A Little History
From their earliest days gigging along the East coast of Australia, and particularly since the release of their debut album Starlight's Journey Home, the Purple Avengers have warmed the aural cockles of many a psych groover with a potent blend of ripsnorting riffwork, trippy organ ambience and tight, hyperactive rhythms.
In the words of one music scribe the Avengers "bypassed popularity and went straight to cult status". The unique sound forged by the band nevertheless continues to have an impact on discerning listeners scattered around the planet.
This website is predicated on the basis that you don't have to have sold a zillion records to be worth listening to and here you'll find out pretty much all you'll ever need to know about the Purple Avengers.
The menu above will take you to a discography with individual links to each of the Avengers' four long player releases. There is also a page covering the two EPs released by the band, together with the rare and wondeful vinyl recording that began it all. Each record contains its own little story and links to the Avenger record and song lists for your listening and procuring pleasure.
Anyway enough purple small talk - just sit back......relax.........and enjoy.
Karl Nielsen
Purple songwriter-in-chief, Karl hails from Melbourne and moved to Brisbane in 1979, where he met his future bandmates. A virtuoso guitarist and distinctive vocalist, Karl remains a prolific crafter of tunes. When he's not avengerising, Karl can be found writing and recording solo projects, and in Brisbane supergruppen, the Delirium Seeds.
Richard Marshall
Organ grinder extraordinaire, and a cousin of Karl's, Richard was born in Brisbane where he first met Jack when they were only 5 years old. Undoubtedly responsible for so much of the quintessential Avenger sound, in addition to being an expert keyboarder, Richard has a degree in engineering, as well as an MBA from Oxford. He now lives with his wife Laura and their two children near Boston, Massachusetts.
Garth Cooke
The Avengers' stylistically stupendous skinsman, Garth was born on the Gold Coast and moved to Brisbane in the mid 70's, where he progressively met all of his future musical interlocutors under the harsh and penetrating glare of the local catholic high school. The last of the band to take up playing - going to buy his first drum kit with Richard exhorting ""If its got skins, we pay" - Garth developed a slithering and shimmering playing style which enmeshed itself as much in Karl's guitar and vocal melodies as it did with the bass and organ rhythms. Garth now lives in Melbourne with his wife Mieke where he works as a public sector lawyer.
Jack Mulroney
Brilliant bassist, and regarded - not least by his fellow bandmates - as the true purple soul, Jack was born in Brisbane and lived just up the road from Richard for many a long year. Known and celebrated for his rapid-fire note-perfect blurring of blues, jazz and rock rhythms, Jack also provides the take-off point for some of the most evocative and emotive Avenger instrumentation, most famously at the start of Starlight's Journey Home. Jack lives in Brisbane, where he has played in a mulitude of local acts in recent years, including the Busymen, the Racketeers and Screaming Stevie's Australia. Nowadays he can be found on stage with Karl in the Delirium Seeds.
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