years old.
Smithy was a sickly child, and he suffered a severe burn injury at a very young age that saw him spend more than a year in hospital. At the age of 11 he contracted rheumatic fever, which hospitalised him for another two years. These extended bouts of illness meant Smithy was older than his peers at high school.
The age difference, coupled with his fundamentalist religious upbringing, made high school ‘possibly the worst experience of my life’. He had few friends to protect him from the cruel taunts of the other students. Smithy chose not to lash out, instead turning to his religion and spiritual experience for strength. He also persevered with his studies, obtaining his Higher School Certificate.
Upon leaving school he wanted to get away from the unhappiness of his childhood. He headed to Kedron Teachers College in Queensland, where he met his wife, Glenda. It was, as Smithy says, ‘love at first sight’. They were soon married, and remain happily married today.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts he moved back to Melbourne, enrolling at the Melbourne Bible College where he learnt the fundamental Methodist religious traditions. His family’s approach to religion had made Smithy a very conservative young man. He even participated in right-wing political activities, including rallies in support of the United States during the Vietnam War.
After graduating from Bible college, he got a job as a teacher at Wonthaggi High School in country Victoria. He also preached at the local Methodist church. It was here his life changed. Following a sermon where he denounced Martin Luther King Jr as a ‘womaniser and Communist’, a parishioner confronted him with the question: ‘Have you heard Martin Luther King preach?’ Smithy was forced to admit he hadn’t. She persisted. ‘Have you read Martin Luther King?’ Again, he was forced to answer ‘no’. At that point, the parishioner handed him a copy of the film Strength to Love, an account of King’s life, which included the legendary ‘I have a dream’ speech. Smithy watched the film and was mesmerised by what he saw. His eyes were suddenly opened to what was going on around him.
He began to question many of his conservative beliefs and attitudes. Almost immediately he saw the folly of his ways in supporting the war, and how he had taken an almost uncompassionate view of minorities. He realised he must devote himself to helping others, particularly those on the edge of society. The moment he came across the outlaw motorcycle clubs he found his calling. He had, in his words, ‘a Mother Teresa type of experience’. He suddenly saw his missionary path, having ‘a calling from God’.
‘I would devote my humble talents and abilities which God had given me, to work with these people who were outcasts and estranged from mainstream society,’ he declared.
First of all he had to learn to ride, as he had little experience with bikes, or those who rode them. The club he first came across was a now-defunct club called the Drifters, but he soon heard of the Hell’s Angels, Gypsy Jokers and other clubs, and began moving in their circles.
In an attempt to immerse themselves into biker culture to carry out their missionary work, Smithy and a few of his mates formed a club called the Victorian Christian Motorcycle Association. One night the members were sitting around watching television when The Mod Squad burst onto the screen. It was a revelation. What a great name—the God Squad.
But before their excitement translated into actually adopting the name, they learnt of another club in Sydney with the same name, formed a few years earlier. Ironically, this club had run out of steam and was in the throes of disbanding. Smithy got in contact with them, initially to see about the Victorian Christian Motorcycle Association becoming its Melbourne chapter, but soon found himself being offered the club colours to form the club himself.
Smithy knew the way clubs worked, particularly the importance of earning a patch. It seemed a bit hollow to be merely given a patch. So he politely declined the offer but agreed to become a prospect for the club. The Sydney president was keen to see the club continue, so agreed to keep the club going for the 12 months of Smithy’s prospect period, much to the annoyance of others on the Sydney executive who were keen to move on.
After serving his year Smithy became a full member. He could now say he had earned the right to wear the patch, rather than merely accept it as charity. He was voted in as a full member in 1973 and the Sydney chapter immediately folded. Smithy found himself national president with the charter to form the Victorian chapter of the God Squad. He then devoted himself to working with Australia’s outlaw motorcycle clubs, ‘running a rescue shop just outside the gates of hell’.
At first, the serious outlaw clubs denigrated the patch-wearing Christian club. They asked why the club dressed like an outlaw club when clearly it was not. But the God Squad began to make inroads when the outlaw clubs realised they weren’t a bunch of wowsers or snitches. They partied as hard as any club. Smithy and the God Squad also began to change, behaving more like an outlaw motorcycle club than traditional missionaries—hence the pile of empties outside the God Squad tent. Like any club, they soon had a clubhouse—a large warehouse in inner-city Fitzroy. It was part Salvation Army kitchen and part outlaw clubhouse, with dinner available at no cost to those bikers and bikies who couldn’t afford a feed.
