Part 1 - Perth
Part 2 - Sydney
Part 3 - Melbourne 1992-1995
Part 4 - Melbourne 1995-2002
Part 5 - Melbourne 2002-2010
After releasing two solo singles and playing a handful of shows in London with his band The Red Ponies, McComb had decided to return to Australia and settle in Melbourne. Graham Lee had been a resident of Melbourne for the past three years, playing in The Paradise Vendors , The Pub Dogs and Crown of Thorns, and Kakulas and Snarski had recently moved there - "going where the weather suits my clothes", as the song says. Locals Jim White (Venom P Stinger, The Dirty Three - drums) and Warren Lee Ellis (The Dirty Three - violin, organ, piano accordion) completed the lineup.
A compilation CD entitled Welcome Stranger was released in 1992. It incorporated material from the three previous EPs plus two extra tracks from The London Sessions and a live version of The Triffids' song In The Pines . Months of touring followed to promote the release Welcome Stranger before the band returned to the studio to record their debut full length album All Souls Alive, released in December 1993 and produced by Phil Kakulas. It featured ten tracks, eight penned by Kakulas/McComb, as well as the Leonard Cohen/ Phil Spector classic Memories and an inspired version of the Johnny Paycheck song Apartment No 9.
Regarded as something of a classic now, the album features nine of Snarski's finest vocal performances to date, one over-the-top vocal by now David McComb, the inspired chaos of Warren Lee Ellis and the majesty of Jim White, pedal steel by Graham Lee and mandolin and harmony vocals by former Paradise Vendor and current Disappointment.
All Souls Alive was released in America on Frontier Records in April 1994 receiving great reviews and sales. The album was also released in the UK, Greece, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Sweden in July 1994. The album got great reviews in the UK press and airplay on Radio One.
Two singles lifted off the album were released in Australia in July 1994, being Dirty Water and This One Eats Souls. Each came with three bonus tracks, lifted from the now legendary cassette-only release Hard Liquor, Soft Music. Though technically by The Blackeyed Susans Trio, this was an album's worth of late night melancholy that has since become the most sought after of Susans rarities.
The Blackeyed Susans commenced working on their third album Mouth to Mouth in August 1994, completing it in May 1995. The band signed a new record deal with HI-GLOSS/Mds in March 1995.
Mouth to Mouth introduced current Blackeyed Susans members Kiernan Box (piano, organ and harmonica) and Dan Luscombe (guitar). It also featured the musical talents of Graham Lee (lap and pedal steel), Ashley Davies (drums) and Jen Anderson with Helen Mountfort on strings. Kath Wemyss (The Jackson Code) wrote wonderful string arrangements for the album and also played trumpet as part of a Salvation Army style brass ensemble on the track Hey Buddy. Recorded at Fortissimo Sound Studios , Melbourne, by Victor Van Vugt and Andy Parsons, it was produced by Phil Kakulas and mixed by the near-legendary Tony Cohen. Mouth to Mouth was released mid-July 1995.
Let's Live was the first single to be lifted off Mouth to Mouth and was released in Australia in June 1995. It contained several bonus tracks not available on the album, the most notable of which was a Suicide -styled reworking of the Springsteen track State Trooper. Mary Mac was the album's second single, once again containing bonus tracks not available on other releases, including a version of The Go-Betweens song Dive For Your Memory. The single proved to be the band's most successful thus far and the song an essential part of the Susans' canon.