Interview with Dom Turner from the Backsliders

Bluesfest regulars, the legendary Australian blues band, Backsliders return in a reinvented format – celebrating and paying tribute to long-time drummer and key songwriter, Rob Hirst, who passed away last month after a tremendous struggle with pancreatic cancer.

Guitarist, lead vocalist, founding member of the Backsliders, and good buddy to Hirst, Dom Turner says it was Rob’s deep wish that the band continue to make great music, and Turner says that’s the plan.

Seven spoke to Dom in an emotional interview last week from his home in Sydney.

Dom I’m, very, very sad for your loss – how are you travelling?

Yeah, it’s a big loss. I’ve had a lot of people pass over the years, over many years, but this is a really hard one…

I think part of it is, we knew it was inevitable – because it’s incurable – pancreatic cancer was this kind of an endpoint coming, but it was a little quicker than we’d all expected, to be honest.

It was Bluesfest 2023. He was not good that weekend. He was not complaining about feeling unwell. He was unusually worn out.

You did do a show together not all that long ago, didn’t you?

Yeah, we did. We did a number of shows last year, because this was what Rob wanted to do. He wanted to do shows. Wanted to do gigs. I think personally, that the shows were like a goal for him, you know, that he would work towards. And in terms of, we don’t normally rehearse at all, okay, but occasionally we do. But we were doing the odd rehearsal because we changed the format slightly.

He wasn’t playing a full kit. It was like a reduced kit, but in saying that, he did more on one snare drum and a few rattly things than anybody else can do on ten drum kits. So we did shows and he really looked forward to them. And in-between we did a lot of songwriting over the last year too.

The last show we were able to do together was at the Wingham Music Festival in November. Yeah, we had one scheduled in January and it was only a couple of days before that he very, very reluctantly pulled out. In fact, he said to me, you know, just go ahead without me, but we didn’t.

You mentioned a lot of songwriting – do you feel he had some things that he wanted to get out before he left?

Yeah, a particular one is called ‘Raging Mother Nature’ – he’s always been an environmentalist, absolutely, and probably more so as time went on, I think the people probably don’t know that he was, kind of, a really good gardener. Really! On tour we would you get up in the morning after a gig and we all had our jobs – I’d organise where the cool cafe was to have breakfast, but Robert is always the first one up, and normally he’d come walking back in after walking around the streets or whatever town we’re staying in, and he would have spoken to half a dozen people about their gardens, and the fantastic hydrangeas and that sort of thing. So he really knew plants anyway. One of the songs I didn’t write with him, but what he was working on was about the powerful owls that are very prominent in the area where Rob lives in Sydney. He was very concerned about poisoning of them through rat poisons and that sort of thing. So, yeah, those sorts of themes were emerging more and more, environmental themes, I think, yes.

What’s going to happen to the drum kit?

I don’t, actually, I don’t know, but the Backslider drum kit, the special one, I don’t know yet. It’s just, it’s yeah, well…

This must be very hard for you doing interviews in a lead up to a show under the current circumstances?

It is pretty hard. But it’s a little bit cathartic, in a way.

Tell me about the lineup for the bluesfest show.

It’s very exciting. My idea was to have two drummers, because you can’t have one drummer – in this case, you need two and probably three!

We have Rosscoe Clark from the Foreday Riders who I’ve worked with for many years, and I have a great musical rapport with, which is critical for me in the band, and Hamish Stuart, another Sydney drummer who goes back as far as Ayers Rock, from the ’70s.

Hamish was very, very close to Rob, and in fact, recorded on the last EP that Rob did, which was with Jim Moginie, Hamish and Rob, and they did a few songs and recorded an EP and when Rob couldn’t make the gig that I mentioned that we had to cancel, he said, ‘Go ahead, get Hamish’, and I said, ‘No, we’re not going ahead with this one. It’s too soon.’

But Bluesfest will be Hamish and Rosscoe, also because of Rob’s wonderful harmonies, Joe Glover, who played harmonica for the Backsliders for many years, has stepped up and is doing quite a lot of harmony stuff. But still, it’s early days. So we’ve enlisted Gyan – lovely Gyan has a history with the band – in the ’90s, she recorded on a number of the albums. So she’s the first person that came to mind.

The rest of them are all fairly secret, although I can say that another close friend of Rob and mine is Rick Rossman, bass player from Hoodoo Gurus.

Bass player? A bass player in Backsliders?

