Stone Cold Super Friends are a band of brothers and sisters (other mothers) that play psychedelic percussive roots music.
Their music has been described (by themselves) as “a monkey locked in a South American studio with nothing but wine and ashtanga juice in the fridge , cheese in the cupboard, and a radio tuned to calypso fm”. Pretty bewildering, but then again, a review on Triple J Unearthed likened their sound to a “duck staring at bread” so maybe it is not far off the mark.
Stone Cold Super Friends have received the kind of praise from critics that is usually reserved for bands with the means to offer cash and cocaine or to threaten physical violence. Street Press Australia once stated their album contains “some of the best tracks we’ve heard from any Aussie artist this year”. Granted, this was a few years ago, back when street press still existed in Western Australia. Xpress Magazine stated they were “unlike any artist Australia (at least) has seen” and Global Thunda Network claimed they were “Australia’s best kept secret in music”.
Pretty impressive reviews for a band that only began it’s life in 2017.
They have been playing and recording music together for over 5 years however and were previously known as Simon Kelly & The Big Bamboo. The band started over 10 years ago as a solo project of Simon Kelly but has evolved into a much more collaborative collective and Simon wanted a new name to reflect this. For a couple of precarious weeks it looked like The Kokomo Liberation Army was the best they could come up with. Spice Thyme Continuum was considered, Uncle Billy’s Milking Table was ignored but in the end Stone Cold Super Friends got the nod.
If you are a promoter reading this you can be assured that if you book them on your next gig they will turn up on time, do the thing, do it well and leave with a minimum of fuss. They have over 70 years of gigging experience between them. That is a lot of experience. Most bands with this many miles on the clock would be grizzled old cynics but Stone Cold Super Friends are just as stoked to be playing music today as they were in the 90’s.
Stone Cold Super Friends are…
Gavin Arnold – bass, vocals, keys
Ben Gray – keys, guitar, vocals, bass
Simon Kelly – guitar, vocals
Shannon Puig – trumpet, vocals
Michael Boase – drums
