The release of Backsliders new album - the band's 14th in their 30-year playing, recording and touring career - has seen the iconic blues/rock group crisscrossing Australia for launches before their bevy of followers.
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The legendary Backsliders are set to appear at the Narooma Golf Club this Sunday as part of the “Slightly Twisted Long Weekend” of music and culture. Click here for more
Backsliders' 'Heathen Songbook' tour kicked off on August 5 in Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, ahead of their Sydney launch at the legendary music venue, The Basement.
Next stop was hot and humid Darwin, then chilly Melbourne; the reception, however, was the same.
"The Basement was a sell-out, there was another huge crowd in Melbourne," slide guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Dom Turner said from his Sydney home.
"The new songs from 'Heathen Songbook' has been really well received by audiences, they're really getting into it which is good because there's quite a lot to digest," Turner told the Narooma News last week.
On Sunday, Backsliders will appear at the Narooma Golf Club, a town with which they are familiar, having played here many times from the start of their career, including at the now-defunct Great Southern Blues Festival.
Music critics have described 'Heathen Songbook' as a varied and eclectic mix of 21st century original blues, as well as a number of versions of songs by artists as diverse as blues legend Robert Johnson, hillbilly banjoist Dock Boggs and swamp-rock icon John Fogerty.
'Heathen Songbook' has been hailed as a "tough and rowdy record for the most part, ragged around the edges with more brawn under its bonnet than six HK Monaros".
Without question, Backsliders are quintessentially Australian; where else could a song about the short-sightedness of the over-development of Sydney be simply titled 'Dickhead'?
Uniquely Australian they may be, but they have their eyes squarely focussed on the bigger picture. One of their new tracks 'First World Eyes', for example, steps into the arena of social injustice, 'Gonna get Hurt' tackles the perils of fast-food outlets in the developing world.
Other tracks venture painfully close to home.
Turner wrote the slower-paced, more melodic 'You Are Not Alone' after the death by suicide of a friend a year ago.
"It's a comment on that, that even at your lowest moment you are not alone," he said.
Turner said he did not deliberately set out to send a message about suicide, and in fact listeners may pick up an entirely different meaning from the song.
"That's OK too," he said.
"(But) I'm very aware of it (the epidemic that is suicide) ... especially in men of a certain age, and the tragedy is that as I get older it seems to be becoming more and more common.
"The message is in the title 'You're Not Alone' and if that helps just one person who may be experiencing suicidal thoughts then that's the most I could hope for," he said.
So what's in store for the Narooma audience this Sunday?
"A large dose of new music," Turner said, adding that four of the seven original tracks on 'Heathen Songbook' were co-written with Rob Hirst of Midnight Oil fame.
"We're really looking forward to coming to the South Coast," he said.
Backsliders will be back at Wollongong Town hall on Saturday, December 3, and at Milton Theatre on Saturday, January 14.