Despite the pockets of time in between some of Hoodoo Gurus’ albums—that time following the 1996 release of Blue Cave when the band broke up for before recording their eighth album Mach Schau in 2004, then another indefinite hiatus, which turned into a decade, after their 2010 album Purity of Essence, which coincided with retirement of longtime drummer Mark Kingsmill, who had been with the Australian rockers since 1984.
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“This is the longest break between albums we’ve ever had in our career,” says frontman Dave Faulkner of the past decade. “While this was happening, we were unsure whether we could, or should, continue without him [Kingsmill]. Once we had settled in with Nik Reith on drums, it was inevitable that we were going to make some new music together—otherwise why keep this thing going.”
In a span of two years since 2019, Hoodoo Gurus reassembled, writing and recording their 10th (still untitled) album, due out at the end of 2021, along with new single “World of Pain.”
Describing the song as, it “details the misadventures of a night on the town, beginning with a drunken altercation with another punter and concludes with our hapless narrator waking up in bed fully dressed, in the throes of a hangover, all the while trying to remember where he last saw his cell phone,” with Faulkner roaring Your fist smashes my face / Chairs fly all over the place / What a sorry sight, “World of Pain” is a slightly embellished tale of a few nights gone awry.
“‘World Of Pain’ is not fictional, merely dramatized for effect,” shares Faulkner. “I’ve personally lived out every last thing described in the song, though, luckily for me, not all of the events described occurred in that order or on the same night. And, before you ask, the answer is yes, I have been punched in the face when I was a bit drunk in a nightclub.”
The new album also marks the 40th year of Hoodoo Gurus, who first formed in Sydney in 1981, and debuted with Stoneage Romeos three years later. Now four decades in, the new album began almost prophetically in song with “Answered Prayers,” a track Faulkner wrote in 2019, which energized him as a writer again.
“The main riff came to me on my way home from a rehearsal and, after beginning work on it at the next rehearsal, the rest of the song tumbled out all at once the following morning,” reveals Faulkner. “I was a little shocked at the power of the lyrics. It’s a very dark, troubling song, and the music also felt quite different from anything we’d ever done previously. ‘Answered Prayers’ made me realize that my creative juices were beginning to flow again.”
Aside from another track dating back to 2000, all the songs are new, including the politically piercing “Hung Out to Dry,” and more pop-fused “Get Out of Dodge,” released in 2020.
Nowadays, songs still come from direct experiences, or Faulkner’s view of the world. “They can be abstracted for dramatic effect, but I don’t just make up stuff, because of having nothing to say,” says Faulkner. “My inventions are only to illustrate the theme I’ve chosen to explore, and to protect the guilty—usually, me.”
The other part of Faulkner’s writing involves accumulating scraps of melodies and riffs stored on his phone during morning walks. “Those fleeting ideas then become the inspiration for the new songs I write,” says Faulkner. “Some of these snatches of music may be months, years or even decades old, but the important thing is that they trigger a strong feeling in me right now. I’ve always felt a song only starts to age once it becomes fully formed. It absorbs the zeitgeist into its essence.”
Reith joining Hoodoo Gurus has also added a different dynamic to the band, one that has shifted the songwriting process. “Nik has a lot more swing in his style than did Mark Kingsmill,” says Faulkner. “Mark was more ferocious and explosive than Nik in many ways, and our whole career was built upon Mark’s amazing playing but Nik is also one hell of a powerful drummer. The big thing Nik has added has been a bit of roll to go along with our rock—as Keith Richards’ often says about Charlie Watts.”
He adds, “That’s brought out a different character in my songwriting and has allowed me to explore some musical tributaries that were previously invisible to me. Nik’s playing shapes my writing but my writing also shapes Nik’s playing. All I can say is that there is a new energy in the band, and it permeates every aspect of what we do.”
