Kirby was 18 years old and had always really been a metal head, but he dabbled in rap and liked the sounds of groups like Public Enemy and Cypress Hill. Since the age of 13 his favorite bands had been Faith No More and Mr. Bungle. “I was at a friends house only about 4 of us, up late probably around midnight and RAGE was on. (RAGE is like Australia’s version of MTV and has been going for 35 years or so and still on currently) even as an early teenager you would stay up Friday and Saturday nights just to watch music videos, they would have guess presenters on that would play their favorite clips so always a learning experience! Anyway DOWN came on and instantly I was like this is a amazing and will never forget that feeling, when in the clip Nick starts levitating I knew I had to find out about this band and went out the very next day to buy the CD!!! I had a blue ford falcon XF (Australia made car) and I had a 6 stacker player in the boot (Trunk) it stayed in there on repeat until I got my next car 😊 and im sure many 311 fans agree that their music keeps you feeling young!! At now 45 I still feel like an 18 year old and every time I listen, see or play down on one of my guitars I still have that feeling of being 18!!!”
Kirby has an interesting story of how he came to see his first 311 show. “I was 19….. and I went on a holiday (vacation) to Bali Indonesia with a group of friends and I heard about 311 coming out to Australia just after Transistor was realized (still my Favorite 311 album) it was called the VANS warped tour, I got home from Bali on the Saturday and 311 were live on an awesome Saturday morning show called Recovery just like RAGE was on the ABC, they opened with DOWN and then played WHAT WAS I THINKING. The host of recovery was Dillion Lewis he was a vocalist in an awesome band called Brown Hornet, Dillion was funny but very sarcastic and a weird style of interviewing. Nick and P-Nut sat down an answered some questions and if you want to check it out here’s a link:
https://youtu.be/pZF8Lo1P8pY
So I had a chance to go and get a ticket to the show grounds and see them but after watching the show I found out that Chad broke his hand and they had a fill in drummer and Nick said they would be playing a small set and they will be back next year with a proper 311 show…. sadly that never happened!!! They never came back this was 1998 and I had to wait 18 years before seeing them live, the regret of not going to see them that day haunted me!!! So in 2016 me and my best mate Bizza (not really a 311 fan just came for the good times) flew to the U.S to see “311 IN L.A” it was August 12th 2016 at the Hollywood Palladium and met some amazing fans that were tripping that I had come from the other side of the world to see 311. I really thought this would get them out of my system but as with every other 311 fan I’ve met they make you keep coming back for more and collect posters from every show!!!”
In 2020, Kirby said he HAD to go to 311 Day in Vegas for the 30th anniversary shows. “3 nights of Awesomeness!! What other band would play for that long each night and still have songs you wanted them to play!!?? So once again I thought those three shows would be enough but then with the Friday the 13th show and the whole world changing due to corona virus I thought I might not ever be able to travel again to see them. I watched all the soundstreams from the hive and bought the blue album and transistor foil posters and I was once again feeling the 311 familiar feeling to be part of something live and positive in a world full of negative.So to add to my massive list of 4 live 311 shows I ventured back to 311 day in Vegas 2022, with soo many close friends I met at Vegas in 2020 it was really catching up and reliving the best experience in Vegas again for another 2 nights, absolutely life changing! So unlike so many of my 311 friends from the U.S who have been to 50 shows or something I’ve sadly only been to six.”
Favorite show for Kirby he said was his first when he finally saw them in 2016. “I had been waiting so long to see them play DOWN and to be able to sing along to “311 in L.A” I went to the HIVE the night before the show just to check it out and take some photos, I looked over the fence and was amazed I could see Nick H-E-X-U-M getting into a car with his lovely wife, as he was exiting the alley behind the HIVE I full stalked him and through his car window I asked him if I could just shake his hand, I think he heard my aussie accent and to my amazement he stopped the car and got out, we spoke for 5-10 minutes and my statement I’ve come all the way from Australia to see 311!! I got a photo with him (his wife even offered to take the photo??!) but Bizza knew how much it meant to me and gladly took the shot of me and Nick Hexum the one who knows about things….. which later on would be the photo that would end up on a future 311 album cover, the wonderful concept for the fans “MOSIAC.” In 2022 Kirby got Nick to sign that photo they took that day.
