Powderfinger trio set to release new music on Friday as The Predators

Three of Powderfinger’s founding members are making a long-awaited return to music with a whole new sound – but they insist it is not a reunion. Here’s everything you need to know.

Despite a one-off show last year and a substantial offer to play the AFL Grand Final in Brisbane, Powderfinger is not reuniting.

Instead, the founding trio of Brisbane’s celebrated band – high school friends John Collins, Ian Haug and Steve Bishop – came together during the pandemic to record new unbridled music as The Predators in a return to the passion project they formed 16 years ago. They will release their album Everybody Loves – Haug and Collins’ first music together since Powderfinger disbanded in 2010 – on Friday before playing a sold-out album launch at The Triffid.

Ex-Powderfinger bandmates John Collins, Ian Haug and Steven Bishop reunite for new album as The Predators. Picture: NIGEL HALLETT

“It doesn’t sound like our previous band, which is good. It never would. It’s got a different influence for me, it comes from a different place,” said Collins, the band’s bassist.

“We were playing the same things for so long, that’s why we stopped playing. We need to write some new material … that’s what a record gives you, the ability to go play something you want to play again.

“It was Covid, too. That was a big part … it was trying to do something positive.”

Since Powderfinger disbanded, singer Bernard Fanning and Darren Middleton have both released solo albums, Haug joined fellow Aussie legends The Church, Collins operates two Brisbane live music venues – The Triffid and Fortitude Music Hall – and drummer Jon Coghill was an ABC journalist until late 2019 before recently turning to screenwriting on the Sunshine Coast.

Speculation about a reunion has been insatiable, fuelled by the band’s live-streamed charity performance, One Night Lonely, in May 2020, followed by compilation album Unreleased in November.

Powderfinger.

Then there was the groundswell of support for the band to reform for the AFL Grand Final at The Gabba.

“It was a pretty decent approach and we have to ask the question, the band,” Collins said, adding, half-jokingly: “We’re just holding out for the Olympics.

“(But) we’re not a band. We haven’t been back together, that’s the main point, we haven’t stood back in the same room and played together since we walked off stage.”

Asked why that was, he replied simply: “We’re still not a band. There’s no rift. Bernard listened to the record, loves it. Darren turned 25 again the other day. We see Cogsy,” he said.

“I think One Night Lonely and the record we did, that sort of brought us together as better mates, because we were communicating weekly, but everyone’s moved on and everyone’s really happy where they are. This (new record) is really good for us.”

Everybody Loves was perhaps the music that never was for Powderfinger. While the band reached commercial success in the late 1990s, it began with Haug, Collins and original drummer Bishop at Brisbane Grammar School a decade prior.

The trio say Covid influenced their new album as it pushed them to do something positive. Picture: Nigel Hallett

Bishop, the elite private school’s only drummer, was placed by chance in the same room as fellow boarder Collins, the only bassist. Haug, who was in a different band at the school, walked past Collins one day and, noticing his T-shirt, said “You like Sunnyboys, mate?” The trio bonded over a shared passion for jangle rock from Sunnyboys to The Cure and Joy Division.

“Some of those bands you couldn’t mention in our previous band. They wanted to listen to Kiss,” Collins said.

“So that’s probably the reason we became music friends at the start, because we all shared the love of the same music and we still do.”

After high school, Bishop quips that they “poached” Haug and formed a three-piece band, which was Powderfinger.

But as Haug and Collins linked up with Fanning at the University of Queensland, Bishop decided to travel and Coghill replaced him on drums.

The members of Powderfing haven’t all been in a room together since the group disbanded in 2010.

Middleton came on board in 1992 and the band later struck gold, recording five number-one studio albums and winning 18 ARIA awards.

During their brief hiatus in 2005, Haug and Collins reunited with Bishop and they released an EP as The Predators before returning to Powderfinger until 2010.

The trio had always talked about returning to music together and when the pandemic gave them an opening in their schedules last year, The Predators – Collins, the wolf, Haug, the shark, and Bishop, the condor – began recording their first album.

On whether he felt he’d missed out on his chance in Powderfinger, Bishop, who works full-time in IT, said ‘of course, a little bit’.

“It was a hard decision back when I was 20,” he said.

“It was good that they kept going, that’s the thing, and it was good seeing that explosion coming out of Brisbane – Regurgitator, Custard, Powderfinger, and all those bands.

“I’ve done travelling, played in other bands, film and TV, I work in IT, had a family … but it will be fun, especially when Covid opens up and we can tour again.

“I’m looking forward to playing with these guys, full tilt.”

Members of band Powderfinger after collecting award at Sydney Entertainment Centre during ARIA music awards ceremony in 1999. Pic Jim Trifyllis. Powderfinger/Band

Over eight months, Collins and Bishop finished their day jobs, stopped in at the bottle shop and headed to Haug’s Airlock Studios in Samford Valley, northwest of Brisbane, where they would write and record with the help of producer Steve Kempnick – the snake – before crashing overnight.

The title track Everybody Loves was among those written during one of their late-night jam sessions.

“It just feels good when we do it,” Haug said.

“I’ve played with lots of different people, as these guys have too, and it just doesn’t feel like that.

“We had no one saying, ‘Guys, we don’t hear a single’.”

Collins agreed that they had more creative freedom than they did at the height of Powderfinger’s success.

“We didn’t have producers sitting in the room saying ‘What are you guys doing?’ – It was our rehearsal room, our creative room and our recording room as well. All those things really helped,” he said.

The Predators will be playing in Brisbane in December. Picture: NIGEL HALLETT

“The motivation is creating music we want to create with no pressure of commercial success. If I were doing this as a full-time job then the other side probably would matter, but we’re not. It gives us the ability to be really free about it and not stress about that stuff.

“Haugy and I particularly, we spent 20 years worried about that stuff. No more. Just play it because we want to do it and for the right reasons.”

Except maybe, of course, for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.

“We’ll start rehearsing,” Collins laughs.

‘Everybody Loves’ comes out on Friday with a sold-out album launch show later this month. Tickets are still available for The Predators’ Christmas party gig at The Outpost in Fortitude Valley on December 15. Get tickets here.

Originally published as Powderfinger trio set to release new music on Friday as The Predators