Brief Canadian interview for a Human Fraility era gig.

Author: Terry Craig, Star- Phoenix Saskatoon.

Date: 30 October 1986.

Original URL: N/A

Article Text

With more than half a dozen top 10 hits on the Australian charts, the seven members of Hunters and Collectors hope that success will be matched in North America.

Vocalist and guitarist Mark Seymour said of the recently released album, Human Frailty, ” We had three singles on the charts at home, and the album has been on the charts for 29 weeks.

The group has just started a North American tour which brings it into Saskatoon for a gig at the Parktown Motor Hotel on Tuesday night.

Seymour, in an interview from Vancouver, said the group has made a conscious effort to produce a more melodic sound after the dismal record sales of its first Canadian release.

“This album is a little better produced,” he said. “It’s fairly important for us to get radio play here.”

Record sales are essential to the band, Seymour said, noting that bringing a band to North America from Australia is a “very expensive” proposition.

Hunters and Collectors members have been together for five years,and Seymour said the group’s power lies in its heavy bass and drum sound provided by bassist John Archer and drummer Doug Falconer.

“We have a very strong soul influence from Ray Charles to James Brown,” Seymour said.

However, unlike many soul groups which relay on a saxophone section, Hunters and Collectors is driven by trumpet, trombone and French horn.

“We never found any sax players that were good at complementing our music,” he said. ” the brass section brings an added dimension.”

Much of the material on the album was written while the band toured its homeland. And because each composition is credited as a group effort, Seymour said the group does not have to depend on one or two members to come up with ideas for songs.

Although the group is just beginning to make inroads in North America, Seymour is optimistic it will attract a broader audience.

“At some point we believe that our music will become popular worldwide,” he said. “But there has to be some continuity between our identity as a live rock ‘n’ roll band and the way our music comes across on record.

“This is why we have tended to vary our approach to production from one record to the next, because we’ve been looking for some useful compromise that we feel comfortable with, a record that would symbolize the power our music has both emotionally and physically.”

Comments

Thankyou to Tammy for typing out this article for us all to enjoy!