As for a favorite moment at one of the shows Kirby has attended, he said that was at the end of night 3 at 311 Day 2020. “I had been carrying around the backing plate of my Tim Mahoney signature PRS, I had been carrying it with me everywhere I went in Vegas just incase along with a sharpie pen, after they played I’ll Be Here A While and they were walking off stage the last chance I had I reaching over the rail almost breaking my ribs and Mit sees me and says sorry I can’t reach that far, I’m yell back YES YOU CAN, P-nut then holds Mit’s hips and he reaches out grabs it signs it and gives it back, I say to him I love you and he says I love you 😊 it was an out of body experience and I was in shock for a while after, what a band!!!”
While Kirby has a favorite song on every album, he said the song that means the most to him is “Use of Time.” “The song is just amazing and Nick’s echo vocals along with Tim’s two solos brought tears to my eyes when seeing it live for the first time, after 2 x 311 days I was really hoping they would play “TRIBUTE” but at least I got to see that on the soundstream 😊.”
As for favorite lyrics, there are many, but he has to go with one of the most popular, “Stay positive and love your life.” ” I had to get Nick to sign the photo of us with that very quote something I quite often look at and reflect on such a strong message and mindset 😊.”
Kirby grew up in a small town called Craigieburn (known as Crazyburn), which is about an hour away from Melbourne, Australia. While he said his parents weren’t very well off, they gave he and his brother the best upbringing they could with what they had. “We spent most of our summers on lakes water skiing and camping. I was always sporty riding a BMX and Skateboarding along with playing basketball and football (Australian Rules football and prepared to argue with anyone that it’s the best sport in the world!!)”
As Kirby got older, he got into motorcycles. “My first was a Suzuki scooter from the early seventies it was purchased from my grandfather’s friend from down the street for $80! I was 10 at the time but I think from 5 years old onwards I was wanting a motorcycle like the rich kids!! Both my grandfather’s rode motorcycles when they were young along with my Dad so I guess it was always in my blood!!” Once Kirby got up to owning his second motorcycle, he started riding it at race tracks around his home state. “I believed I was good enough to start racing competitively and so I did, I had all the enthusiasm but a low budget, I crashed in my first ever race. I had a lot of rough road and mistakes and money spent that I didn’t have but eventually broke through a won a race at club level. The following year I crashed in practice and broke a thumb, that hit home I didn’t have money to fix the race bike and couldn’t work as a chef, but I still didn’t give up just yet. I ended up getting a job with my dream girl Melanie (we are still together to this day) at a famous winery in the yarra valley, being a chef and trying to race motorcycles is very hard as racing is on weekends and that’s when the chefs are needed the most!!! I was a qualified Chef but still not being paid enough to live out my dreams of becoming a professional motorcycle racer, my brother got a job in the city at the biggest motorcycle company in Australia Peter Stevens Motorcycles, he then loaned me money for parts, tyres etc. They also part sponsored me and eventually gave my a job at one of their outer suburb locations in Ringwood, I ended up getting a new Suzuki GSXR600 from the company and I felt like I was on my way but sadly after starting the season off well I was to have the biggest crash of my life and broke a collar bone. There I was having to pay for a bike that wasn’t really mine but at least I could still work at the shop in a sling! I gave up racing and made a career out of my experience, I can proudly say I have worked my way up from selling helmets and gear to moving onto sales of motorcycles, and then into management. 20 years on with the same company and I’m now the dealer principal of our largest store!! Really a dream come true and have to pinch myself every now and then, we sell dreams and lifestyles!!! I didn’t have to give up riding and have now ridden more bikes than I could of dreamed of growing up riding my first $80 Suzuki scooter!!! I made a come back from racing in 2018 (15 years after stopping) and did a weekend on a Triumph Daytona 675R racebike, I won both races I entered and then hung up the boots again, when it came to choosing a race number I chose #311 and I finished on a high!! The industry has lead me to meet many amazing people and has taken me to England 3 times, once with Suzuki Australia as a sales award to see the Isle of Mann TT races and two trips with Triumph Motorcycles for conferences and to see the factory in Hinkley, I never thought a boy from Crazyburn would ever be in London!!”
One of his other obsessions is The Melbourne Football Club, known as the Demons. “They invented the game of Aussie rules in 1858 and for 6 months of the year it’s a BIG deal, my team have had a lot of heart ache in my life and finally broke through a 57 year drought in 2021 to win the premiership but because of covid for the first time in over 160 years the game was played in Perth and not our spiritual home ground in Melbourne at the MCG! My great grandfather played for Melbourne in 1919 and my Uncle is a legend of the club and played over 250 games from the 70’s to the early 80’s. For a long time I dreamed of playing professionally and hoped to follow in their footsteps but my career choice really didn’t give me the time and only ever played local footy , I left school at 15 as I wanted to earn money to buy a car and motorcycles!!”
