Hunters & Collectors

Hunters & Collectors

Hunters & Collectors were an Australian rock music band formed in Melbourne in 1981. Fronted by singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Seymour, they developed a blend of pub rock and art-funk. Other mainstays were John Archer on electric bass, Doug Falconer on drums and percussion, Jack Howard on trumpet and keyboards, Jeremy Smith on French horn, guitars and keyboards, and Michael Waters on trombone and keyboards. Also acknowledged as a mainstay member was engineer and art designer Robert Miles. Joining in 1988, Barry Palmer, on lead guitar, remained until they disbanded in 1998. Their hit singles were "Throw Your Arms Around Me", "Talking to a Stranger", "Imaginary Girl", "Holy Grail", "True Tears of Joy" and "Say Goodbye", and they became one of the best live acts in Australia.

Originally Hunters and Collectors were influenced by the Krautrock genre and the productions of Conny Plank, featuring strong percussive influences, noisy guitar, and driving bass lines. The sound was in the vein of Remain in Light, the Talking Heads album of 1980. The band's name is from "Hunters and Collectors", a track by German group Can, on the 1975 album Landed. Hunters & Collectors utilised Plank to produce two of their early albums, The Fireman's Curse and The Jaws of Life, but neither charted into the Top 50 of the Australian albums chart on the Kent Music Report. Their Top 10 albums started with Human Frailty in 1986, which first featured their distinctive logo, a H & C symbol, where the "&" was twin snakes entwined around a hunting knife, a variation of the Caduceus. Other Top 10 studio albums were Ghost Nation in 1989, Cut in 1992 and Demon Flower in 1994.