BIOGRAPHY
Australia’s Hamish Anderson has an old soul and a young heart full of love for the blues.
Dubbed by BILLBOARD MAGAZINE as a “singer/songwriter and guitar hero,” heralded in Total Guitar's: Top 10 Best New Guitarists (2018) and featured in the August 2020 issue of Guitar Player magazine, Anderson commanded the attention of the blues and rock world with his 2016 debut Trouble and built upon that with his 2019 follow-up album Out of My Head (which scored an Independent Music Award for “Best Blues Album”). Both releases saw Anderson team up with Grammy winning producer Jim Scott (Tom Petty, Tedeschi Trucks Band) and blended the traditional language of the blues with his own heartfelt compositions and classic rock stylings.
Drawing equally from blues, rock & roll and soul, Anderson solidified a worldwide presence touring and performing opening sets with artists such as Gary Clark Jr, George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Stephen Stills, Doyle Bramhall II, Los Lobos and a coveted slot as the opener on B. B. King’s final tour. His relentless gigging schedule also saw him performing at festivals including BottleRock, Mountain Jam, Summerfest, Telluride Blues & Brews Festival and more.
When COVID curtailed worldwide touring, Anderson rode out the lockdown performing live stream concerts and video sessions with brands like Guitar World and Martin Guitars. He spent the time honing his recording and production skills and rekindling his love of the electric guitar. Then, throughout 2023 he toured the US as support for both Gary Clark Jr and George Thorogood & The Destroyers not only as an opening act but joining both artists as a special guest night on their encores. He also completed recording on his third album. The result is Electric, his first new album in five years. Aptly named, Anderson describes his latest release as a “Love Letter to the Electric Guitar.”
Electric is Anderson’s most complete and mature artistic statement to date. He says that the time spent in pre-production allowed him to distill his sound to what he feels are his best elements and not shy away from giving the electric guitar a prominent voice. And while previous efforts often found him working with session musicians and entrusting the production to someone else, Electric was cut mostly live as a trio with his touring band (bassist Lauren Stockner and drummer Pete Marin) with appearances by Jessy Green on strings (Foo Fighters) and Jerry Borge on keys (Jonathan Wilson, Ziggy Marley) and finds him sharing production duties with David Davis (The War On Drugs Lauren Ruth Ward, Miguel). The result is a stellar high-energy album with a clear and unified vision that catches the energetic raw band vibe of ’70s blues rock but updates it with modernized sounds and forward-thinking arrangements across eleven original songs and one cover song.
Sonic gems like “You’re Mine” and “Late in the Evening” show Anderson expressing his unique voice as a writer while also paying fuzzed-out homage to the understated blues rock licks of The Faces, T-Rex, and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac. The buoyant and catchy “Stir Crazy” finds him grooving in the vein of early ’80s ZZ Top, while the slow smoldering “Brighter Days” suggests a hip remodeling of a classic Curtis Mayfield- or Al Green-styled ballad. On “Pale Moonlight Interlude/Steal Away” Anderson showcases his lyrical and sublime Clapton-esque lead guitar chops, while the raw and driving swamp rock cover of “It Ain’t Easy” sounds like it could easily be a lost track from Exile on Main Street. The cathartic “Strangers” takes a swaying Dylan-inspired break-up lament and kicks it into high gear with an extended instrumental ride-out that captures the band firing on all cylinders; Electric’s penultimate moment, it gives way to the hauntingly beautiful album closer “Sweet Dreams.”
Stay tuned with Hamish Anderson as he gears up to release singles from Electric starting in April 2024 on your preferred social platform.
- Bio written by Vinnie DeMasi & Kristin Juel