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Musical Career: Early Work

1. Darren Middleton was inspired to learn guitar by bands like Twisted Sister and AC/DC. He formed several bands in Brisbane before joining Powderfinger in 1989. 2. With Powderfinger, Middleton achieved mainstream success and toured internationally. He also formed the band Drag in 2000, releasing two albums. 3. After Powderfinger disbanded in 2010, Middleton pursued a solo career, releasing two albums between 2013-2016 and touring in Australia.

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25 views

Musical Career: Early Work

1. Darren Middleton was inspired to learn guitar by bands like Twisted Sister and AC/DC. He formed several bands in Brisbane before joining Powderfinger in 1989. 2. With Powderfinger, Middleton achieved mainstream success and toured internationally. He also formed the band Drag in 2000, releasing two albums. 3. After Powderfinger disbanded in 2010, Middleton pursued a solo career, releasing two albums between 2013-2016 and touring in Australia.

Uploaded by

Satheesh Kumar
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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o

4.1With Powderfinger

o 4.2With Drag

o 4.3Solo

5References

Musical career[edit]
Early work[edit]
Middleton was inspired to learn guitar by Twisted Sister and AC/DC, noting the first songs he wanted
to learn could have been "I Wanna Rock" and "We're Not Gonna Take It", or any song by AC/DC.
[3]
He did not take guitar lessons, and instead taught himself the instrument. [4] Middleton formed a
band named Sonic Tapestry with high school friends, and played around Brisbane's "biker-fest
circuit".[5] The band's first show was at the Atcherley Hotel, on Wednesday's "Heavy Metal Night",
however the band, unaware of the genre, played "80s glam metal stuff". [6]

Powderfinger (19892010)[edit]
See also: Powderfinger history
Middleton first encountered Powderfinger when it consisted of Bernard Fanning, Ian Haug, John
Collins, and Jon Coghill.[7] At the time, Middleton had been playing with Sonic Tapestry, and another
band named Pirate. After seeing his band perform, Powderfinger invited Middleton to join them, and
he accepted.[3][4] Middleton described Powderfinger's early days as highly influenced by other
popular heavy metal bands at the time, especially Pantera.[8] Despite the band's members all having
come from casual projects, the band's meetings were highly serious, according to Middleton,
although he admitted they were "confused" in exactly what they wanted to do. [6][9] Powderfinger
generally performed covers of The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and Steppenwolf, as
well as Neil Young in their early days, in similar clubs to those in which Middleton had first played. [5]
Powderfinger released two early EPs and a debut album, without success, and considered
separating, with Middleton contemplating a return to University. However, after Fanning wrote "Pick
You Up", the band's mainstream breakthrough, they decided to stick together.[6] From this point on,
the band considered themselves to be making "real money". [9]
In 2001, on a tour in the United States, Powderfinger played with Coldplay, in what Middleton
described as a highlight. The band also played on the Late Show with David Letterman to
promote Odyssey Number Five.[10] After Coldplay cut short the tour, Powderfinger ended up playing
numerous US shows themselves, before returning to Australia to play Splendour in the Grass.
[11]
Middleton's partner gave birth to the couple's first daughter in September 2001. [8] Middleton
summarised the year with the comment "This year has been a bit of a blur". [12]

Drag (20002006)[edit]
See also: Drag history
While touring with Powderfinger, Middleton also wrote his own works, occasionally fine tuning them
in hotels where the band was staying. These would go on to be the songs he sang for Drag.
Middleton formed Drag with drummer and Powderfinger engineer Mark McElligott, Brisbane bass
guitarist Sean Hartman, and long-time friend Matt Murphy.[13] Drag released an EP, Gas Food
Lodging, on 26 October 2003 through Dew Process.[14] The band followed this up with several gigs in
Brisbane; a tour down the East Coast of Australia was canceled when Middleton caught the flu.
[15]
After completing work on Gas Food Lodging, Powderfinger reunited and went on to record Vulture
Street.
Drag reunited in 2005 to produce their debut studio album, The Way Out, which was released on 10
July 2005.[14] In recording the album, Drag spent three weeks at Byron Bay in March 2005,
collaborating with each other and producer David Nicholas.[13] The album earned Drag some positive
reception; Rave magazine wrote that "Darren Middleton's creative genius absolutely beguiled me
with some extremely mature compositions",[16] and David Nicholas won an ARIA Award for his role as
producer. The album was also nominated for "Engineer of the Year".[17] Following The Way Out, Drag
toured around Australia, playing with UK band Athlete.[18] This culminated with the bands playing
at Splendour in the Grass, where it was noted that Middleton needed "to work on his stage
presence".[19]Following the tour, Powderfinger reunited, and Dream Days at the Hotel Existence was
released in 2007.

Solo Work (2012-Current)[edit]


After Powderfinger called it quits in 2010, Middleton started working on his first solo LP,
Translations. The album was released in November 2013, featuring many guests such as Nic
Cester (Jet), Bernard Fanning (Powderfinger), Pete Murray, Paul Dempsey (Something for
Kate), Clare Bowditch and Amy Findlay (Stonefield). 2016 sees Darren Middleton return to touring,
as he embarks on a four show of Western Australia (three shows) and Victoria (one show) in August
and November. This tour is for the his newest solo project 'Splinters'.[2]

Musical style and influences[edit]


We really love what we're doing. We still love playing music together. I think there's a whole philosophy
with our band. When you know there are a couple thousand people who paid money and just want to
have a good night out, and if you think about that for a minute before the show, you get really fired up. It's
quite a nice job we have, and a great lifestyle.
Darren Middleton
When asked what inspires the band before live performances.[20]

Middleton rarely takes a singer or songwriter's role for Powderfinger, generally delegating those
tasks to Bernard Fanning. However, the song "Over My Head" from Internationalist had Middleton
performing vocals. This came about when Middleton did a recording of himself singing the song
before Fanning had the chance to do so.[21] Previously, Middleton had written the lyrics to "JC", which
was sung by Fanning.[22] However, Middleton sung JC several times throughout the 2007 Upstairs at
the Downstairs tour. Despite Middleton's minimal songwriting, he has been praised for it by his band
mates; Jon Coghill told a 1999 interview that "Darren (Middle

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