Beasts of Bourbon

Beasts of Bourbon started as a stopgap: Tex Perkins needed a band to fill gigs already booked, and pulled in players from The Scientists, Hoodoo Gurus and The Johnnys. Their debut, The Axeman's Jazz, was cut in a single eight-hour session in 1983 for about $100, a raw slab of swamp rock and dark country led by a menacing take on Leon Payne's 'Psycho'.

Later records traded the swamp for gutbucket blues. Sour Mash leaned hard on slide guitar, Black Milk was deliberately eclectic, and The Low Road came out swinging with hard-nosed riffs, Perkins' growling baritone and the tangled guitars of Spencer P. Jones and Kim Salmon.

The line-up shifted through splits and returns over four decades. After Jones and Brian Hooper died in 2018, the survivors carried on as The Beasts, releasing Still Here and Ultimo.