Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of one of Melbourne's finest original rock’n’roll, blues and r&b band The Detonators! “We wouldn’t have thought after our first gig at The Swan Hotel in Richmond Vic on August 16th, 1997, that we’d still be firing some 25 years later. On that gig which went from 11pm to 2am we played 3 sets including some original songs which truly set the future ball rolling. We played The Swan for the next few Saturday nights until they decided to discount our already small pay, so we quit our first residency and went out looking for more work. After that incident we have never looked back. We estimate about 3000 gigs since we’ve been going, pubs, festivals, clubs, weddings, birthdays, a funeral, car shows, the lot.

We’ve toured Sydney more times than we can remember, same as Adelaide and Brisbane where we have established strong enduring friendships that remain until this day. We’ve played Canberra, Darwin, Hobart, Geelong, Perth, Geraldton as well umpteen times. If you name a town or city, we have probably done a gig there. We have also played all the major festivals in Australia once we even went to Europe.

We’ve been docked, drunk, starved, left without promised accommodation after a gig and played weddings where we received just one meal for all of us. Once we played a bar in Cowra where a massive fight started. We had to stop because the fighters were falling on our P.A. and gear. Later we were docked for finishing early. We’ve had stacks of good times which far outweigh the bad. Touring isn’t easy and not for everyone, but we do it so we must love it.

Drummers, we’ve had quite a few, most couldn’t hack the busy schedule, but Eddie Fury has hung around the longest by far, we guess 14 years off and on, he’s become one of us, we aren’t sure if that’s good or bad, neither does he!

We all know 25 years is a long time so come down to the gig and enjoy our stuff because we sure like making it and playing it”.

The ‘High Priests’ of rock’n’roll are on lead vocals the larger than life “Rockbottom” James Moloney, backed up by very familiar faces in Paulie “The Kid” Bignell on lead guitar and “Doghouse” Dave Philpots on bass, with Eddie Fury on drums. The Detonators are true to label rock’n’roll rhythym and blues.