Backsliders

Backsliders are a three piece Australian blues band; self described as playing "delta blues wall of sound." Their current line up consists of guitarist/vocalist Dom Turner and drummer/percussionist Rob Hirst joined on alternating nights by either Brod Smith, Ian Collard or Joe Glover on harmonica.

Biography

2011 ARIA Best Blues and Roots Album nominees and iTunes Australian Blues and Roots album of the year winners, Backsliders, have been playing, touring the festival circuit and recording since late 1986.

One of their latest releases, ‘Dark Side’, their 13th to date, was described by the Sydney Morning Herald as "an enviable history of redefining, refining and diversifying the [blues] genre, during which Turner has taken the 12-bar format to its boundaries and beyond."

The previous release, ‘Starvation Box’ was heralded as their best to date, has been described as sounding like "hungry youths from the Deep South". Tracks from 'Starvation Box' featured on the 2013 series of Underbelly.

Slide Guitarist, multi-stringed instrumentalist, songwriter and vocalist, Dom Turner, is the founding member of the group. Dom’s influences are many and varied – a blend of delta blues, piedmont blues, rock, dub and sounds of Asia. He is a highly regarded speaker on blues and roots music and has guested on ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) radio programs and presented music workshops at festivals and in universities (both nationally and internationally). As well as playing in the Backsliders, Dom has toured as a solo artist in the USA, playing Augusta Blues week in West Virginia in 1996 and 1998, and in early 2006, he toured Mexico with US blues greats, Del Ray and Steve James. In 2004 Dom was voted Songwriter of the Year’ at the Australian Blues Awards in Goulburn, NSW and has a sculpture in recognition of this honour at the Goulburn Visitors Centre.

Drum and percussion virtuoso and songwriter Rob Hirst (Midnight Oil), an acclaimed name synonymous with the best of Australian music, has been with Backsliders for 16 years. As a founding member spending 25 years in Midnight Oil, Rob’s work needs no explanation - he stands as one of the world’s great drummers – now drawing on his early jazz and swamp-rock influences to produce a sound that is integral to the Backsliders 21st century blues grooves. Rob’s achievements in the music industry are many and varied including In publishing his first work of prose on Pan McMillan – ‘Willies Bar & Grill’ telling the story of Midnight Oil’s USA & Canadian tour just after September 11.

Joining Dom and Rob are some of Australia’s most innovative and dynamic harmonica players; the legendary Brod Smith (Dingoes, Brod Smith’s Big Combo), ARIA award winning harmonica genius Ian Collard (Collard, Greens & Gravy) as well as young Sydney-based dynamo, Joe Glover. The three blues-harpists play alternate gigs, each blazing his own trail to the raw energy of the Backsliders sound. It’s a furious ride – with Turner and Hirst doing their thing, setting the grooves and taking no prisoners, alongside Smith, Collard or Glover firing-up the amps to fuel the maelstrom.

The band is renowned for captivating live shows – an eclectic mix of blues styles moving from driving delta blues riffs and jungle-like rhythms to ‘Piedmont’ blues influenced ‘all-acoustic’ unplugged treatments of 1920’s songs by blues heroes such as Mississippi Fred McDowell and Robert Johnson.

The 2007 ‘Left Field Holler’ is an eclectic mix of hard hitting, frenetic new blues mixed with poignant ballads again taking the band to new limits. The 2005 ‘Live’ album is a collection of live performances from the Basement in Sydney, as well as the Melbourne blues festival. The 2003 DVD, ‘Live at the Basement’ features live footage from one of Backsliders many gigs at The Basement in Sydney. The concert featured tracks from Backsliders’ 8th and latest album, ‘Hanoi’. Described as a new direction for a band that welcomes evolution and seems to expand their audience with every new release, ‘Hanoi’ was voted ‘Rhythms’ Magazine Readers Poll Blues Album of the Year for 2002 and was a 2002 finalist at the prestigious Australian Record Industry Awards (ARIA). ‘Hanoi’ is a studio album of mostly original songs by Dom Turner and Rob Hirst. The band’s previous album, ‘Poverty Deluxe’ (1999), was a 1999 ARIA Finalist. A variety of tunes from the Backsliders’ back-catalogue of recordings has featured in the ABC TV programme ‘Seachange’, as well as the soundtrack to the latest read by Tim Winton, ‘Dirt Music’ in particular ‘Down by the Riverbed’ from the Backsliders’ ‘Wide Open’ (1995) album. Backsliders have also appeared on a number of compilation albums featuring renowned international and Australian artists including the Byron Bay International Blues and Roots Festival and Live at the Basement Sydney, compilation albums.

Backsliders have made numerous television appearances in Australia and are regulars at regional Australian towns and cites, as well as major Australian festivals, including Bluesfest Byron Bay, Great Southern Blues Festival, Blues on Broadbeach, Girrakool Blues Festival & BBQ, Womad, Woodford Folk Festival, Wingham Akoostik Festival and Blues at Bridgetown.

The band has played with international touring acts such as Old Gray Mule, Phil Wiggins, Peter Green, Junior Wells, Little Charlie and the Nightcats, John Mooney, Rory Block, Roy Bookbinder, Guy Clarke, Cephas and Wiggins, Leo Kottke, Charlie Musselwhite, Christina Olsen, John Prine, Del Rey, Steve James and toured nationally with John Hammond.

Discography

Studio albums

• Preaching Blues (1988)
• Sitting on a Million (1989)
• Hellhound (1991)
• Wide Open (1995)
• Poverty Deluxe (1999)
• Hanoi (2002)
• Left Field Holler (2007)
• Throwbacks (2009)
• Starvation Box (2011)
• Dark Side (2014)
• Heathen Songbook (2016)^[1]

Live albums

• Live at The Royal (1993)
• Live (2005)

Compilation albums

• Downtime (A Ten Year Collection) (1998)

DVDs

• Live at The Basement (2003)

Sources

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