He once broke his foot in Melbourne (but still managed to play the show with it in plaster), had his fingers slammed in a van door another time and another  time survived a misguided attempt to go swimming while inebriated. "I nearly got dragged out [to sea] but scrambled my way back to shallow water," Crabb says. "I remember a group of druggies applauding my efforts. They didn't feel the need to help me at all, just applaud me when I made it."

The band's co-founder is touring with a completely different lineup this time  but it will still be worth checking them out. The Poppies had a phenomenal run of indie dancefloor-fillers in the late '80s and early '90s, from Def Con One to Get the Girl! Kill the Baddies!  via Can You Dig It? and Wise Up! Sucker. They blended out-there samples, rock guitars, hip-hop beats and comic-book references and still sound incredible today. You may say they were ahead of their time, but Crabb disagrees.

"I think the time was just right for it," he says. "When Run-DMC first added guitars to the mix and the Beastie Boys followed, it all started to make sense. A few cutting-edge UK artists started popping up – Age of Chance, Justified Ancients of Mu Mu [who were more famously known as the KLF], Renegade Soundwave – and we felt these bands were kindred spirits and that a real adventure had begun.

"It's something we dived headlong into and confused a lot of people who expected us to be a thrashy pop-punk band and play by those rules. But rules were something we felt had to be thrown out of the window."

Some fans have objected to Crabb reforming the band without the likes of former fellow lead vocalist Clint Mansell  – who has since blossomed into a formidable movie composer, scoring films such as Duncan Jones' Moon and all of Darren (Black Swan) Aronofsky's flicks –  bassist Richard March (who went on to form the wonderful Bentley Rhythm Ace) and drummer Fuzz Townshend (last seen in Australia playing for the Poppies' brothers-in-arms the Wonder Stuff). Crabb understands the complaints but remains unfazed.

"I think some people's fear was that the legacy wouldn't be respected, that it might be an attempt to cash in or the creativity had gone and it was going to tar the great memories," he says. "All we could do is show how good we are live, what great new tunes we have and how committed we are to upholding the legacy of the PWEI name."

With songs to play from Pop Will Eat Itself's only album since 1994 – 2011's brilliantly titled New Noise Designed by a Sadist – as well as all those cult hits, their long-overdue return should be something fearsome to behold. "It's a f---ing fantastic band and needs to be recognised as such," Crabb says.

Pop Will Eat Itself play the University of Sydney's Manning Bar on September 6; and Melbourne's Hi-Fi on September 7.