Hoodoo Gurus Turn 40 at Shank Hall

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The mighty Hoodoo Gurus are loose in America for the first time in decades and eager to make you “Turn On.”

The legendary Australian garage rock band, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2021, hits Milwaukee on Saturday night, May 13, at Shank Hall for a sold-out show. 

While the band has done a few dates on the coasts in the U.S. this century, it was the 1990s when the Hoodoo Gurus last ventured on such a far-flung tour across America that will take them to nearly 20 states in less than a month, says front man Dave Faulkner. 

The band made its U.S. return directly from a series of large venue shows in Brazil. The American shows have been decidedly cozier—largely in clubs—but no less rocking, according to social media reports. 

“We’re playing as strong as we ever did,” Faulkner says. “I think that’s what most people who come to the show wonder: What are they going to be hearing and seeing? And we think this group is as good as you’ve ever heard us, with more insight into what we try to do as well.”

Pandemic Postponements 

Hoodoo Gurus and their management had the displeasure of rebooking this American tour several times after being stopped repeatedly since 2020 by COVID-19 as flare-ups and related restrictions occurred in Australia and elsewhere. 

“We postponed it once, then, of course, we postponed it again, and then we had to postpone a third time,” Faulkner says. “And I think it was the third time, I said, ‘We can’t do this to people. It’s been three years.’”

The fourth time was the charm apparently. The Tour That Seemed It Would Never Happen finally commenced in New Orleans on April 25, where Faulkner chatted by phone.

“I’m living and breathing in the United States,” he says. “And I’m getting ready to play, so it’s all happening, baby.”

Chariot of the Gods

Chariot of the Gods, Hoodoo’s Gurus first album since 2010’s Purity of Essence and only their third this century, came out last year to largely positive reviews. 

Faulkner says the band had wanted to take off 2020 from playing shows and record and release the album in time for the Hoodoo Gurus’ 40th anniversary, but COVID again played a part in delaying the band’s plans. 

Even before the pandemic, however, Faulkner says they decided to make the album a little different from past recordings and not just head to a studio for a set time and knock it out. 

“We decided to do a few boutique-style singles,” Faulkner says. “We’d go in and record a couple of tracks for a single, and then pull everything down and go away for a month or so and then come back and start again. 

“It was kind of like how we did our first album, Stoneage Romeos, because at that time we didn’t have enough profile in the marketplace. Nobody knew who we were, so we had to make a few singles.”

Most of the recent singles, “Answered Prayers,” “Carry On,” “World of Pain” and “Get Out of Dodge,” ended up on Chariot of the Gods. Another single, the angry, yet decidedly catchy, anti-Trump anthem, "Hung Out To Dry," is only available on the double vinyl release of the album.

“We would just make the songs right there, and not think about the overall approach of the record, just make them as they come,” Faulkner says. “It made the songs have their own unique character because the drums never sound the same, and we were given space, so it didn’t sound like it was coming off a production line, Henry Ford-like, where everything sounds like everything else and everything’s black like the Model T.”

 This approach was slowed down more by COVID protocols in Australia that prevented band members from being in the same rooms for three months. While many musicians are successful completing their parts of songs on their own and sharing recorded files with other band members who might be far away, that approach doesn’t work for Hoodoo Gurus, Faulkner says.

“We have to be a room together communicating, working with our parts and feeling it,” he says. “It’s an experience rather than you do your beat and I’ll do my beats. The beats always have to be connected rather than done separately.”

The album’s name comes from the 1968 novel Chariots of the Gods: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past by Erich von Däniken, which explored the idea of “ancient astronauts.” Faulkner says the book made a big impact in pop culture when he was a teenager despite its ridiculous claims.

“It’s a fictional novel, but it’s supposed to be a science fact that the aliens made the Pyramids and other large structures around the world,” he says. “It’s pretty silly, the whole thing, and I kind of like that.”

Faulkner compares it to modern reports of people using horse medicine and other bizarre “remedies” for COVID. “There are many people who will take advantage of the vulnerable and impressionable, making them think they know more than they do,” he says.

There seems to be a pretty good chance this is not the last time you will hear from the Hoodoo Gurus. Maybe soon, maybe not, Faulkner says. “Every record we’ve made has been ‘we’ve thought would be the only record we made and the end of our story,’” he says. “It captures everything we want to say. Then a few years go by, and you think I’ve got a few more ideas, and you make another one.”

To conclude, here’s a still essential question from the previously referenced “(Let’s All) Turn On” as Hoodoo Gurus returns to Milwaukee: “Waiting for my man, baby, can the can/I wanna hold your hand, remember Sam the Sham?”

Hoodoo Gurus performs at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 13, Shank Hall. The show is sold out.