Fleetwood MacOverseas acts keen on enlisting local players into their ranks started back in the ‘70s. In 2026 there’s already been two hires.
As announced last week, Rai Thistlethwayte of Thirsty Merc and The Fabulous Caprettos joined Toto as keyboard player and backup singer on their US dates.
It follows the former Sydney Conservatorium student of jazz piano going on the road Stateside with Sammy Hagar.
“Can’t wait to get into these tunes on stage with these absolute legends,” Thistlethwayte enthused before Toto began their tour in Milwaukee.
In the meantime Sydney-born Lachy Doley has joined US blues guitar hero Joe Bonamassa’s band as keyboard player.
He replaces Reese Wynan, whose Hammond organ played a significant part of the band’s sound over ten years. He left in late 2025.
Doley teamed with Bonamassa last year in Ireland doing tribute shows for the late Irish guitar hero Rory Gallagher.
“Joe is such a masterful musician and I’m just so honoured to have this opportunity,” the Australian posted online. “This has come at a good time for me as I’ve been getting somewhat burned out from the grind of touring my thing around guerrilla style for so long.
“Therefore I will be taking a pretty massive break from my shows for the time being. Maybe some in Australia around September and a handful overseas later in the year.
“But for now I want to focus on Joe’s gig and being with my family in-between time. Thank you so much everyone. All your support has led me to these very exciting times.”
Here are ten more Aussie musicians (and a Kiwi) who found a home in overseas bands – or turned down offers from them.
Jimmy Barnes
Cold Chisel didn’t crack the United States but they got noticed by its musicians. Jimmy Barnes in particular stood out for his real-life wild guy antics and gargle-with-razorblades voice.
When Cold Chisel broke up in 1983, Barnes spent time in the US launching his solo career.
Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter
“I was asked to join Deep Purple, Van Halen, and Little Feat, all within a few months; I was the flavour of the month,” he wrote in his 2017 book Working Class Man.
In late 1984, on the final day of recording the A Week Away From Paradise album in Los Angeles (later changed to Working Class Man) Barnes returned to the family’s rented pad.
It was their last day before flying back to Australia, and wife Jane had gone shopping. As she left she said, “Oh, Eddie Van Halen rang.”
Van Halen wanted him to come to his house as he wanted to ask him something. Jimmy said he couldn’t leave the house as he was babysitting his children Mahalia and EJ.
“Half an hour later, there’s a knock at the door and these two guys come in very worried-looking and Eddie says they’re looking for a singer, David Lee Roth had left the band,” Barnes wrote.
“I told him I didn’t really want to join another band, I was just starting my solo career and I’d like to see that through. But I was really flattered, I really like Van Halen.”
Van Halen also sounded out Patty Smyth of Scandal and Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates but both declined. So they went with Sammy Hagar.
In 1996 when Hagar left, Barnes heard that Eddie was trying to contact him again.
Jon English
Three acts wanted Jon English but it meant leaving Australia. US funk band Tower Of Power One made their bid after he opened for them in Los Angeles.
After English and Thin Lizzy toured Australia together, Phil Lynott was struck with his stage presence, raspy voice, and song writing knacks.
Another failed suitor US-based Night, formed by Chris Thompson of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. Their 1979 world hit Hot Summer Nights reached #3 in Australia.
The offers were impressive, English said. “But I just kept coming back to Australia!”
Nic Dalton
In the early ‘90s, multi-instrumentalist Nic Dalton was juggling playing in Plunderers, thinking about forming Godstar so he could play guitar, co-running a book store Half A Cow (later a record label), mixing sound for bands around Sydney and stage managing at The Lansdowne.
In 1991 when The Lemonheads toured Australia, Dalton was in the openers The Hummingbirds on bass while Robyn St. Clair had a baby.
The Lemonheads had turbulent line-ups: by 2022, they had gone through 40 members. But founder Evan Dando fired up with Dalton, who introduced him to Tom Morgan of Smudge.
“That made me really excited about music,” Dando told Uncut, adding his new-found love affair with Australia included “You could get clean needles – you’d just call up and they’d throw ’em over your fence. I was impressed with the way they dealt with that, although it probably had the wrong effect on me.”
When The Lemonheads lost yet another bass player, Dalton joined on July 1st, 1992, initially for six months. But it dragged on for two years (playing on 1993’s Come On Feel The Lemonheads and co-writing Dawn Can't Decide), and touring was not his bag.
Dalton returned to Australia and plugged in with Ratcat, Sneeze, Love Positions, and The Sticker Club. In January 2000, he left Sydney and moved to a farm on the NSW Central Coast, raised a family and continued to make records.
