Brian Henry Hooper (1962/1963 - 20 April 2018) was an Australian bass guitarist. In a career spanning three decades, Hooper toured extensively and worked with Kim Salmon and the Surrealists, Rowland S. Howard, Penny Ikinger, Spencer P. Jones, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and many more, as well as becoming vital to the Beasts of Bourbon's uniquely swampy, uncompromising sound. He released three solo albums, including The Thing About Women. Before Brian Hooper and His Band, Brian pursued his musical vision with The Voyeurs - a loose line up of interchangeable alternative rockers - whilst steadfastly searching for those musicians who might be capable of sharing his mind-set. After auditioning and playing with most of the people in the Melbourne music scene Brian decided to discard the idea of a ‘democratic band’. “The whole idea of a democratic band didn’t work. Everyone having input was utterly hopeless,” Brian recounts. Brian believed a new, despotic style of songwriting and leadership was called for. Taking up the lead guitar and the microphone, Brian set about finding the rest of his new band. Giving up on the cooler-than-thou musicians of Melbourne, Brian turned his attention to an abandoned whaling station on the windswept south coast of Western Australia, where ex Beast of Bourbon Tony Pola was residing. Torn away from his whaling station digs, Tony remembers what it was that brought him all the way across the country to play again with Brian. “The sheer honesty and power of Brian’s songwriting is what brought me out of retirement,” says Tony. “And I was also sick to fuck of the stench of rendered blubber.” With Tony in place on drums, Brian is now looking for further recruits for his coalition of the willing. Brian wants musicians who know what it’s like to pass through the digestive tract of the Australian music scene. “Everything we do is based upon revenge,” says Brian. “We want people that understand that. We’ve been put down by every muso around the world. Now we want a real, living part of the action, control of our own destiny, not some other cunt’s vision,” says Brian.