Hunters & Collectors
Fronted by founding member, singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Seymour, the band's other mainstays are John Archer on bass guitar and Doug Falconer on drums and percussion.
Originally influenced by krautrock and the productions of Conny Plank, Hunters & Collectors' early music featured abrasive percussion, noisy guitar, and driving bass lines, producing a tribal post-punk sound exemplified by their debut single, "Talking to a Stranger" (1982).
They became one of the most popular live acts in Australia and according to musicologist Ian McFarlane, their "great achievement was to lay bare human emotions in the intensely ritualistic milieu of the pub-rock gig".
[1] Their only released track is "Newspaper" which was one side of a gig give away split single in June 1980 with "Miniskirts in Moscow" by fellow pop group, International Exiles, as the other.
[1][4][6] By September that year The Jetsonnes had disbanded but Archer, Falconer, Miles, Seymour and Tosti-Gueira decided to continue with new members, Geoff Crosby on keyboards and Greg Perano (ex-True Wheels) on percussion to form a new band.
[9] The album's lead single, "Talking to a Stranger", also released in July, was accompanied by a music video directed by film maker Richard Lowenstein,[1][10][11] but it did not enter the Top 50.
[1] While Toby Creswell writing for Rolling Stone felt its "aesthetic push ranged from the barrenness and isolation of outback Australia to the beer-swilling machismo of the suburbs".
[1][2] Greater Australian commercial success came in April 1986, with their fourth studio album, Human Frailty, which McFarlane found was "a further refinement of the sinewy and dynamic approach established" previously.
Nimmervoll described how the group "had discovered how to tap the unique vein they had unearthed; where, in a sweat-dripping venue packed to the rafters with a beer swilling macho rock fans the audience would and could at the top of their voices unselfconsciously sing along to a chorus like 'you don't make me feel like a woman any more'".
[1] However Allmusic's Mike DeGagne declared that it was "one of this Australian band's weakest attempts, [it] suffers greatly from bland lyrics and gray instrumental work through the entirety of the album".
[18][19] Hunters & Collectors supported Midnight Oil's North American tour of 1990 and, although the band struggled to find further chart success in the US, they maintained their status in Australia and New Zealand as local favourites.
[1] Contemporary singer-songwriter, Paul Kelly, recalled that by the late 1980s the band "were peaking in the pubs, gathering an army ... [the group] had a big, fat industrial bass sound, an anthemic horn section, and their singlet-clad singer [Seymour], as fit as a trout, held nothing back".
In Large Rooms and Lounges, was released in November 1995, with one disc consisting of an acoustic set at the now-defunct Continental Cafe in Prahran, and the other was a typical pub performance.
Juggernaut, their ninth studio album, was co-produced with Kalju Tonuma (The Mavis's, Boom Crash Opera) and Mark Opitz (Hoodoo Gurus, Jimmy Barnes, INXS).
[1] Hunters & Collectors embarked on their final tour of Australia in 1998, with a concert performed at Selina's, Coogee Bay Hotel, Sydney being recorded and released on CD and DVD as Under One Roof.
[1] In March 2009 Seymour told Patrick Donovan of The Age "It was a pretty serious decision to retire, and all the guys in the band are heavyweight professionals in their respective areas of employment.
[2] Perano has been a member of Pierre's World, Swell Maps, Big Choir, Love Rodeo (1984–85), The Deadly Hume (1985–88), Funkicide, and Kylie Minogue Band (1990).
[1][2] Back in August 1995, while still a member of Hunters & Collectors, Palmer formed a side project, Deadstar, with Peter Jones (of Crowded House) on drums and percussion; and Caroline Kennedy on lead vocals and guitar.
"Throw Your Arms Around Me" has been covered by many artists including Crowded House, Pearl Jam, Luka Bloom, and the Doug Anthony All Stars (and subsequently by member Paul McDermott).
[17] On 14 July 2005 Hunters & Collectors were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame at the Plaza Ballroom alongside Split Enz, Renée Geyer, Normie Rowe, Smoky Dawson, and The Easybeats.
[29][30][31] They were inducted into the Hall of Fame by Peter Garrett, former lead singer of tour mates, Midnight Oil,[32] At the ceremony Hunters & Collectors provided a one-off performance of "Say Goodbye" and "Throw Your Arms Around Me".
[25] In his autobiography Small Moments of Glory (Brolga Publishing, 2020), Jack Howard wrote, "In 2008, a special and wonderfully-packaged box set, in the form of a cabinet of architectural drawers, of all our recordings had been released".
[36] Hunters & Collectors played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 14 March 2009 for Sound Relief, which was a multi-venue rock music concert in support of victims of the Victorian Bushfire Crisis.
[37][38] Appearing with Hunters & Collectors in Melbourne were, Augie March, Bliss N Eso with Paris Wells, Gabriella Cilmi, Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson with Troy Cassar-Daley, Jack Johnson, Jet, Kings of Leon, Liam Finn (joined on stage with Crowded House), Midnight Oil, Paul Kelly, Split Enz and Wolfmother.
The Sound Relief concert, including the Hunters & Collectors set, was broadcast on Australian cable TV and FM radio, which was released on DVD.
A tribute album, Crucible – The Songs of Hunters & Collectors, was released in September 2013, including contributions by Birds of Tokyo, Eddie Vedder and Neil Finn (of Crowded House), Cloud Control, Something for Kate, and The Rubens, as well as a remix of the original "Talking to a Stranger" by The Avalanches.
[40] The band reunited in their 1998 line-up of Archer, Falconer, Howard, Palmer, Seymour, Smith and Waters, at the 2013 AFL Grand Final playing "Do You See What I See" and "The Holy Grail".
[41] They headlined a series of A Day on the Green outdoor concerts in early 2014, and supported Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band during their tour of Australia on 15 and 16 February 2014 at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium.
[41][42][43] Paul Busch of ToneDeaf website caught their gig on 4 April at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney: "Seymour was in fine vocal form and the sound, although a bit too loud to start with, settled down ...
The band was scheduled to reunite again to headline the Red Hot Summer Tour across Australia in early 2020, accompanied by James Reyne, The Living End, The Angels, Baby Animals, Killing Heidi and Boom Crash Opera.