Under Smithy’s leadership, the emphasis of the God Squad became strongly counterculture. Civil disobedience by members was not only encouraged, it was expected.
In the early 1990s the club split, and a breakaway club, the Longriders, was established. The break was partly ideological and partly personality driven. It was also due to the God Squad’s Melbourne chapter exceeding 25 members; the upper limit a club can handle without becoming factionalised. The Longriders moved west, establishing chapters in Murray Bridge and Perth, cities where the ruling outlaw clubs had never allowed the God Squad to establish themselves. The God Squad chapters remain along the Australian east coast in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. The Longriders later established a chapter in Melbourne.
It soon became evident the outlaw motorcycle clubs and bikers required certain legitimate ceremonies, such as marriages, baptisms and, most of all, funerals, to be carried out by an authorised person. For some clubs the God Squad was the group they turned to. But other clubs refuse to use the Christian clubs for marriages and funerals because they regard them as rival clubs.
The outlaw clubs can get particularly upset when a Christian club flies colours in their territory. In the early ’80s a preacher wanted to establish a Christian motorcycle club in Sydney—in Comancheros territory. The preacher called on Comancheros leader Jock Ross to request permission for the Christian club to fly their colours. Jock allegedly responded by sending out a club member to beat him up. After he recovered, the preacher returned to the Comancheros clubhouse to again request Jock’s permission for his club to fly their colours. This time Jock is said to have emerged, along with a few other club members, and beat the preacher senseless. He woke up in hospital with a broken jaw and fractured ribs. Following several months of recovery, and much prayer, the preacher summoned up the strength to visit the clubhouse for a third time to again request permission for the Christian club to fly their colours. Even Jock had to acknowledge his persistence. Permission was finally granted, but not until Jock made the preacher sweat it out as the club debated whether or not to grant him his wish. The preacher proved it was possible, even in the meanest territory, to fly colours with the permission of the dominant group, although not many would have his determination to achieve it.
That’s not to say there isn’t respect among the outlaw clubs for the Christian clubs. I was at Broadford in 1987 when the master of ceremonies, a Hell’s Angel, came on stage with a special announcement:
Whoever stole the camera from the God Squad had better return the fucker. No questions will be asked if it’s brought to the backstage area in the next hour. If we have to find it, then it’s going to be a different story.
I heard that the camera was returned.
The Saturday afternoon at Broadford was the annual baby christening for the outlaw clubs. It was a very moving event. Outlaw motorcycle club members, their wives and associates often agreed to act as godparents to the children. What always struck me about this was that the responsibility was not taken lightly. I was present at the christening of the children of one bikie, whom I’ll call Jacko. He was a committed lifetime bikie who hung around the fringes of the clubs, particularly the Hell’s Angels. He was in his early 50s when he met and married his second wife, Gillian. She had excellent bikie credentials, coming from an outlaw motorcycle club family.
Jacko and Gillian had their eight-week-old daughter and 15-month-old son christened at Broadford in 1986. They chose a lone rider and associate of the Hell’s Angels as the godfather of the youngest child. They had some heavy hitters for the godfathers of the toddler—a Hell’s Angels sergeant-at-arms and John Smith.
Four years later it was discovered Jacko was allegedly bashing Gillian and their children—the club members’ godchildren. In desperation, Gillian showed up on the doorstep of the Hell’s Angels associate and his wife, who was also godmother to both children. The couple took Gillian and the kids in, eventually helping her find a job and a nice place to live. The Hell’s Angels sergeant-at-arms was informed of what had happened to his godson and he was very supportive and helpful.
While this was going on, Jacko disappeared. About two years later he reappeared, working for a motorcycle shop in rural Victoria. He refused to be interviewed about what had happened, saying he no longer associated with the Hell’s Angels or any other outlaw motorcycle club. I always suspected he’d been seriously ‘counselled’ by the Hell’s Angels, even though the sergeant-at-arms later told me that wasn’t the case.
Another major religious event is the funeral. It’s not surprising, considering the relatively dangerous lifestyle bikies lead. Most biker funerals are Christian ceremonies, organised by family and conducted in a church. For the more committed biker or outlaw motorcycle club member the experience can be quite different.
Several clubs, such as the Bandidos, have entry clauses that give the clubs permission to bury their brother. The clubs organise the funeral, which can cause some awful conflict between the family and club. I attended a bikie’s funeral that was actually two services—a Christian service organised by the dead member’s family and an atheist service organised by the club. Jimbo (not his real name) would have liked the conflict.
