Twenty years, six albums, two European tours and almost an entire Australian continent later, Sydney's The Dunhill Blues are still getting in the van.
In 2006, Dan Dunhill was 29-years-old, writing songs on guitar while bouncing his baby boy to sleep in a little chair with his foot. He’d written 10 of them. He’d never played guitar in a band before. He’d never been the singer in a band before, either. But he reckoned he could probably handle it.
The ambitions were fairly modest: make a proper album, rather than another shitty four-song demo, and get out of Sydney to play somewhere else. Dan hadn’t even been to Melbourne at that point.
There was never a grand plan to get famous. There wasn’t much expectation of being popular, either. And perhaps that’s part of the reason The Dunhill Blues are still here.
The Dunnies have released music through Off The Hip, Outtaspace Presents and Evil Tone Records, and are now working on their seventh album. Beat Magazine once described them as “the ultimate bourbon-drenched, B-movie party band” — a fair summation of the Dunnies’ unruly mix of soulful garage rock, snotty punk, scuzz-bucket country, twisted surf and fried-brain psych.
Along the way they’ve shared stages with a formidable roll call of Australian and international rock’n’roll maniacs, including Cosmic Psychos, Hard-Ons, The Monkeywrench, SixftHick, Psychotic Turnbuckles, HITS, Los Chicos, Schizophonics, Jenny Don’t and The Spurs, Thee Cha Cha Chas and Sore Points.
And they’ve done it in the sorts of rooms that become part of a band’s history: the Hopetoun, the Lansdowne, the Sandringham, the Annandale, Factory Floor, the Tote, Last Chance Rock’n’Roll Bar and Link & Pin in Woy Woy, among plenty of others.
Band members have come and gone over those two decades, all on good terms, leaving behind the kind of friendships you only really get from being crammed into a van together with a shared mission: get there, plug in and play.
Now it’s 2026. Dan is 49 and the Dunnies are still making the same glorious racket, with founding member Adam — aka Spewy — still holding down the growling bass and vocals, Mick bringing the mad melodic keyboard action, and new drummer Chris Roberts behind the kit. There’s a bunch of new songs, a seventh album in the works and, naturally, they’re getting back in the van.
The 20th anniversary run continues at the Royal Oak, Tighes Hill on Saturday 29 August with East Coast Low, followed by Link & Pin’s Outtaspace Weekender in Woy Woy on Saturday 5 September.
Then the Dunnies head south for Trash Cult in Bendigo on Friday 18 September, before an afternoon show with Plastic Section at Last Chance Rock’n’Roll Bar, Melbourne on Saturday 19 September. That evening they pile back into the van for Eastern Station Hotel in Ballarat, then return to Melbourne for a Sunday afternoon show with The Kreep 500 at the Retreat Hotel, Brunswick on 20 September.
The celebrations roll on in October with an afternoon show at Bootleggers at Kelly’s, Newtown on Saturday 17 October with The Coolz, followed by a return to Link & Pin, Woy Woy on Friday 23 October with Chris Masuak’s Dog Soldier.
Then comes the closing show for MoshPit, Erskineville on Saturday 28 November, before the 20th anniversary run rounds out at The Stag & Hunter, Mayfield on Saturday 12 December with The Australian Beefweek Show.
Twenty years, six albums, countless shows, thousands of kilometres, two European tours and a seventh album on the way. Plus: one million beers.
And remarkably, the original idea hasn’t changed much at all.
