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".
History 1978–1980: Formation 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.
1981–1983: World of Stone to The Fireman's Curse
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.
1984–1986: The Jaws of Life to Human Frailty 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 the top 100 in Australia and top 40 in New Zealand. Again co-produced with Plank, it was recorded at the old Can studio by René Tinner. The title, cover art and opening track, "42 Wheels", all refer to the murder of five people by an intoxicated, outback trucker, Douglas Crabbe.
The Jaws of Life provided a single, "The Slab" (also in August), which did not chart. However relentless touring, airplay on radio station Triple J plus their music videos screening on Countdown and other music video shows, fostered a devoted following on the pub rock scene. In November they issued the first version of "Throw Your Arms Around Me" as a single-only, it had no chart success in Australia but reached No. 28 in New Zealand in the following March.
On 24 and 25 August 1984 Hunters & Collectors performed two gigs at The Venue in Melbourne, the performances were recorded and filmed. For the gigs Smith and Waters also played organs. The band issued their first live album, The Way to Go Out, on 1 April 1985, which was recorded and mixed live by Miles. A month later the group released their first video album, on VHS, of the same name, which also included three previously aired music videos, "Talking to a Stranger", "Lumps of Lead", and "Judas Sheep". The live album reached the top 100 in Australia and No. 21 in New Zealand. It "captured all the ferocious power and muscular energy that characterised the band's pub gigs" according to McFarlane. A live version of "Throw Your Arms Around Me" also appeared on the album and VHS. Crosby left after The Way to Go Out was released and Waters took over on keyboards.
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. It was co-produced by the group with Gavin MacKillop. Australian music journalist, Ed Nimmervoll, noted "Seymour's themes of alienation and sexual politics came to the fore" with the album. It became their first Australian Top Ten album and reached No. 5 in New Zealand. In 2008 Human Frailty, was featured by SBS TV on the Great Australian Albums second series. Creswell presented the series and noted that "the album documents, in the most candid terms, the course of a doomed love affair that [Seymour] was then going through. A parallel narrative is also running through the album, which is of a group adjusting to life on the road and an exploration of what it means to be Australian in the 1980s".
"Say Goodbye", the lead single, was issued ahead of the album in February and peaked at No. 24 in Australia and No. 20 in New Zealand. The single's back cover art includes their logo, a H & C symbol, where the "&" is stylised with twin snakes entwined around a hunting knife, a variation of a caduceus. 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'". The chorus appears in "Say Goodbye" and Pollyanna Sutton of The Canberra Times felt that Seymour had written "a line which he could sing in a pub with a lot of vulgarity that would get both guys and girls singing".