Hunters & Collectors

Hunters & Collectors are an Australian rock band from Melbourne, formed in 1981. 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. Soon after forming they were joined by Jack Howard on trumpet and keyboards, Jeremy Smith on French horn, guitars and keyboards, and Michael Waters on trombone and keyboards. Also acknowledged as a founder was audio engineer and art designer Robert Miles. Joining in 1988, Barry Palmer, on lead guitar, remained until they disbanded in 1998. The group reformed in 2013 with the 1998 line-up. 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). The band recruited Plank to produce two of their early albums, The Fireman's Curse (1983) and The Jaws of Life (1984), though neither charted in the Top 50 of the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart. A turning point came with Human Frailty (1986), their first Top 10 album, which marked a shift toward a more polished, anthemic pub rock sound. This evolution continued with later charting releases, including Ghost Nation (1989), Cut (1992), and Demon Flower (1994). Among their best-charting singles were "Throw Your Arms Around Me" (1984), "Say Goodbye" (1986), "When the River Runs Dry" (1989), "True Tears of Joy" (1992), and "Holy Grail" (1993). They became one of the most popular live acts in Australia. Musicologist Ian McFarlane noted that their "great achievement was to lay bare human emotions in the intensely ritualistic milieu of the pub-rock gig". Hunters & Collectors' founding mainstays are John Archer (bass guitar), Doug Falconer (drums) and Mark Seymour (guitar and lead vocals). They met as residential students of Ormond College at the University of Melbourne in the late 1970s. Seymour is the older brother of Nick Seymour, the bass guitarist for Crowded House. In 1978 with Robert Miles (sound engineer) Archer, Falconer and Seymour formed a casual band, The Schnorts (named after a Belgian tennis racket). They played cover versions of 1960s songs, including "To Sir, with Love". Their lead singer, Margot O'Neill, was a journalist on radio 3RRR program, Talking Headlines. A more ambitious band, The Jetsonnes, followed in September 1979, with the addition of Ray Tosti-Gueira on guitar and backing vocals. According to music journalist, Clinton Walker, The Jetsonnes had a "clever post-punk pop sound" which "was lighter, bouncier (rather than funkier) and more infectious than other like-minded bands". 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. 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. Hunters & Collectors formed in Melbourne in early 1981 with the initial line-up of Archer, Crosby, Falconer, Miles, Perano, Seymour and Tosti-Gueira. Miles was credited as an equal part of the band's output and stayed throughout their main career. Perano provided the band's name from "Hunters and Collectors", a track on 1975's Landed album by German group Can. Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, compared the new band with The Jetsonnes and found it to be "a far more radical and unremitting concept". Hunters & Collectors played live for the first time on 15 May 1981 at the Crystal Ballroom in St Kilda, as part of a medical fundraiser for American musician Snakefinger. Originally Hunters & Collectors were influenced by the Krautrock genre and the productions of Conny Plank, featuring strong percussive influences, noisy guitar, and driving bass lines. As lead singer and guitarist, Seymour became the principal lyricist and the linchpin of the group. The core of Hunters & Collectors was expanded by a horn section, later dubbed Horns of Contempt, consisting of Nigel Crocker and Michael Waters both on trombone; Jack Howard, Andy Lynn and Chris Malherbe each on trumpet; and Jeremy Smith on French horn. Mushroom Records specifically formed a new alternative label, White Label Records, when they signed Hunters & Collectors. Their first release was World of Stone, a three-track 12" extended play in January 1982. It reached the top 50 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart. Their debut self-titled album followed in July and was produced by the band and engineered by Sydney-based Tony Cohen. It peaked at No. 21 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart, and No. 14 on the New Zealand Albums Chart. 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, but it did not enter the Top 50. By that time, Tosti-Gueira was replaced by Martin Lubran (ex-Spiny Norman) on guitar and the Horns of Contempt were reduced to three: Howard, Smith and Waters. Another EP, Payload, was released in November, its four tracks were co-produced by Mike Howlett (ex-Gong) and the band. The EP peaked at No. 31 on the New Zealand Singles Chart. Lowenstein also directed the music video for the lead single, "Lumps of Lead", but it did not chart in Australia or New Zealand. In 1983 the band toured the United Kingdom for six months and signed with Virgin Records. The label recompiled three tracks from the Australian version of Hunters & Collectors and all four tracks from Payload into the international version of Hunters & Collectors, which was released in April. While in the UK and attempting to enter the local market, the group's members "were doing odd jobs, illegally, to keep afloat and getting steadily more miserable in the process". By mid-year the band had decamped to Conny's Studio in Germany, where they recorded their second album, The Fireman's Curse, co-produced by Plank (Can, Cluster, Kraftwerk), with Dave Hutchins engineering, and released by White Label and Virgin Records on 5 September 1983. McFarlane felt it was "overly ambitious and cluttered, and generally suffered from a lack of fresh ideas". The album did not reach the top 50 in Australia but did so in New Zealand. A three-record deal with Virgin was broken when band members insulted the label's executive, Simon Draper, by telling him that he was "a poncy little blueblood" with no faith in them. Its lead single, "Judas Sheep" (August), reached the top 40 in New Zealand but did not chart in Australia. After November's single, "Sway", failed to chart in both markets, they disbanded briefly. Late in 1983, Hunters & Collectors had briefly disbanded, but soon reformed without Lubran and Perano. Seymour explained to The Canberra Times' Neil Lade why the group had reconvened "[we] have something valuable to offer the Australian music scene". The 1984 line-up now featured greater use of keyboards by Crosby, as well as more emphasis on work by Howard, Smith and Waters. The band began to pare back the art rock elements of their earliest albums, although they retained a muscular, bass-driven sound, rounded off by the band's distinctive horn section. Seymour's lyrics became less abstruse and focused on the twin themes of the fraught personal relationships and the politics of the day. The first album featuring the new line up was The Jaws of Life which appeared on 6 August 1984. McFarlane described it as having "a stripped-down rock sound, a driving rhythm, more concise arrangements and stronger songs". 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". The album reached