The Hired Guns’ genesis goes back to Adelaide in the early 1990s.
Adam Spellicy, guitarist and occasional vocalist in The Hired Guns, doesn’t want to spend too much time dwelling on the band’s history. “We’d prefer to talk about what we’re doing now,” Spellicy grins. Notwithstanding Spellicy’s comment, and as relevant as The Hired Guns’ contemporary activities – including the release of their new album, You Mean Something To Me – are, the band’s history is important. History is, in the words of former University of Adelaide history academic Hugh Stretton, the most noble of all the sciences. For The Hired Guns, the present is the latest juncture in a journey that began over a decade ago. And like The Band – a group to which The Hired Guns both defer and look to for inspiration – The Hired Guns are much more than the sum of their historical parts.
The Hired Guns’ genesis goes back to Adelaide in the early 1990s. Spellicy had directed a couple of film clips for the Lizard Train, the legendary Adelaide band in which Hired Guns guitarist Chris Willard and original drummer David Creese were playing at the time. Spellicy was eventually recruited (alongside Willard, who played bass) to play guitar in Creese’s angular jazz-noir outfit, The Dumb Earth. In the mid 1990s, Creese, Willard and Spellicy moved across to Melbourne. Spellicy and Willard (with Creese on drums and Anthony Paine from High Pass Filter on bass) decided to form a “country pastiche” band to compliment their activities in The Dumb Earth.
The release of the first Hired Guns record in 2002 saw The Hired Guns embark on a national tour before lapsing into an extended hiatus. “It wasn’t like we broke up,” Spellicy recalls. “It was just that we stopped playing.” In 2005 the members convened one afternoon to mull over the Guns’ future. “Everyone had to bring along new song,” Spellicy explains. With the exception of Creese, all members were keen to reinvigorate the band. Drummer Kjirsten Robb took his place, and The Hired Guns returned to the fold.
Which brings us to the present, and The Hired Guns’ new album, You Mean Something To Me. Having been on the cusp of success with The Dumb Earth, Spellicy admits to being very content with The Hired Guns’ pragmatic, but enthusiastic approach to their music. “We’re not some bunch of young hipster kids – there’s nothing hip about The Hired Guns; we’re not on the curve of a wave or whatever. We’re warhorses from the 1990s. It’s not that we’re old: we’re just mature – like fine wine,” he laughs.
The Hired Guns completed the recording of You Mean Something To Me in October last year, only to wait eleven months before the record was released. “Getting a record out isn’t an easy thing,” Spellicy says. “Our first record came out on Stuart Coupe’s Laughing Outlaw record label. This time around we sent him the new record, which he loved, but he’d had to scale the label right back. So we ended up putting the record out ourselves.”
Spellicy is a fan of the increasingly common vinyl-plus-download code release, and says the next production run of The Hired Guns record will be vinyl. “I just want to see it on vinyl – vinyl is definitely undergoing a resurgence,” he comments.
The new album includes a track, Light On The Hill, written by Chris Willard and dedicated to the late Grant Sullivan, a seminal player in the Adelaide independent music scene in the 1980s and 1990s. As producer, engineer venue owner, radio show host and punter Sullivan – replete with black spray on jeans, leopard skin top, rockabilly haircut and chain smoking behind the mixing desk – was a ubiquitous presence in the Adelaide music scene. “He was a really inspiring figure – he made things happen. He knew who to introduce who to who. He was the fulcrum around which a lot of people came together,” Spellicy remembers.
Spellicy compares the Hired Guns’ approach to their music to that of The Band: not just in terms of the bands’ respective country-influenced sound, but also the rotating vocal duties and the presence of multiple songwriters. Unlike The Band, whose artistic brilliance was matched only by the dysfunctional lifestyles of certain members (and Robbie Robertson’s oversized ego), The Hired Guns are devoid of chemical excess and fragile egos. “I love playing with these guys. It’s not an angst-filled band – it’s that most rare of things, a fully functioning, democratic band,” Spellicy says.
“It’s a democracy where everyone can contribute. The band’s sole ambition is to write good songs, and to play them really well.”
THE HIRED GUNS launch their fantastic new album You Mean Something To Me at The Grace Darling this Saturday October 9.
