Hindley Street Country Club On Celebrating the Music of the 70s and 80s

What began as a weekly live recording project out of Adelaide has quietly become one of the most successful Australian music exports of the last decade. Now, Hindley Street Country Club are set to make 2026 their biggest year to date, with an extensive regional Australian run beginning in just days, followed by tours through the Netherlands and the UK, before returning home for a massive national run across Australia from October through December.

Founded in 2017 by arranger and producer Constantine Delo, HSCC first gained attention by reimagining classics from the 70’s and 80’s that were recorded live in a single take by a rotating cast of elite musicians and vocalists. Those performances struck a chord far beyond South Australia, quickly spreading across Facebook and YouTube and finding a global audience hungry for real musicianship with feel and authenticity. Fast forward to today and the numbers are difficult to ignore. With more than five billion views across social platforms, over one and a half million YouTube subscribers and sold-out shows across the United States, Asia, South America and Europe, Hindley Street Country Club has grown from a local idea into a genuinely international touring act while still managing to release new live performances every Friday morning like clockwork!

At the heart of the project is a simple idea: take some of the most enduring songs ever written and perform them with respect, precision and soul. Recorded live and together in the one room without studio trickery, HSCC’s performances place their incredible musicianship front and centre. Their flawless skills have resonated strongly with audiences who grew up with this music the first time around and are reconnecting with it in a very real way today. Constantine Delo talks to Rob Lyon about the tour.

Exciting times, one huge Australian tour booked. You’ve got to be blown away by how much this much‑loved band is continuing to take off?
Mate, I’ve done a bunch of interviews over the last week for the tour, and the same thing just keeps coming up. It’s surreal. Is what it is.

In your wildest dreams, did you ever think that something like this, coming from little ‘ole Adelaide would even be remotely possible?
Never, but here’s the funny thing, now that I’ve had time to digest and take stock of it all over the last however many years, as much as I never thought it would happen, it’s kind of an Adelaide thing to happen, if that makes sense. Do you know what I mean? Like, here we are, we fly under the radar everywhere as a city. We’re not really taken seriously globally, except for maybe a couple of inventions. Butin a weird way, I’m not surprised that it’s happened as well, because it’s so unusual bBecause Adelaide’s a bit of an anomaly in itself, you know?

For any Adelaide band, it’s always a tough place to make a name for yourself and try and forge a career. Do you ever spend much time thinking about what did we do, or how did this happen, or was it luck, right time, or decision?
I think all of those factors. I’m a man of faith, so I believe there’s a bit of divine intervention. It was the right music at the right time and the right time was an awful time, that whole COVID thing. I think a lot of it’s got to do with the song choices, and how those songs were interpreted. When I arranged and produced the songs, how they were received and proof of that is that we’re here… I mean, in November, it’s going to be nine years! So effectively ten years it’s taken us to be an overnight sensation.

I saw the Today Tonight feature story, I’m thinking, wow, you’ve made it when you’re on Today Tonight.
I’ve done that two or three times, which is great.

Talking about the song choices. Does it take a lot of careful consideration to think about what songs are likely to hit with fans because you’ve got elite gun musos in that band, it almost seems like they could turn their hand to any song you presented them. How much consideration goes into the songs you pick?
In terms of the actual song choices themselves, you’re exactly right, the guys can handle anything. So it’s never really a decision of can the guys do this or not. That’s a given, they can. But I try and stay in a sweet spot between 1977, 78, maybe 76, to about 85, 86, that decade, that period there. But more often than not these days, I’m putting in some more modern stuff, more just to see how it would go and sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. I’ve also got to remember that the crowd that jumped on board HSCC, from nine, ten years ago, whatever it is, they’re now nine, ten years older as well. So it’s a situation now where bringing in some of this new stuff is giving us a new audience as well.

