Australian CrawlIt was just under two months ago that the local music industry was shocked by the news that, after 40 years away, Australian Crawl were set to reunite for this year's Red Hot Summer Tour.
To many, this news seemingly came out of nowhere. After all, with the passing of four decades featuring no talk of a reunion, and a general sense of satisfaction with the way in which the group made their exit from the local music scene, it felt as though talks of a reunion would be swiftly shot down.
That initial exit took place back in February of 1986 when the band wrapped up their eight-year career which boasted four studio albums, an EP, a live album, and enough of a reputation for the group to later be inducted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame a decade later.
As vocalist and multi-instrumentalist James Reyne tells The Music, Australian Crawl's initial split was intended to be a permanent one – or at least, there was no indication such a reunion would ever take place.
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"Bands run their natural course," he explains. "I could do two hours on the dynamics of bands – I guess anyone that's ever been in a band could do that – and every band is different.
"But we were all very, very young. If you start a band when you're 17, 18, and then if you get sort of any kind of notoriety, infamy, fame, or any kind of notice, circumstances change, and people adapt differently to those sort of circumstances.
"And people change," he notes. "You grow up, you grow out, or you grow differently."
For Australian Crawl, the decision to split came about as they readied the release of what would be their final album.
Having already immortalised their storied career with the release of their Crawl File compilation in late 1984, the band entered the studio with English producer Adam Kidron to record Between A Rock And A Hard Place.
"The song's sound all right, but it wasn't the greatest record we made," Reyne remembers, "And it didn't do anything commercially."
'Didn't do anything commercially' may be slightly harsh, but considering it arrived after two chart-toppers and remains the band's only non-single release during their career to peak outside the national top four (it would 'only' reach No. 11), maybe it's all relative?
However, Reyne remembers that the band had made the foolhardy decision of funding the record themselves so as to ensure a bigger chunk of the royalties and to avoid being beholden to their record label. However, studio time proved expensive, debts mounted up, and the band decided to go on tour to offset what they owed.
"We went on the road for probably 18 months," he recalls. "We didn't want to finish owing any money, so we went on the road to pay off all the debts.
"So we did a tour for a year-and-a-half as perfectly happy friends. But I think it was just really obvious. We just went, 'You know what? This is done. We've done this,'" he notes. "'Instead of flogging a dead horse, let's just quit.'"
That mutual feeling served as the closer to an impressive career for the group, which had first come together on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula in the mid-'70s.
Coming together as teenagers, Reyne, guitarist Simon Binks, bassist Paul Williams, and brothers Bill and Guy McDonough (drums and guitar, respectively) had performed in bands together since 1976, and by 1978, various movements between these groups had resulted in Australian Crawl's line-up featuring Reyne, Binks, and Williams performing with guitarist Brad Robinson and Reyne's brother James on drums.
James would depart soon after, with Bill McDonough stepping in, and the following year his brother Guy would step into the fold.
"We didn't ever have any great ambitions to be this big band or rock stars," Reyne points out. "We were just thinking, 'This is just some fun little thing we'll do on the side,' and then we were getting enough work that we thought, 'Well, maybe we'll just give it a couple of years and see what happens.
"We honestly didn't go, 'Let's really rule the world," this was just a fun thing. Of course, we thought if it died in the arse, we can all go back to uni or whatever we were doing.
"And it sort of got out of hand, to be honest."
Get it out of hand it did, and quickly. Debut album The Boys Light Up arrived in 1980, launching a generational run that could still be studied to this day to determine just what sort of lightning Australian Crawl had managed to capture in the metaphorical bottle.
Sirocco would follow in 1981, Sons Of Beaches in 1982, and 1984 would boast both the Semantics EP and the Phalanx live album. Of all these releases, all would top the charts, save for The Boys Light Up and Phalanx, which would both peak at No. 4.
Staples of the charts, and firm favourites of the TV Week/Countdown Awards (12 nominations would net four wins, including two for Most Popular Male Performer going to Reyne and two for Most Popular Group), Reyne admits that the band's legacy has "always surprised him", even 40 years later.
