CBD Live at Southport RSL is set to bring your favourite tunes to life in the best possible way when the infamous Hindley Street Country Club hit the stage in April.

Hindley Street Country Club is not your usual covers band. With half a million YouTube subscribers from around the world, and over 250 million plays, this talented South Australian collective have built quite a name for themselves through their exceptional musicality, ear-catching arrangements and regular Friday postings.

Now for the first time, they’re headed our way. Founder, arranger and bass player Con Delo gives us the lowdown on what it’s like to be the creator of arguably Australia’s most famous covers and tribute act.

Your band has developed quite the incredible reputation. Can you please tell me how you all found each other?

I co-founded it, and then picked the players and songs and arrangements. We’ve had about 100 people involved I’ve just picked the right guys from the Adelaide music community to come in and play. We’ve got around 140-150 songs going now. So it’s like a collective.

We’ve released a song on YouTube every Friday for three and half years, like clockwork, so that’s certainly helped with the reputation!

Tell me about the origin of the band’s name.

Hindley Street is the shittiest, grossest, nastiest street in Adelaide where you had bands playing back in the 70s and 80s doing seven nights a week. Gigs everywhere! But it was a shithole, lots of violence, drugs… the connotations are like party, nightlife strip, you’d never find something civilised.

How do you feel about heading up to the Gold Coast for the first time?

We can’t wait! Queensland was the first interstate place we were booked to play in, so Queensland fans gets to see us live first before anyone. It really is a beautiful part of the world and should be respected as such. We’d love to spend a lot more time there and we’re looking forward to playing to that vibe. I think Queensland is gonna be our biggest market because of the history of people going to see live music.

What have you found are the absolute audience faves in your set, and what are your personal faves to play?

It’s funny, some songs have got five or six million views online, but they don’t necessarily make the cut live even though they’re great song. Queensland is a lot more chilled than other places, so we’ll do lots of feelgood stuff. We’re doing our version of ‘Do You Think I’m Sexy’, as an example. Probably in terms of what makes the crowds happy, ‘You To Me Are Everything’ is a good one, everyone just loves it.

I focus on tunes that engineer a psychology in someone’s head. Our audiences are 42-63 years old, our age group, and they were the ones – especially in Queensland – that went and saw live bands all the time growing up. We’re not old people, ready to put a foot in the grave, haha! Most of us are still vibrant, and a lot of them are turning their kids onto us, because it’s just great music, and anyone can appreciate that.

Be sure to catch Hindley Street Country Club when they hit the stage at CBD Live on 8 April. Tickets here.