December 1991 ‘Merry Christmas’ letter from the band to fans.

Author: Loud and Clear Management.

Date: December 1991.

Article Text

Merry Christmas fellow ghosts!!
from John, Doug, Jack, Bazz, Michael, Rob, Jeremy and Mark

This newsletter is coming to you from the bowels of Platinum Studios in Melbourne. It’s a Tuesday night, the evening of a beautiful spring day. Little would be know it, however, because we’ve been in here for two weeks now, six days a week, thirteen hours a day (who says rock ‘n’ roll is all glamour?) – with another week to go, by the end of which we will have finished the first half of a new album.

We’ve recorded seven songs with a couple of funky Californian dudes, Don Gehman and Rick Will, who have been very exciting to work with. They’re responsible for the latest Barnesy records and (Johnny) Diesel’s latest as well as albums by REM, John Cougar Mellencamp and Ziggy Marley among others. With their help, we’re creating a very new and different Hunters sound. We’d compare it to something else, but it defies comparison. It’s very modern. We’ve been using this percussion loops to help the songs swing more and in a strange way they’ve led us into a greater range of expression and invention than ever before. Some of the loops are almost Latin or almost House or almost Reggae, but when you combine them with our songs and our playing, a very unique sound has resulted.

Right now, we’re working on a track called “Tears of Joy”. We’re waiting for Mark to come back from a run. Suddenly he disappears and we’re saying, “Where’s Mark, where’s Mark?”, (“went mad and they shot him”). Jeremy’s playing brass for a while until John stops chasing Mark. There’s incense everywhere and flowers and candles. Gumby and Daffy Duck, Yogi Bear and Batman in here with us. It’s a happening! It’s so… so… groovy.

However, you’ll have to be content with “Where Do You Go?” for a while longer because this new record won’t be released until the middle of 1992. Meanwhile, we’ll be doing our usual summer tour which will take us to most of the states of our fair nation (even Tassie this time!). There’ll be an under age show at the Metro in Melbourne on December 8th. Then we’ll write some more songs and finish the album off in February or and March.

In October, we toured central Australia and the Far North for the first time. We went to Alice Springs, Darwin, Mt Isa and then right down the Queensland Coast from Cairns to Byron Bay. In Darwin we played at Darwin Amphitheatre to over 3,000 punters and were supported by a most excellent aboriginal band from Arnhem Land called “The Sunrize Band”. In Cairns we played at the beautiful Kuranda Rainforest Amphitheatre. Amphitheatres like these two always seem to have a very easy-going vibe about them and they’re fun to play. When we toured America with Midnight Oil in 1990, most of the venues we played were like that.

We also had lots of leisure time on this tour for once. Plenty of golf was played (and plenty of balls were lost). We had a day on a catamaran at Magnetic Island where we leapt off giant rocks, ate prawns and got sunburnt. Bazz had a drive in the truck all the way from Darwin to Townsville (yes we were shocked too) and saw the famous buffaroo (?) in Camooweal (?). John drove the truck from Melbourne all the way to Darwin (we always said he was strange). Some of us got out to Ayers Rock, the Olgas and Kakadu. They were fantastic places to see, so completely different from the cities and the eastern coastline. It’s easy to understand, even from such a brief glimpse, why the Aboriginals attach such spiritual importance to the land out there. It’s big and parts of it are spectacular, but it’s also strange and very powerful.

Well, that’s it for now, hope to se you at one of the shows listed overleaf and finally, Happy New Year!

Comments

Thanks James!