mmg.com.au

Former Hunters and Collectors frontman Mark Seymour and his new band will take the stage at this year's inaugural Riverboats Music Festival at Echuca.

Seymour, who was born in Benalla, said he got on board with the festival because he loved big gigs.

‘’It’s good for me, I really love big outdoor concerts,’’ he said. ‘’I get to play a lot of regional shows in Victoria, so yeah, I’m looking forward to it.’’

Seymour spoke to mmg.com.au while holed up at his brother’s ‘’bolthole’’ on Phillip Island working on some new prose – in between going for a surf.

Seymour has a finger in many artistic pies, including fiction, theatre and a biography of the Hunters and Collectors, but is excited about new band The Undertow.

‘’We put an album out in May of last year. It’s had a really good response, we’ve done a lot of shows all over Australia,’’ he said.

‘’I’m really happy with the band. It’s a four-piece rock band with strong country energy to it as well. It’s very rootsy, very simple music.

‘’I still really enjoy the gigs, I love singing.’’

The band will present a ‘’mixed bag’’ at Riverboats depending on how they’re feeling on the day.

‘’We do Hunters material but it’s heavily interpreted, people recognise the songs but we’ve reinvented them basically,’’ Seymour said.

‘’I’ll just play them when I feel like it – as long as I remember the words.’’

Seymour said he wanted to head in a more relaxed direction after the Hunters and Collectors finished.

‘’The Hunters sound was just so huge it just took a lot of power to get that sound on the road.

‘’I wanted something a lot simpler. (With The Undertow) musically there’s still big landscape songs, melancholy and story telling.

‘’The instrumentation is very, very simple. It’s four guys who really know how to play’’.

Hunters classics When the River Runs Dry could make an appearance in keeping with the river theme of the festival.

‘’We’ll probably do (Throw Your) Arms (Around Me), but everything else is kind of a moveable feast.’’

He said he wasn’t nervous about joining a fledgling festival and he was impressed with other acts on the bill.

‘’It’s a good line-up, I like the line-up, it’s an eclectic mix,’’ Seymour said.

‘’I know Tex (Perkins), we’ve done a few events together.

‘’I’m a big fan, I really enjoy his energy, he’s very relaxed. Singers can be really pretentious and he just isn’t.’’

Mark Seymour and The Undertow comprises Cameron McKenzie on electric guitar, John Favaro on bass, Peter Maslen on drums and Mark Seymour on acoustic guitar and vocals.

The band will perform on Saturday, February 18 at 9pm.

Riverboats Music Festival runs from 5.30pm on Friday, February 17 to 8pm on Sunday, February 19 at Aquatic Reserve, Heygarth St, Echuca.