Canadian Living Daylight era article on the band.

Author: Erella Vent, NOW Magazine.

Date: 21-27 May 1987.

Original URL: N/A.

Article Text

Fresh from a tour of their homeland and North America, Australian rockers Hunters and Collectors bring their guitar-heavy, horn-embelished dance music to RPM tonight (Thursday). And, having just released a five-song EP on IRS, Living Daylight, they promise a lot of new material on their Canadian dates before heading home to record their follow-up.

“Our music is a very public thing,” says head Hunters Mark Seymour from a hotel room in Ottawa, of the band’s percussive, straight-ahead rock-sound. “It belongs in night clubs and halls. It’s about sharing and community awareness – like gospel music.”

Although known as prolific group, H&C have included two previously released songs on the EP.

“We’re now playing to people who don’t know much about our old material,” explains Seymour. “We thought we’d re-mix a couple of old songs that we still do live, but we mainly do new stuff.”

The Hunters intend to live up their reputations as an exciting, vibrant live band and hope big record sales will follow.

“I think the reason people sometimes say a band sounds better live than on record is because they have the visual element as well. We do really intense shows. People take off their shirts and swear a lot. We like to draw the audience into the physical intensity of what we do.”

The band’s live sound is so important to them that they give their soundman, Robert Miles, equal billing on their albums and consider him a full, indispensable member of the band.

“We want people to have a lasting impression after a show – some sort of personal statement that’s a reflection of their own lives.”

The personal lives of Hunters and Collectors consist, right now, of an exhausting 40-date tour. After that, it’s back home to ret and record the next LP, slated for October release.

“Australia has very recently been embraced by the western world as something exotic and isolated,” he says. “It is looked upon as a utopia in the south. But it is far from being utopian.

“We are becoming more relaxed about promoting ourselves internationally. Up until a few years ago, England was the outside world for Australians, the mother country. But because we realize that there’s more of a genuine positive interest in what Australia’s about from other countries, particularly here in North America, our artists, musicians and filmmakers are turning their attention here. This recent phenomenon is us allowing ourselves to relax with our own style and accept it.”

Above all, the band hopes to continue to reinterpret and question what their music is about, guided by their own experience. “Touring,” says Seymour, “is getting us outside ourselves.”

Tulpa opens for the Hunters and Collectors show. Tickets are $10 at the door.

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