PETER BLACK, guitarist with long-serving Aussie punks HARD-ONS, releases not one but TWO new solo albums today.
The albums If This Is The Hand That I'm Dealt and I'm Gonna Cheat As Much As I Can - his sixth and seventh full-length solo releases - are a shift away from the buzzsaw punk of Hard-Ons, seeing Black explore his pure pop and powerpop influences on one acoustic and one electric album.
“My biggest hero is probably Paul McCartney,” he says. “That guy does it all and his sense of melody and experimentation in the form is wild. I love the 60s a lot. I love Michael Brown's writing in all his bands the Stories, Left Banke etc… And all the classic power pop – Raspberries, you name it… In many ways I don’t see what I do solo as that different as it's still POP but wanted to present it in a much more gentle fashion / format. I was given an acoustic at a party eons ago - 'You’re a guitarist, play something' - and 'cause I only knew power chords I thought 'Man I know so little of what this instrument can do, I can’t make this thing sound any good!'. That was a big thing that got me on the path... Also, seeing someone like Brian Wilson play 'Surfs Up' on the piano or Paul play 'Blackbird'; realising that just one voice and one instrument can be so powerful if the song is THAT good; that made me wanna try as well…”
Hard-Ons returned last year with their first new album in five years, So I Could Have Them Destroyed.
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Both albums are available now via Bandcamp.
Pic by Alec Smart