Today known largely because they spawned Tumbleweed, The Proton Energy Pills made their name in the indie music scene of the late 1980s.

Read more: Music Farmers, city's last record store, turns 15

They toured with Mudhoney and Dinosaur Jr before the grunge explosion of 1991 and had songs produced by Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis and Celibate Rifles guitarist Kent Steedman.

The musical output was relatively small - just two singles and five-track EP - before the band split and Lenny, Dave and Jay Curley and Richie Lewis went onto form Tumbleweed.

But for those who know their Wollongong music history, the Protons were the first band from the Illawarra to really make a dent outside their own town.

Now, with the help of guitarist Stewart Cunningham, Music Farmers has re-released the EP and singles as a limited-edition vinyl compilation with a gatefold sleeve.

The idea came about when Cunningham spoke to Music Farmers' co-owner Nick Irwin about the release.

The original idea was to have it out for Record Store Day last year but as with so many other things, COVID put paid to those plans.

Jeb Taylor, the other half of Music Farmers, said the Protons showed that a band from Wollongong could get out of the city and make people sit up and take notice.

"From what Dave has always told me, there was nowhere, no set venues to play original music," Taylor says.

"So they'd hire out halls and put on their own shows. That started original bands putting on their own shows in Wollongong. And from that, places like the North Gong and the Oxford started doing regular live stuff again."

The Protons had been around since 1986 but started to take things seriously in 1988 when the Curleys' older brother Dave joined as lead singer.

He'd been in a few bands before and gave the band some guidance.

"Yeah, it just gave us a bit more confidence to have Dave upfront," Cunningham says.

"He was older and wiser - and he had a car. These things are important."

At the time the Wollongong scene was fairly small and the music industry was really only looking at what was happening in Sydney.

And so Dave pushed the band to write their own material and head up the road to the big smoke.

"They were places to play [in Wollongong] - we played The Ironworkers, the Balkan Club - but we knew we had to get out of Wollongong to get anywhere and be taken seriously," Cunningham says.

"If we could play in Sydney and get a record out then we would be taken seriously."

The Protons would sign to Waterfront Records in 1989 but would be defunct by the time that five-track EP was released.

That EP came out with an odd sticker on the cover - "Proton Energy Pills have changed their name to Tumbleweed".

It's odd because it wasn't actually a name change, it was a different band.

Cunningham is still diplomatic about the reasons for the break-up, citing the strains of the band being pulled in different directions.

"When you get to the point where we were at there's a lot of pressure," Cunningham says.

"There's a lot of people telling you things and criticising you and it drove a lot of wedges between the people in the band.

"We were light-hearted in our approach and when it starts getting intense and you're getting people telling you that so and so in the band isn't that good at what they do ... it starts to become not fun.

"Everyone starts questioning why we're doing it."

One thing Cunningham isn't questioning 30 years later is the Protons' music.

He hadn't made a habit of listening to the songs over the years, but had to go back to them for the creation of the re-release.

"There was a bit of trepidation going in - I'm thinking 'am I going to cringe?'.

"It's really heartening with the Protons recordings that the cringe factor was not there at all. I was really proud of the recordings and songwriting - for such young guys it's really good stuff."

And Cunningham says there might even be a few more songs to come.

"We had all these other songs that we didn't record in the band," Cunningham says.

"I got Dave involved so we have spent the last two years recording eight songs of originals that never got recorded.

"I'm hoping on the back of this Protons release that they get to come out in some format as well because they're quite good songs too."

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