Celebrating Silver

There must have been a lot of people who were surprised to hear, back in 2000, that Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst had decided to add The Backsliders to his list of then-Oils side projects. As popular, at least within blues circles, as they might have been, The Backsliders certainly weren't in the same league as the Oils, but there was obviously something going on that appealed to Hirst, and it all boils down to the passion and vision of one Dom Turner.

“I'd been friends with Rob for a number of years through The Ghostwriters [a songwriting collaboration that included Divinyls/Hoodoo Gurus bass player Rick Grossman and singer-songwriter/guitarist Paul Greene],” Turner explains, “because I was working with them as a session musician. And this sounds like a semi-made-up story but it's true; I was talking to him on the phone about a completely unrelated sort of thing and he was asking so I told him Pete [Burgess, drums] had left the band and he went, 'Have you got anybody else?' And I said, 'Oh, there are a few people in mind,' because I did but the first person I had in mind was Rob, but I really thought, at the time Midnight were going, that this was not going to work. And he said, 'You haven't asked me.' And there was a bit of a silent moment before I said, 'Well, actually, you're the first person I would ask but how's this going to work,' And he said, 'Don't worry, it'll work.'”

And for the past dozen years, it certainly has, Hirst becoming not only the drummer but a solid contributor to the songwriting side of The Backsliders on the five albums – 2002's Hanoi, 2005's Backsliders Live, 2007's Left Field Holler and last year's Starvation Box – a DVD, 2003's Live At The Basement and a compilation, 2009's Throwbacks, they've released in those years.

“We didn't want someone who was a regular drummer,” Turner admits. “We wanted somebody who was into the uniqueness, who understood a kind of a blues background. I mean, Rob played in jazz bands in high school so he had that approach, so I knew he'd be perfect.”

Turner had been playing in a duo with harmonica player Rex Hill since 1981 as well as playing in a band called The Stumblers, but towards the end of 1986, he'd become disillusioned with the way the duo was being presented – stuck in a pub corner to provide “chill-out” music – particularly after a six-month sabbatical travelling through southern America.

“Blues duo, put them in the corner, ignore them, give them a tiny little PA,” is how he recalls it. “We knew that this wasn't how this music ['20s and '30s Delta blues] was presented in its heyday, which was as Saturday night party music really. Having seen some Cajun and zydeco bands using acoustic instrumentation, with no bass generally, with a drummer percussionist, acoustic guitar and button accordion, it dawned on me that this could be a way of presenting the music I really love playing in a pub gig basically. The idea was to present the traditional blues but do it our own way, arranging them to a form we thought people would understand.”

So he and Burgess started rehearsing around that idea, reuniting with Hill, busking around Sydney and The Backsliders were born at a 2MBS-FM event at Sydney Town Hall. Hill left after they released their debut album, 1988's Preaching Blues, and was replaced by Jim Conway, the band becoming a fixture in the Balmain blues scene. Conway moved on not long after Hirst joined and they've been using two harmonica players – Broderick Smith from The Dingoes and Ian Collard from Collard Greens & Gravy – alternating on availability since.

The Backsliders will be playing the following shows:

Friday 31 August - The Vanguard, Newtown NSW
Saturday 1 September - Lizottes, Newcastle NSW
Friday 21 September - Tank Arts Centre, Cairns QLD
Saturday 13 October - Caravan Music Club, Melbourne VIC
Sunday 14 October - Way Out West Williamstown RSL, Melbourne VIC
Friday 19 October - Dingo Creek Winery, Gympie QLD
Friday 26 October - Sydney Blues Festival Windsor, Sydney NSW
Sunday 27 October - Backwater Blues Festival, Adelaide SA
Friday 18 January - Quarterdeck, Narooma NSW