Bernard Fanning

Bernard Fanning was born 15 August, 1969. He was heavily influenced by musicians such as David Bowie and The Beatles. During his college years at the University of Queensland he met Ian Haug and joined the band Powderfinger, named after a Neil Young song. At the time, Haug was the singer and he soon gave up duties because Bernard showed much more promise with his vocal abilities. Soon the final Powderfinger five were in place, with Fanning on vocals, Haug and Darren Middleton on guitar, Jon Coghill on the drums, and John Collins on the bass guitar. The band began by playing pubs and biker bars around their home city of Brisbane, Queensland, mainly doing covers of influences The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Steppenwolf, and Neil Young; while also implementing their own originals. Since those days in the early 1990s the band has released three EPs (the "Blue EP, Tranfusion," and "Mr. Kneebone"), all at the front end of their catalogue. They released their debut album "Parables for Wooden Ears" in 1994 to Australia on Polydor Records. The album is now considered a rush move. 1996's "Double Allergic" was where the band gained a big following around their homeland. The album was much more original than Parables' material and the band had potential singles on the disc, something their first album lacked. The vocals on the album had improved to a point where lead singer Fanning could show off his unique talent as a vocalist. He was able to get political messages across through the lyrics and was actually being heard by Australian press who were listening to the band now more than ever before. With 1998's "Internationalist," Powderfinger took another turn. Evolving from their hard rock roots of Parables to Double Allergic's simple and direct groove, this time it became a sound possibly as close to The Beatles' Abbey Road as you may find today. The songs could simply be described as "pop rock", but the album was put together so well and crafted with such flawlessness that it is truly a classic, some arguing it is the best album in Australian history. "The Day You Come", the album's first single, a political tune, won Song of the Year at Australia's annual music awards, the ARIAs.. In 2000, Powderfinger released their fourth disc, "Odyssey Number Five", an album that went absolutely huge in Australia. Odyssey was helped by the incredibly catchy first single "My Happiness" and songs such as "These Days" (Two Hands soundtrack) and "My Kind of Scene" (MI:2 soundtrack). The album won many awards and the band finally got its chance overseas, releasing the disc all over the globe and later touring with Coldplay through the US in early February 2001, selling out shows due to Coldplay's rise to fame. Since Odyssey Number Five's success, Fanning and Powderfinger have settled down a bit from touring and promotion. They took some much needed time off in the second half of 2002 and tied up some ends with solo and side projects, guitarist Middleton singing with the band Drag on the "Gas, Food, Lodging EP", released in June of 2002 and Fanning recording songs for two Australian movie soundtracks, Dirty Deeds (2002) and Ned Kelly (2003) (even making a cameo appearance singing one of the songs in the Heath Ledger vehicle). Powderfinger recently finished recording their fifth album in Sydney, Australia with American producer Nick DiDia (Internationalist and Odyssey). The untitled new disc is due in Australia 7 July, 2003 and will be released sometime in the US and UK after that date, but no official word yet.