Hoodoo Gurus will journey to the farthest reaches of their back catalogue at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on 29 January, in partnership with Alex Turley and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Hoodoo Gurus are, by their own admission, not the most erudite musicians. The band has its roots in Perth’s late 1970s punk scene. Co-founders Dave Faulkner and the late James Baker were members of Perth punk band The Victims, while founding Gurus guitarist Roddy Radalj was an early member of The Scientists.
“I taught myself guitar to play punk rock,” says Faulkner, who’s speaking to Beat over Zoom from his Bondi home. “I taught myself how to play guitar completely, which led me to having quite a poor technique, technically speaking. So, I’ll never get to a point of being a very fluid guitarist.”
Symphonic Gurus
- 29 January, 2026
- Sidney Myer Music Bowl
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Guitarist Brad Shepherd – Faulkner’s co-pilot on all ten Hoodoo Gurus studio albums – is a relatively savvier player. “Brad is someone who can play everything, but again, he plays by ear,” says Faulkner. “He did get lessons, but it wasn’t through books and reading dots on paper.”
But the band members’ general obliviousness to music theory has never been much of a hindrance. “I don’t question it,” Faulkner says. “I just do what I do. And for me, [playing guitar is] just literally a means to an end, which is to write a song.”
Faulkner has written hundreds of songs over the last five decades, many of which – including What’s My Scene and 1000 Miles Away – are regarded as canonical Australian rock songs.
Hoodoo Gurus were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2007. They’ve released several ARIA platinum records, and during the second half of the 1980s, they enjoyed a run of commercial success in the USA.
But if you needed any more proof of the band’s iconic status, this month they’ll team up with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for a concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. Faulkner, Shepherd, bass player Richard Grossman and drummer Nik Rieth will be performing reimagined selections from their back catalogue, with orchestral arrangements by composer Alex Turley.
“It was something I’d always fantasised about,” Faulkner says, “but you don’t actually think you’ll get the opportunity, because these orchestras are complex beasts.”
The setlist will include many of Hoodoo Gurus’ biggest hits, including My Girl from their 1984 debut Stoneage Romeos, and Like Wow – Wipeout! from 1985’s Mars Needs Guitars!
“We wanted to give a broad overview, really,” says Faulkner. “So there’s a few of the obvious ones, but mostly it was just down to what songs I thought would be the most interesting or would have something new to be added by putting an orchestra with them. We wanted it to be more of a conversation, is the term I use, between the two of us.”
Faulkner’s desire for the concert to feel like a conversation between the band and the MSO means there are some fairly obscure Hoodoo Gurus songs in the setlist, some of which have never been performed live.
“A very obvious one for me straight away was a B-side we had from the era of our fourth album, Magnum Cum Louder, called Spaghetti Western – which is literally an instrumental done in the style of Ennio Morricone,” Faulkner says.
The band did fake orchestration on Spaghetti Western in the studio using synthesisers and samplers. Faulkner is thrilled to finally be performing the song with a real orchestra.
“That was, in a sense, completing a trajectory that was always inherent in the song,” he says.
Another obscurity in the setlist is The Wedding Song, which appeared on the 1992 B-sides and rarities compilation, Gorilla Biscuit. “It’s a song that I’ve always loved and it was only ever done as a demo,” says Faulkner. “I thought, well, it’d be nice to hear this song given a bit more serious treatment.”
The rest of the band will leave Faulkner alone onstage during I Was The One, a song from the band’s third album Blow Your Cool! “It’s a song that always felt like it could have been a single,” he says. “So I have my shot at being the lounge singer.”
Hoodoo Gurus’ collaboration with the MSO was preceded by a concert with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra in 2024. Faulkner and co. have played many hundreds of shows over the last four-and-a-half decades, in clubs, bars, theatres, arenas and sports stadiums. But they’ve never experienced anything quite like performing with a full symphony orchestra.
“It is just absolutely wonderful,” Faulkner says. “You don’t want it to end. You’re just in this really special place.”
Hoodoo Gurus team up with the MSO on Thursday 29 January. Get your tickets here.
This article was made in partnership with the MSO.