However, despite the numerous accolades, chart successes, and amicable ending to their story, Australian Crawl's story was not without its downsides.
Writer Jeff Apter, who this week released the book Reckless: The Saga Of Australian Crawl, describes the group's ending as "sad and really messy", and a career punctuated by missed opportunities.
In fact, in 1983, US executive Tommy Mottola had agreed to represent the band in the US, and the group had wrapped their support for Duran Duran on an 80-day North American tour when tragedy struck.
Guy McDonough had already become known for his musical versatility within the band, even taking over for Reyne as lead vocalist on the 1981 singles Errol and Oh No Not You Again. However, addiction had taken hold, and during his attempts to detox, McDonough found himself hospitalised for viral pneumonia before passing away at the age of 28.
The Crawl found themselves sidelined in the wake of McDonough's passing, and by the time they regrouped, their US momentum had dissipated.
Tragedy would again follow in 1996 when Robinson – who had managed both Reyne brothers in their solo careers alongside other sporting and entertainment figures – passed away at the age of 38, just two weeks after Australian Crawl had been inducted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame.
While many may have figured that the absence of figures such as McDonough and Robinson would have prevented any reunions from taking place over the years, Reyne is somewhat casual when he admits there had simply "never been any offers" previously.
"There was never any real talk of a reunion, but I was going, 'We can't do it, without Brad and Guy, you just can't do it,'" he recalls.
"And I was thinking, 'I don't really feel like it really.' I play those songs – well, some of those songs anyway [in my solo shows], but then I don't know why, but the timing just felt right."
Indeed, Reyne has been performing Australian Crawl material in his live shows for decades now. In fact, in 2024, he celebrated 40 years of the Crawl File compilation, and earlier this year he embarked on the aptly-titled Fall Of Crawl tour, performing a number of the band's hits.
So what changed his mind?
As Reyne explains, the offer came via his manager Scot Crawford who had been talking to Red Hot Summer Director Duane McDonald, and he surmises the latter asked the former whether "James would do it" at long last.
"The way Scot asked me, I suppose maybe I was feeling good that day or something," he chuckles.
Drummer John Watson, who played drums with Australian Crawl for their final years and plays with Reyne in his solo band, expressed his interest, leaving Reyne to say that he'd go ahead with the reunion if Binks was also eager.
"I said, 'If Simon is into doing it, then I'm in," he adds. "Simon and I had been talking, we turned to each other and said, 'Well, you know, we could do this.'"
Some fans may have cottoned on to the fact that a reunion may have been on the way earlier this year, when Reyne and Binks issued a statement addressing a nascent trademark dispute with Bill McDonough.
In March, the pair filed an application to the Australian Federal Court challenging McDonough’s acquisition of Australian Crawl trademarks, which he acquired in the '90s – more than seven years after the "then members of Australian Crawl unanimously voted Bill out of the band" in 1983, as Binks put it.
While the breadcrumb trail may have been in full effect, many fans may have not believed such an occurrence would actually take place.
After all, there would likely be a lot of trepidation of what a reunited version of Australian Crawl could look and sound like. But what about the band themselves? After 40 years apart, was there any fear of what a reunion of this nature could result in?
"I think it has to be done right," Reyne admits. "I'm completely open and honest about it, and we'll pay tribute to the fact that Brad and Guy are no longer with us. They are not there, so it will never be Australian Crawl as you would see them on those old pictures of the band. It can never be that.
"So anyone that wants to go, 'It's not really them because they're not all there…' Well, no, they're not here. Obviously, it's never going to be that. But if there's an interest in doing this, and someone's willing to take the punt to see if we could make this work…"
One of the reasons why Reyne is so certain of the fact that these upcoming shows will work lies within the personnel of the forthcoming line-up.
Alongside himself, Binks, and his brother David, the 2026 iteration of the line-up is rounded out by Reyne's current live band. That includes drummer John Watson, guitarists Brett Kingman and Josh Owen, bassist Andy McIvor, with Sean Johnson on keys, and Melinda Jackson and Nicky Kurta on backing vocals.