Colin Hay
Having had a run of perennial radio-friendly hits in the ‘80s with Men At Work, Colin Hay is in an ideal position where he generates a steady revenue to pick and choose solo acoustic shows, acting and the occasional Men At Work reunion with different lineups.
Last week it was announced MAW are playing Mexico and Brazil in April and May, and an extensive northern summer tour US with Shonen Knife and Toad The Wet Sprocket.
Hay said, "What has clearly stood the test of time, are the songs. 45 years on, I still hear them in the street, on the radio, in supermarkets, they are still going strong. I would never have predicted back in 1985, that 40 years on, I would still be fronting Men at Work, this version featuring Cubans, a Peruvian, an American and me."
A constant haven for Hay’s songs (“including my favourite, Overkill”) is Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, formed in 2018 with a changing array of big names singing their hits. The semi-regular Starr gig was put together through Hay’s manager. He last toured with Starr in late 2025.
Growing up in Scotland with parents who ran a music store, Hay was bombarded with Beatles music from a young age. To this day he gets a thrill from looking around from front of stage and seeing The Beatles drummer behind the kit.
“There are very few people in the world where the whole world knows who you are,” Hay noted. “They are on a first-name basis with the whole world. There is only one Ringo.”
Neil Finn
The paths of Neil Finn and Mick Fleetwood had crossed often over the decades and in different parts of the globe. The two always found time for a nice chat.
At another catch-up, at the New Zealand Music Awards in Finn’s home town Auckland, Finn asked if he wouldn’t mind playing on the album Neil and Liam Finn were recording, Lightsleeper.
Fleetwood came and spent a week in the studio, impressing them with his playing prowess and charm. He ended up on three cuts.
Fast forward, and in 2018 the two Finns were about to go on tour together when Neil got a call during a soundcheck.
Fleetwood said, “We’ve got rid of Lindsey [Buckingham], would you play with us?”
He invited him to come to his home in Hawaii for a jam. Mike Campbell, longtime Tom Petty guitar collaborator, was also in the new line-up.
“I was gobsmacked. I was 60 and I’d had a wonderfully diverse musical life when Mick called,” Finn recalled to Mojo.
It meant rejigging plans with his son, but Liam encouraged him to give Mac a shot.
Two days later, Finn remembers “I was standing in a room playing music with Fleetwood Mac. It felt fresh and exciting, so many great songs, a spectacular rhythm section and two of the greatest voices ever.
“Best of all, we sounded good together. It was a natural fit.”
For Steve Nicks it was the chance to sing Finn’s gorgeous Don’t Dream It’s Over. The two new additions were told to play Buckingham’s licks the way he had done it.
Finn revealed to Mojo: “It was more difficult for Mike Campbell: she was really happy with the way it sounded between me and her, but she put a lot of pressure on Mike to be more like Lindsey.
“Sometimes Mike’s solos would go on and Stevie would get exhausted playing tambourine. She’d be, ‘Fucking hell, Lindsey only did 12 bars!’”
Cris Bonacci
At age 13, Cris Bonacci from Melbourne taught herself guitar listening to Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Black Sabbath. “I practised until my fingers bled.” An awesome player, in the ‘70s she emerged in Australia’s first all-female metal band Vixen, and then Sweet Jayne.
Sweet Jayne, which incorporated flute, broke the metal mould with ambitious singles as Icarus. The band was playing five nights a week. In 1983, Mike Oldfield (Tubular Bells) played a Sydney show at the Capitol Theatre, and then headed to late nightspot The Manzil Room.
Sweet Jayne were playing there that night. Oldfield immediately invited Bonacci and singer Chris Scheri to London to do sessions. There she became in big demand in studios.
One night at the Marquee club, she overheard two patrons talking about their new all-girl metal band She, and told them, “If you’re looking for a guitarist let me know, I’m interested.”
She got the gig, but her focus was on Girlschool, who were then starting to make global noise as a leading all-female metal outfit. She confessed, “I had a dream about me being in Girlschool, but how can I when (lead axe shredder) Kelly [Johnson] is already there.”
But during a US tour, Johnson quit, and Bonacci took over, admired for storming riffs on the albums Running Wild, Nightmare At Maple Cross, Take A Bite, and Girlschool. She was an inspiration to young girls picking up guitars and forming their own bands.
After Girlschool split, Bonacci wrote and produced for All Saints and Samantha Fox, and worked with Toyah Willcox and Marc Almond, and more recently focussed on software training.
Mark Stoermer
Mark Stoermer was actually born in Houston, Texas. But his physician father was Australian-German, giving the boy dual Australian and American citizenship, which he still holds.
Stoermer studied philosophy and music at the University of Las Vegas. While in the band Negative Ponies, Stoermer hung out with and met Brandon Flowers and Dave Keuning who were in an early version of The Killers.