I know, I know, I know. I keep saying that to Rick. We have a connection there, aside from being friends – Rob and Rick go way, way back. So Rick’s put his hand up, so it’s a strong chance he will be there. But there will be lots of special guests, because they’re all friends.

Will you be playing a cross section of the Backsliders catalog?

Well, what I’m aiming to do is to feature songs that both Rob and I wrote together. There are 50 to 60 of those over the last 25 years. We’ve got a lot that we wrote together, most of the stuff, actually. So it’s going to be all of that stuff.

I have to ask – are you going to be able to hold it together

Yes. Well, it’s not something we normally do, but we’ve already had quite a number of rehearsals. And the very first rehearsal that we did with the two drummers, which in many respects, was not only a rehearsal, but it was an audition (haha).

The concept – is this going to work? Yes. It worked fabulously.

I began that session by saying to everybody in the room, ‘This is a really momentous occasion, you realise, because this is the first time … we haven’t done a lot of these songs without Rob.’ So people were very aware of that, and the drummers were both listening to this stuff and saying, ‘I don’t know how he’s doing this’, or, ‘How did he do that?’ But between the two of them, it’s great because one will work out half of what Rob’s done, and the other the rest.

Did the drummers know each other beforehand?

Of course, yeah. They’re actually mutual admirers. They both really respect each other’s drumming. And when I suggested the idea, both of them were beside themselves. Really lovely. That’s lovely, probably for two reasons, probably because, I can’t do this by myself, and I’ve got somebody that I feel really comfortable with.

Do you have you thoughts about carrying a similar lineup into the future?

I have. I mean, it certainly won’t be all the special guests, kind of thing. But yes, the lineup, I think, at this stage, would be the two drummers, definitely, without a doubt.

What is it that you love about Bluesfest?

Well, there’s so many things to love about Bluesfest. On a personal level, it’s the fact that it’s just such a fantastic opportunity for Australian musicians – one, to get together with other musicians. We don’t get to see each other normally, you know, in terms of musical circumstances. So it’s the festival concept that the musicians get to get together, yes, before and after. That’s fantastic. Bluesfest is, I would say, probably number one at ‘backstage’. The environment backstage is spectacular in terms of the dressing rooms; the hospitality is really second to none. It’s fantastic. And that is very conducive to musicians just getting together and being really relaxed. So you feel fantastic. You get to meet others.

The other thing is, (this is going to be very long answer, by the way), international acts – with the international acts, it’s the same thing, it’s an opportunity for Australian acts and international acts, to get together backstage, and chat. You know, I’ve met so many artists back there that you end up having, you know, friendships with or connections with, you know. ‘Let’s go and have dinner.’ It’s really, it’s great for collaboration – just sharing of ideas. So there’s sort of that aspect.

Another fantastic thing I think about Bluesfest, is that you may hear people say, ‘Well, is there that much blues on there?’ There is! Look through the program, and you’re going to find people every year. You’ve got Robert Randolph this year. One of the shining lights in the Sacred Steel gospel blues tradition. I think he was the first to come to Australia. Look through the program. You’re going to find great people.

You were saying there are some songs that you haven’t played for a while. Are you finding, as you’re revisiting them, that you’re getting a lovely surprise?

Yeah, absolutely. It’s been fabulous. Because you tend to fall into, you know, over the last few years, because when Rob fell ill we went through a period where we didn’t play. And then we started to feel a bit better, and we got talking, and he said, ‘Yeah, I would like to do some playing.’ So we revisited the whole thing, and because we couldn’t do the hugely bombastic numbers, we did, like a stripped-down version. So I went through that process, to be honest, Rob mainly went through that, and he made it a project for himself. He said, ‘I’ll go through all the songs and work it out’. It was a project. It was just something to work on. So we did that then, but now we’re doing it again.

It sounds like the show will go on?

I can’t explain what a massive loss it is, it is – but, it’s really, it’s kind of weirdly exciting. I can almost feel Rob standing over us – you know, because he loves both Hamish and Rosscoe.

The band has reinvented itself a number of times over the years. So we will go on, but it was just like we need a bit of time. And yes, Bluesfest was far enough out for us – it’ll be the first gig back.

I spoke to Rob the morning that he died, and it was, you know, basically, aside from saying goodbyes, it was, ‘Keep doing it, keep doing it,’  yeah, that sort of thing.

We didn’t talk about the two drum thing, but there’s no other way to do it. No, you know, like – Keith Moon’s dead.

You can see this great show at Bluesfest on Saturday, April 4. For more info, visit: bluesfest.com.au.