Depending on the club and the wishes of the deceased, the funeral tends to be a variation of a Christian ritual, although in recent years atheist funerals have come into vogue. There’s also the occasional Satanic service. The Australian bikie movie Stone provided an excellent example of an old-time Satanic burial of a dead member. A deep hole was dug so he could be buried standing up. When the member was put in the hole, the speaker called upon Satan to accept the body and spirit of the fallen brother, explaining that he was being buried feet down so that he’d meet the devil standing in the afterworld. I’ve never heard of any actual coven worship or warlock activities at Satanic funerals.
The funeral is a major event for the clubs—afforded the same status as a run, with all club members required to attend in their colours. The funeral runs are open to other clubs, as long as there’s not a turf war underway. There have been cases of temporary truces among warring clubs so one club can attend the burial of its rival club’s dead brother. After all, bikies share the same biker beliefs. They’re only human.
The funeral run usually starts at the clubhouse, with pick-up points for the various clubs along the way to the church or place of ceremony. After the service comes the standout feature of the bikie funeral—the procession of bikes that always follows behind the hearse. The hearse is sometimes a bike with a sidecar attached to carry the coffin, draped in the club colours. A good example was in March 2009 when an estimated 300 Rebels gathered in Canberra for the funeral of senior member Rick Roberts. His coffin was carried on a sidecar from the Rebels clubhouse to the crematorium.
Riders immediately behind the hearse often fly flags representing the different nations in which the club has chapters. In Australia, funeral runs can attract up to 500 riders. There’s no more powerful and dramatic display of biker power and solidarity than the sight of 500 solemn bikers rumbling through the streets in a bikie funeral procession.
Once at the cemetery, if the bikie is to be buried, club members put various artefacts in the grave as a sign of respect. It’s often a bottle of the deceased’s favourite drop, or a particular run badge. As they’re tossed into the grave atop the coffin, the bikies mumble a few final solemn words to their mate.
Then comes the wake. Christian, Satanic, agnostic, it makes no difference—the bikie wake is one big piss-up, with plenty of laughs and stories about the deceased. In a way, particularly if the bikie died violently, the wake is a sort of debriefing from an experience that may have rattled the club.
The issue of Satanic worship has always dogged the clubs. It’s easy to see why. Imagine if the clubs carried no reference to Satanism. You could scrub the Hell’s Angels, Satan’s Slaves, Devil’s Disciples, Diablos, Warlocks, Pagans and Satan’s Cavalry for a start. The truth is, the names mean nothing, and are chosen for their shock value more than anything. The Hell’s Angels’ name came from military circles and has nothing to do with being a warrior for Satan. The Angels laugh at any suggestion that they’re connected with the occult.
But a lot of bikies bear badges and tattoos reflecting Satan. Rings with the Devil’s symbol ‘666’ are prominent on the fingers of outlaw club members. It’s not just the bikies. Many bikers wear them. I’ve interviewed bikers and club members about whether there’s anything in the devil icons. They made it pretty clear it was all for show, to outrage or distance them from society.
That [Satanic worship and practices] is just bullshit. It’s to put the wind up citizens. If somebody tried that shit on for real they’d get straightened out real quick.
Lone rider
I can only remember one brother who went weird with the Devil stuff. He ended up going nuts and leaving the club, his wife and everything.
Satan’s Sinner
It’s shit, man. There is nothing there but showing class to citizens by having a righteous name for a club. I mean, what sort of name says that you are independent and FTW [Fuck the World]?
Hell’s Angel
No undercover police who have infiltrated the outlaw motorcycle clubs have alleged to have witnessed or even inferred that the clubs are engaged in Satanic practices, and given the animosity between outlaw clubs and police we’d have heard about it pretty quickly if one of their moles saw anything of the sort.
Outlaw motorcycle clubs are also riddled with racist slogans, badges and symbols. Nearly as popular as the ‘666’ and other Satanic signs that adorn the bikie patches is the swastika. It attracts more outrage than anything else because of its connection with Nazism. It’s not something that’s usually worn as mere decoration, so the wearer is presumed to have fascist beliefs. Not so, say the clubs.
‘Class, man. Nothing but class,’ is how one swastika-wearing club member described it to me, and that seems to be the general view. Wearing a swastika doesn’t necessarily mean holding the beliefs of Nazism.