Kirby mentioned his dream girl Melanie, who got him the job at the winery in 2000, they are together still today and have a beautiful home that they built 12 years ago. “We got our dream puppy 6 months after moving into our house in 2012 a great Dane named Shale,for the next 10 years he was our life and we dedicated as much time as we could to adventures, sadly we lost Shale just before the end of 2022 he was not far off his 11th birthday which is amazing for a dane, the great news is we just adopted 2 Great danes, a boy named Moose 6 years old and a girl named Aspen 4 years old they are now our lives and are so beautiful and are so chilled.”
Fun fact – growing up Kirby didn’t like his name and said he was teased by the Mark’s and John’s of the world. “I wanted to change my name to Michael, I was a massive Chicago Bulls fan because of MJ, grew up listening to Michael Jackson, Mike Patton and my favorite movie of all time is Back to the future with Michael J Fox 😊. As I got older I realized my name was a bit out of the ordinary like me and suited me, people remembered me for it so I embraced Kirby and didn’t change it to Mike 😊.”
Kirby said he is also an music enthusiast more than he would call himself a musician. “I own 8 electric guitars, two acoustics and two basses, I have dabbled in bands over the years but never really did much other than a few gigs here and there. My first band when I was 15 was a punk metal band called For fucks sake 😊 we played for free beer and recorded two demo cassettes… A few years back I played bass in a band that never got past rehearsal stage but we did have a name “silver eyed Aliens.” These days I generally play all my favorites over and over and it’s usually Down, sick tight and Eons!”
Guilty pleasure for Kirby is that he is a “Back to the Future” nut! “One of my LA trips I visited a lot of the filming sites, I met Christopher Llyod (the doc) at a sort of comic con in Melbourne in 2015 I lined up to have him sign a replica BTTF part 2 2015 number plate, I also lined up for hours to have a photo with him in front of a replica Delorean time machine and have many collectables from the movies, model Deloreans along with DMC memorabilia. I own a Vespa it looks like an Alien in it’s Grey colour and the registration plate is 4LIEN, I have a matching Grey Renault traffic van with the number plate LEE311 but my latest purchase is a TESLA model 3 performance and “this sucker is electrical” so the plate I got for that is 121GIG.”
Kirby mentioned that aside from 311 he loves Faith No More and Mr. Bungle. Some others on his playlist include Regurgitator, Body Jar, Incubus, Butterfingers, Sepultura, and Slipknot. “Over the past 6-7 years I have really been into prog/djent scene with bands such as Animals as leaders, Plini, Polyphia, I built the sky and the omnific. Although my fav band since I was 18 is 311 and as a band together I love but individually I have favourite artists as musicians, what I mean is my fav vocalist is Mike Patton (FNM, Mr Bungle and many more) Fav Guitarist is Tosin Abashi (Animals as leaders) Bassist is Les Claypool (primus) and drummer Matt Skitz (Damaged, King Parrot) now that would be a line up! I love music of all types and can appreciate just about all genres but NOT a fan of country music.”
For Kirby’s message to 311, he would just like to say thank you. “For still being the best band in the world, the music and unity is what we came here for, I have felt a real sense of belonging to be part of their journey and their music will always be imbedded in me.”
Now here are Kirby’s words to all the rest of 311 nation:
“Thanks to the excitables around the world thanks for being unique and welcoming, every 311 fan I meet have similar stories of positivity and I’m glad we all went to the 311 university unity. I have made many lifelong friends because of 311, at one of the after party’s at 311 day in 2020 I was jumping up and down to Tropidelic and two girls were getting my long hair all up in their faces, once I realized what was going on I apologized over and over, these two women have now become great friends especially Christy Krasowski!! We have been in constant contact since and although on the opposite side of the planet we keep up to date with what going on in each other lives, usually on a daily basis! we all caught up at 311 day 22 and had the best time sharing the 311 experience and I had the pleasure of staying with her family just out of Chicago after 2022 311 day on my way to Omaha to see the 311 historical sites!!
Stay positive and love your life!
Kirby Lee the Australien”
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A huge thank you to Kirby for sharing his 311 story! I loved writing it and I hope you all enjoyed reading it. Now go out there and be amazing my friends. Sending you all so much light & positivity.
Much Love – The Runt