Return To Australia
In 1996 Thorpe formed the Billy Thorpe Band with: Andy Cichon (bass, guitar, keyboards, vocals), Steve Edmonds (guitar, vocals), Paul DeMarco (drums) and Randall Waller (guitar, vocals, keyboards), and toured Australia in July. He had returned to live in Sydney and authored his first autobiography, Sex and Thugs and Rock 'n' Roll, on his early experiences in King's Cross and the formation of the Aztecs, which was released in November. He followed with an Australian TV appearance on This Is Your Life. In October 1998, he released his second autobiography, Most People I Know (Think That I'm Crazy). On 14 November 1998, with the Aztecs, Thorpe appeared at the Mushroom 25 Concert singing, "Most People I Know" and "Ooh Poo Pah Doo", ex-Aztec Lobby Loyde joined them on-stage on guitar.
Long Way to the Top was a 2001 Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) six-part documentary on the history of Australian rock and roll from 1956 to the modern era. Episode 3: Billy Killed the Fish, broadcast on 29 August, featured interviews with Loyde, Michael Chugg (Thorpe's manager / promoter) and Thorpe. They described their Sunbury festival experiences and the development of pub rock in Australia. According to Chugg, an Aztec performance at Sydney's Bondi Lifesaver club in 1974 was so loud as to kill a tankful of tropical fish in an upstairs area–hence the episode title. During August 2002, promoters Chugg and Kevin Jacobsen with Thorpe as co-producer, organised a related concert tour, Long Way to the Top. Concerts included Thorpe performing with the 'original' Aztecs line-up in one set and the 'Sunbury' Aztecs in a second. Performances at two Sydney concerts in September were recorded, broadcast on ABC-TV and subsequently released on DVD in December.
Thorpe recorded material for a new album, Tangier, with the Symphonique Orchestra du Maroc in Casablanca, Morocco during September to November 2006 and was working on the album when he died in Sydney in February 2007. Tangier was produced by Daniel Denholm. In December 2006, Thorpe had recorded an acoustic live performance which was released posthumously in April 2007 on Liberation Records as Solo: The Last Recordings, which peaked at #19 on the ARIA albums chart. On 27 October 2010, Sony Entertainment announced the release of Tangier at the ARIA Hall of Fame in Sydney.
He was a republican.
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