. . . this is because I’m a fucking fascist [said pointing to the swastika tattooed on his arm]. You don’t believe me, do you? Truth is, neither do I.
Club member
It’s bullshit, man. Sonny [Barger] tried to get agreement not to wear the swastikas way back in the ’70s but the issue of whether to wear one or not was still left up to the individual. It wasn’t until the German chapters came on board that the wearing of swastikas was banned officially. Any club wanting to have a chapter in Germany fucking well better ban them because their legislation specifically prohibits the wearing of Nazi symbols.
Hell’s Angel
But are outlaw motorcycle clubs racist? Since the earliest days they have nearly all been regarded as having some sort of racist overtones. I’ve read a mountain of literature and heard the police stories about outlaw motorcycle clubs being racist organisations. For instance, the FBI report Inside Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs states:
Their feelings strongly parallel those of the Ku Klux Klan and the late Adolf Hitler’s beliefs. This is seen by the tattoos, patches and pins worn by the members, such as Nazi Swastikas, White Power fists and pins that openly state, ‘White Supremacy’.
Yet, I’ve never been sure, so I set out to find the answer. I found it, of all places, in the Hell’s Angels clubhouse in Auckland.
In 1987 my wife and I travelled to New Zealand to meet the national president of the Hell’s Angels. I didn’t even know his name, only that I was to meet him at the Hell’s Angels clubhouse. I was excited about visiting the New Zealand chapter because it’s historically important in the bikie world, as it was the first Hell’s Angels chapter set up outside the United States.
Liz and I were a little nervous as we took a taxi to the clubhouse in the early evening. The New Zealand club and gang scene is much more hostile than Australia’s. Earlier that day there had been an alert on the radio for the public to be on the lookout for a member of the Mongrel Mob. The Mongrel Mob, along with its arch rival, Black Power, an exclusively Maori club, are the two best-organised and dominant street gangs in New Zealand. Even the bikie clubs regard them as bad bastards. The Mongrel Mob tried to open a chapter in Perth in the mid-’80s, but was quickly run out of town by the Coffin Cheaters, Club Deroes and Gypsy Jokers. The WA police were allegedly happy for the outlaw motorcycle clubs to prevent the Mongrel Mob from getting a foothold in a city that already had its fair share of racial problems.
The gang member who was subject to the public warning had allegedly killed two people in a camping ground and could be easily identified by the name of the club tattooed on his forehead. How’s that for commitment to the club? The day before, we’d heard Black Power had trashed a hotel in Auckland.
All of this had happened after Liz and I met a few of the Maori Lone Rider bike riders earlier in the trip. They were the scariest bastards I’d ever come across. Not only were they physically enormous but they carried sawn-off baseball bats attached to their belts. Their faces were fully tattooed (called a moko in Maori) and they all rode heavily modified choppers. You can imagine our trepidation as we made our way to the Hell’s Angels clubhouse. Surely, we thought, the Hell’s Angels would have to be pretty fierce to compete in such a hostile gang environment.
We were immediately caught off-guard when we arrived at the clubhouse. It was a beautiful place in an upmarket residential Auckland suburb. (To give you an idea of the suburb, former Prime Minister Helen Clark lives there.) We were a bit early and only the large and imposing sergeant-at-arms and a few prospects were there. Nevertheless, we were greeted and invited in. On entering the clubhouse we were impressed by its neat appearance. The sergeant-at-arms appeared a bit perplexed as to why we were there, but graciously offered us a drink. We casually discussed the New Zealand club scene, while more members and associates showed up. The sergeant-at-arms and the vice-president kept us entertained after the president called to say he’d been delayed. I was pretty relaxed until a discussion about the Hell’s Angels’ experiences with the Mongrel Mob and Black Power became quite animated, with one heavy character getting excited about the ‘nigger street gangs’.
Just as an uncomfortable silence fell on the conversation the national president walked through the door. You could have knocked me over with a feather. He was a strikingly handsome Maori accompanied by another Maori member and a white member. The national president was articulate, intelligent and sensitive. It turned out he was well travelled, worked as a law clerk, had a young family and was interested in migrating to Australia.
We were stunned—we’d read the police reports about the totally white membership of the outlaw motorcycle clubs, seen the fascist emblems and tattoos, and read literature suggesting we were dealing with neo-fascists, yet here was the president of the New Zealand Hell’s Angels, a person of colour. Not only that, we learned there were other Maori members. Remember, under Hell’s Angels by-laws, a nominee requires 100 per cent of the vote of the national club and the endorsement of the mother club to gain entry. At that point I was forced to reconsider my views on clubs and racism.