Obviously a much younger audience as well, which is great, you’ve got a long‑life fan base.
Yeah. Well, the thing is, when we say a younger audience, we’re not talking in their twenties or thirties, we’re talking guys and girls in their forties and early fifties. They’re just growing with us. That’s the beauty of it and yet internationally, we’re seeing younger crowds coming to our show when we tour overseas.

Do you feel pressure to do your own stuff, or is it just don’t mess with the formula that’s working and keep doing what you’re doing?
Good question. I look at it like this. We do covers and we do rearranged covers, new renditions, reimagined, all of that kind. We put a fresh coat of paint on it, we’ll put some little subtle changes in those songs that generally only musicians will hear anyway. But for me, it’s like, I feel… when these bands start up doing covers, and online bands, they turn and say, yeah, we’re doing all of this because we want to give you our original music. Well, no. You’ve got your audiences paid to come and see you do well‑known, loved songs. I don’t then hoodwink them to try and bring them to do something else, do you know what I mean? McDonald’s doesn’t make pizzas. Burger places don’t make pizzas and Ford Motor Company don’t make airplanes. Ferrari doesn’t make motorbikes. That’s what you do and I’ve learned out of life, stick to what your lane is, and then there’s no accidents.

I guess the silver lining is that the playlist is endless in terms of options with what you could cover and give new life to, and obviously keeping it interesting for the band and for the fans as well.
Yes, the thing too, I’ve got a master list that I’ve had from when we first started in 2017. On that master list, I still obviously add tunes to it. I’m still going through the original two or three hundred songs, a lot of them we haven’t recorded yet, because I’ve adjusted song choices by what singer I want to sing them, or what players I want to play on them. So I’ve had to be mindful of that. But I’m sixty years old, my friend. I could still be doing this at seventy five and still have more songs than I need.

Is there much robust discussion about what songs the band could do, or are they already predetermined?
No. I pick every song, every single song, from the very beginning and a lot of times some of the guys will say, hey, what about… let’s try this song? That song’s on the master list anyway and you can’t have too many chiefs, you know what I mean? You can’t. I’ve got a vision of where I see this going and how it’s been created, and I don’t veer off that vision. It’s easy to go, oh well, I’ll try that, or I’ll do that. No, I don’t.

With the tour coming up, you could almost treat it like a choose‑your‑own‑adventure, each show could be quite unique with different songs pulled out at the drop of a hat. Is that how you go into it?
We change the set every tour that we do. But there’s always seven or eight songs that have to be there, because they’re the ones that we’re recognised and known for. You wouldn’t go and see Elvis, he doesn’t pull out See See Rider or Viva Las Vegas, do you know what I mean? There are certain songs that we have to do.

What is next for the band? Obviously you’ve got the tour, but are you planning to take this overseas again?
Yeah, we finish the Australian tour on Saturday December 5 and then from there we get back home on the Sunday night, I think, and then on Tuesday morning we’re all off to Vegas to do a show the following weekend. Then we’re in Reno, in Nevada as well, on the Sunday. I think there maybe another three or four dates in LA, Florida, or Mexico. Come home for Christmas and then we’ve got Australian dates for New Year’s Eve until probably end of February, early March. Then we’re off to South Africa in the middle of March for two weeks, then we go to the Netherlands for a week, and Belgium for ten days, then we do the UK for two weeks, then we do France and Spain and all over Europe, and then come back, I think mid‑September, because then we start the Australian tour, because we’ll do all America again, and South America, yeah, 27’s going to be radical.

How is it when you’re touring the States? Do the Americans go absolutely nuts for you guys over there as well?
The Americans love HSCC. They’re great, great people. The Brits are great, the Dutch are great. A lot of our shows were sold‑out shows, and we’re not a big original music touring act. We’re pulling a lot more heads than a lot of those bands are, because our show, it’s all killer and no filler. Everyone knows every song. Even if you may not like the song, or may not like the genre, people still sing along to it, because they know the song.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Hindley Street Country Club on the following dates, tickets here…