In this episode of Vinyl Vibes, Jack is joined by John Bois, bass player of The Dingoes. John grew up in Melbourne amongst the music of the '60s and would join his first professional band The New Dream in 1970. On John's arrival in the band, New Dream's sound changed to bubblegum pop having top-40 hits such as Soft Delights and The Groupie. In 1972 John would leave the band to join Country Radio. It was here John played with future fellow Dingoe's member Kerryn Tolhurst. After having the hit "Gypsy Queen", Kerryn would leave Country Radio to form The Dingoes in 1973. John would soon follow, joining as the bass player for The Dingoes. The band's first single, "Way Out West", would become their signature song and today remains a classic amongst Oz rock. After performing at the 1975 Sunbury Pop Festival, the band received a phone call which would lead to them being managed by Rolling Stones' tour manager Peter Rudge. The band relocated to the United States in 1976. The band would record two albums in the United States, "Five Times The Sun" in 1977 and "Orphans of The Storm" in 1979. They did not manage to break into the US music market. The band would come to an end in 1979. 

After the Dingoes, John became a high school teacher. In 2012 he wrote a book about his time in The Dingoes called The Dingoes Lament. In 2016 he returned to music making his first solo album, Tassie Wolf. His most recent album came out in 2022 and is called Work of Art. 

Jack Zoomed John to talk about his early musical beginnings, the impact group's like The Easybeats had on him, his time in The New Dream, his work with Country Radio, the influence Country Radio had later on The Dingoes, the formation of The Dingoes, the recording of the band's first album, the writing of Way Out West, Playing at Sunbury '74 & '75, how the band came to relocate to the United States, the recording of albums Five Times The Sun and Orphans of The Storm, the disbandment of the Dingoes, and John's more recent music such as his 2022 album Work of Art. 

"Everything we listened to in the '50s and '60s pretty much was from England or America. It got so bad the only way you could get a record on radio was to cover an American song that had already been made. It was almost not believed that Australians could create their own stuff like with the Easys (Easybeats), we had something to do with it...it just stopped happening, people just said we are going to write our own stuff and we are going to talk about what we know." - John Bois on this episode of Vinyl Vibes talking about Australia finding its own sound

Episode Hosted and Produced by Jack Hodgins

To hear the full on-demand version of this program, go to https://www.2nurfm.com.au/shows/vinyl-vibes

The website for Vinyl Vibes. 

If you like this content, we'd love to hear from you.