That reassessment was reinforced when I later came across the story of Big John. Big John, of African descent, was a full member of the Hell’s Angels Kent chapter in England. He’d even been an office bearer. He died tragically while in police custody in 1984. Again, the decision to admit Big John would have been made by the mother club, following a unanimous recommendation by the local club.
I’ve also come across an account of at least one African-American member of a Canadian chapter of the Hell’s Angels, as well as many members of Polynesian, American Indian and Hispanic descent in US chapters, including presidents of several small US outlaw motorcycle clubs. The Wales chapter of the Hell’s Angels had a prospect of African and Scandinavian descent. Several Scandinavian Hell’s Angels are of African descent.
There are plenty of all-African-American clubs in the United States, such as the Black Falcons Biker Club, United Riders and Imperial Bikers MC. Hell’s Angels president Sonny Barger was said to have awarded a 25-year anniversary plaque to the East Bay Dragons, an all-African-American motorcycle club in Oakland. Closer to home, the Finks in Adelaide has a strong eastern European and European background, with a number of Muslim members, as I noted earlier. An Aboriginal Australian was involved in the club when it began. The Sydney scene has seen a heavy Middle Eastern influence in recent years, with the Comancheros, Nomads and the non-bikie club Notorious all having many ethnic members.
In his study of Australian outlaw motorcycle clubs, Northern Territory doctoral candidate Terry Wright found 15 members of Aboriginal descent. The New Zealand experience and subsequent research taught me an important lesson about ethnicity in the outlaw motorcycle clubs. I realised I had to re-think stereotypes, and not assume the hype is right. I’ve made it a point in all my interviews to ask club members about ethnicity, and whether a non-white person could join their clubs. Invariably, ethnic background does not appear to be an issue.
Yeah. We’d let someone prospect, no matter what colour. He might start with a bit of a disadvantage as some [members] are prejudiced; but if he was a good bloke he could turn them around, easy.
Coffin Cheater
No worries. We’ve already had an Aboriginal member and one who is Chinese, I think. At least the guy is Asian, I’m not sure if he’s Chinese.
Hell’s Angel
We’ve already got many ethnic members. Even the president’s a wog, for Christ’s sake! I can’t see why not.
Rebel
Let’s put it to you this way. I’m not in favour of the old meaning of nigger. Today, it’s not necessary to be black to be a nigger nor are all niggers black. We look at people for what they are and if they act in a niggardly [stingy, mean or cowardly] fashion, then we call them niggers whether they are black, white or in between. For our club, it’s who you are that counts.
Hell’s Angel
Another myth surrounds many of the patches the bikies wear. In the next chapter I’ll look at the supposed wing patches that are meant to signify sexual achievement, but another controversial and hotly debated badge is the Hell’s Angels ‘Filthy Few’ badge. Police believe the Filthy Few badge refers to someone who has murdered for the Hell’s Angels. The club says this is bullshit. It says it comes from the early days of the Hell’s Angels, when the bikies who were the first to arrive at a party and the last to leave called themselves the filthy few. (After a few days partying they were a pretty rough sight.) It has stuck, with the Filthy Few patch a highly treasured award for service within the club.
The outlaw motorcycle clubs are adept at fostering a few myths of their own. It’s no surprise that most of them centre on the police. The meaning the clubs put on any action by the police can be pretty over the top at times: if a bikie is stopped and his bike checked it’s victimisation. The clubs often fear they’re being photographed by police at runs and public events, even funerals. You only have to read the websites devoted to biker news. Here’s a sample from one major outlaw club site Outsider’s 1%er Biker News—‘FBI finds itself under scrutiny’; ‘Suspected spy camera gone near biker club’; ‘New evidence shows whitewash of FBI role at Waco’; ‘Spy camera blamed for false arrest’; ‘Surprisingly, police blame bikers for brawl’ and one of my favourites: ‘Sham FBI conference used as cover for party’. There’s certainly no love lost between the clubs and the police. The clubs also hold a similar view, as do many in society, of the media.
I’m not surprised the clubs take these views. They foster many myths about themselves, so it’s only natural they indulge in a few about their enemies.
In many ways, the clubs are a myth. Without the aura they have built around themselves they would fail to exist in the form we know them today. Some say they’re living in a boys’ fantasy world anyway. The outlaw motorcycle clubs disagree, saying their world is very real, and it’s the outside world that is living the strange existence.