Today, Hoodoo Gurus are one of Australia’s biggest musical exports, boasting a string of hit albums over the ‘80s and ‘90s.
But, reflecting on the release of the band’s first album, ‘Stoneage Romeos’, singer Dave Faulkner said he never saw it coming.
“We made [the album] in bits and pieces. We’d do a single and a couple of extra songs, then go out on tour and promote the new single, then come back in and do another single, so it took nearly a year to make the whole thing,” he said.
“It wasn’t like we ever had a sense of it as a final work, it just gradually assembled itself without us knowing. We’d just get the songs we liked that worked well live and just chuck them down as best we can, and I think we did pretty well with that!”
That was 40 years ago, and now, Hoodoo Gurus are revisiting the album with a new tour, Hoodoo Gurus: Back to the Stone-Age.
As part of the tour, Faulkner said they’ll be playing ‘Stoneage Romeos’ in its entirety on every stop, finally giving the songs which sometimes get overshadowed a chance to be in the spotlight.
“The real joy of doing this is that there are certain songs on there that are crowd favourites, and people will often request them, but you can’t always squeeze them into a set when you’ve got other songs that people really want to hear that are more ‘iconic’ for the band,” he said.
“It’s been great to be able to get some of these slightly less well travelled songs out there.”
But, after test driving the setlist in the US last month, Faulkner said there’s a few songs in particular that he’s most excited to be playing – whether audiences like it or not.
“There’s a song called ‘In The Echo Chamber’ that’s our favourite song to play, because it’s probably the least favourite song of anyone else’s on the record! It’s a little bit ugly, a little bit grotesque and not pleasant, and we like that. It lets us have our own private fun – there’s a certain kind of perverse joy in playing a song that kind of rubs people the wrong way,” he laughed.
This month, Hoodoo Gurus are excited to be bringing the tour down under, in their first Australian tour since 2022.
“Australia’s our home, and this is where our biggest audiences are, and our most passionate audiences, so we just love playing here,” he said.
“As much fun as it was seeing the world and going to exotic places, it’s really great to be here!”
Faulkner said that over the years, western Sydney has been one of his favourite places to play, counting down the days until they hit the Sydney Coliseum stage on November 29.
“When we started, we were kind of an ‘inner city’ band – that’s how people described that sort of scene at the time, what became alternative, independent music. In those days [that’s where] people were living in squats and sharing houses and living quite cheaply, and that encouraged a lot of different creative people to mix together and inspire each other, and music and rock ‘n’ roll were part of that,” he said.
“When the Gurus started, our very first intention was not to be stuck in that scene and just to play to the converters, we wanted to spread our music everywhere!”
Though ‘Stoneage Romeos’ is the main focus of the tour, Faulkner said fans won’t be missing all of their favourite hits, promising their longest show ever, and an unmissable night.
Hoodoo Gurus will be on at Sydney Coliseum on Friday, November 29 at 7.30pm. Tickets start at $79. For more information or to book, visit http://www.sydneycoliseum.com.au.
Cassidy Pearce
Cassidy Pearce is a news and entertainment journalist with The Western Weekender. A graduate of the University of Technology Sydney, she has previously worked with Good Morning Macarthur and joined the Weekender in 2022.