"I just say my band's the best rock 'n' roll band in Australia," Reyne says simply. "I mean, Midnight Oil have retired and Cold Chisel is off the road, I'll happily go to town against anyone.
"And we play most – not all – the songs. We play some of those Australian Crawl songs, because if I don't play Reckless or Boys Light Up I'd get lynched. So I know musically it will be really, really good because I know that band can really deliver.
"No one's going to be in the crowd going, 'Oh, dear," he adds. "It's musically going to be great. It won't be shithouse because the band is great, and they're going to embrace all those songs."
While Reyne and his band have been playing many of these songs for years, the forthcoming tour comes under a year since he and Australian Crawl's catalogue received a unique platform thanks to his appearance on the 2025 line-up for the annual Good Things festival.
"Yeah, that was weird, wasn't it?" he asks, reflecting on being on a bill alongside Tool, Weezer, and Garbage, among others. "In Melbourne, we didn't know what to expect, so I was thinking, "What the hell? Am I going to get a bottle thrown at me? What's going on here?'"
By the third show on the tour, in Brisbane, fans were seemingly giving up their chances to see metal icons Machine Head or pop punk favourites All Time Low in favour of Reyne's set.
To put it bluntly, that's not exactly the sort of crowd he'd expect at one of his live shows, but it's something of an indicator of what the crowd composition will be like at the forthcoming reunion gigs.
While diehards who were there in the original era will certainly be on deck, so too will anyone under the age of 40 whose entire knowledge of the group has come from radio airplay, record collections, videos, and word passed down from older fans.
"At our shows, I'm always surprised about how many younger people are there," Reyne says of his solo gigs. "I've often made jokes with them, going, 'You poor things, your parents bombarded you with this stuff, didn't they?' And they laugh, but they seem to know all the words.
"I think [the upcoming shows are] going to be a big cross-section, and I feel very grateful for that. There'll be the oldies who grew up with it, and I bet you there are people there probably at the first gig in '78.
"But I expect the crowd to be a cross-section," he muses. "Mainly leaning a bit older, but I think there'll be younger people there."
However, any fans hoping that a reunion of this variety may result in new music or further tours may need to temper their expectations (and buy a ticket to the upcoming Red Hot Summer Tour shows), because 2026 is shaping up to be the one and only time in which fans will be able to catch the name Australian Crawl on a line-up.
"I think it's probably a one-and-done," Reyne admits. "You've got to watch what you say in this world because who knows if I'm still around in 30 years; I'll be in a wheelchair by then.
"To be really honest, my sense of it, as far as I'm concerned personally, the energy of this is a one and done at the moment. You don't want to tarnish it or anything, but then someone comes out of the woodwork and goes, 'I'll give you $400 trillion for one song….'
"At that point, everybody you talk to later goes, 'You wanker, you said it was a one and done,'" he laughs. "But as far as I'm concerned, the energy of it so far, and the fact I'm getting a really nice, genuine sense [of joy] from people, I wouldn't want to blow that."
Australian Crawl will headline the Red Hot Summer Tour, which launches in October. Tickets to the upcoming shows are on sale now.
RED HOT SUMMER TOUR
2026 TOUR WITH AUSTRALIAN CRAWL, MEN AT WORK, BIRDS OF TOKYO, VIKA & LINDA, ESKIMO JOE, BOOM CRASH OPERA & ELLA HOOPER
Saturday, October 17th – Queens Park, Toowoomba, QLD
Sunday, October 18th – Sandstone Point Hotel, Sandstone Point, QLD
Saturday, October 24th – Berry Showground, Berry, NSW
Sunday, October 25th – Keirle Park, Manly, NSW
Saturday, October 31st – Roche Estate, Hunter Valley, NSW
Sunday, November 1st – Coolangatta Beach, Coolangatta, QLD
Saturday, November 7th – Victoria Park, Ballarat, VIC
Sunday, November 8th – Mornington Racecourse, Mornington, VIC
Saturday, November 14th – Sandalford Wines, Swan Valley, WA
Sunday, November 15th – Glenelg Beach, Glenelg, SA
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