Initially they saw his role differently. "I was first asked to be a second guitar player and I casually mentioned I also play bass,” he recalled. Then one day I got the call from Dave.” He joined in September 2002. They went on to sell 28 million records.
Joe Matera
Based in Victoria, Joe Matera juggled his roles as musician, music journalist and author (Backstage Pass: The Grit And The Glamour, Louder Than Words: Beyond The Backstage Pass) for greater international exposure.
With half a dozen European tours and a series of solo records under his belt, he’s collaborated with UK pop band The Korgis since 2022, co-writing, playing lead guitar and sharing vocals.
Three singles and the album Coffee In New York were credited to The Korgis + Joe Matera. They played live together in London in 2024.
Aside from working with everyone from Steve Harley to ABBA guitarist Janne Schaffer, he was offered the role of a guitarist with Sweden-based Rough Rockers in 2018 and released an EP Smoke And Mirrors a year after.
“I got the gig after I performed with them on my 2017 solo Swedish tour,” Matera relates. “Sadly the group broke up later in 2019 after the band's lead vocalist/bassist passed away.”
His latest book The Making Of ABBA: The Story Of The Band’s 1975 Breakthrough Album topped lists in Sweden and the UK last year, and in Australia this year went to #2 on the Amazon Music Book chart its first week and ran out of stock.
Orianthi
Born in Adelaide, Orianthi Penny Panagaris picked up the guitar at 11, started playing in bands at 14, and went on stage with Steve Vai a year later.
At 18 she jammed with Carlos Santana at soundcheck in the afternoon on March 30th, 2003 at Memorial Drive. He invited her to come back that night and join him for the show.
Santana later helped her get an endorsement from US-based Paul Reed Smith (PRS Guitars).
She relocated to Los Angeles, joined the management roster of Simon Fuller’s 19 Entertainment and signed with Geffen Records.
While Orianthi has carved out a global solo career as a guitarist, songwriter and producer, she continues to supa-gang major names as an axe-for-hire.
After playing guitar for Carrie Underwood at the 2009 Grammys, the singer immediately asked her to join her band full time.
Michael Jackson’s management approached her to join his band on the This Is It world tour, which of course was cancelled due to his death.
She recounted to the Boston Herald, “I don't know exactly why he picked me, but he watched my YouTube videos and loved them. He had his choice of guitar players, but I came in and played the Beat It solo for him.
“Afterward he was so happy he got up and grabbed my arm and started walking up and down the stage area with me. He said, 'Can you play once for me?' and hired me that night.”
Playing in the Alice Cooper Band is a recurring gig, and she toured and recorded with Richie Sambora during their four-year relationship.
After meeting Taylor Swift at an awards show, she’d put her on her list of dream collaborators, along with Teddy Swims and Post Malone.
Brian Cadd
After his early days in Australia in the 1960s with The Groop and Axiom, Brian Cadd’s love for all things Americana saw him relocate to Los Angeles.
There he played piano on sessions and had his songs recorded by The Pointer Sisters, The Charlie Daniels Band, Johnny Hallyday, Gene Pitney, Glen Campbell, Dobie Gray, Cilla Black, Wayne Newton, Bonnie Tyler, Joe Cocker, and Ringo Starr.
By 1990, Los Angeles had become too hip hop and gang violent. Cadd moved to Nashville and set up a studio.
He struck up a working relationship with John Beland, another newly arrived exile from LA.
Beland was a member of The Flying Burrito Brothers, a seminal country rock band set up in 1968 in California by Gran Parsons and Chris Hillman, and featured future Eagles member Bernie Leadon.
Their 1969 debut album The Gilded Palace Of Sin globally changed the face of country-rock, including in Australia.
While Beland and Cadd worked on projects in Nashville, the members of The Burritos were sending Beland song ideas from California. The two would finish off and make demos for.
Three quarters of the album was created like that. Pedal steel guitarist Sneaky Pete sent a message: “Let’s cut out the middle man, and why don't you just join the band.”
It was an incredible honour for Cadd, whose ‘70s band Axiom (Arkansas Grass) with Glenn Shorrock was heavily inspired by the US band.
Cadd’s first tour of Europe with The Burritos was an eye opener. “I had no idea how huge they were there. The shows were like The Beatles, total pandemonium.
“At our first show, in Munich, I could hear bang! bang! bang! through the set. I was terrified. John saw the expression on my face and said, Look out into the audience.’ 80% of the audience was male and dressed up in cowboy gear, and they’d be firing off these cap guns!”
Cadd stayed with the band for five years, leaving because he was relocating back to Australia.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
