Chocolate Starfish

Chocolate Starfish were founded in Melbourne in early 1992 with Norman Falvo on keyboards and vocals; Craig Harnath on bass guitar (ex-Kids in the Kitchen, Gravity); Bruce Pawsey (Battle Happy, Kate Ceberano and the Ministry of Fun) on drums; Zoran Romic on guitar and vocals (Gravity); and Adam Thompson on lead vocals (Show of Hands, Gravity). Chocolate Starfish was a great collaboration in music writing by Romic/Thompson with input from other band members towards all songs from the Albums and EP. The band also played a limited number of shows with a comical country based theme under the name of "The Hodads" at the Station Hotel. [2] Thompson had moved to Melbourne from Tallygaroopna, and remained the only original member until the band's demise. Australian rock music historian, Ian McFarlane, described him as an "entertaining frontman who lent the music an air of much-needed theatricality and melodrama".[2] Other early members were Brett Kingman (James Reyne) on guitar and John Justin.[3]

In January 1993 Chocolate Starfish issued an extended play, Seafood.[4] By that time ex-Roxus members John "Stone" Nixon and Darren Danielson replaced Harnath on bass guitar and Pawsey on drums, respectively.[2][3] In August they released their debut single – a cover version of Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" – which reached No. 11 on the ARIA Singles Chart.[1] Their second single, "All Over Me" (October), reached the Top 40; while their third single, "Mountain", peaked at No. 12 in March 1994.[1] A translated cover version of the song, "Brane srušit ću sve" by "Prljavo kazalište", reached top 10 in Croatia.

Their debut album, Chocolate Starfish, was released in April 1994, and reached No. 2 on the ARIA Albums Chart.[1] The album was certified platinum.[5] It was produced by Pseudo Echo front man, Brian Canham, for EMI Music Australia.[2][3] The album appeared in the top 40 on the ARIA End of Year Charts.[5] McFarlane felt the album "showcased the band's confident and punchy, if overwrought, delivery".[2] Falvo left the group at the end of 1994 and Tim Rosewarne replaced him on keyboards for the second album, Box (October 1995), which reached No. 6.[3][1] This was mixed by Thom Panunzio (U2, Soundgarden) and produced by Canham for Virgin Records.[2][3] McFarlane felt it was similar to their debut album and "mixed strong vocals with grungy riffs, anthemic choruses with moody ballads, and accessible 1970s-influenced rock with tight 1990s production values".[2] In 1997 Danielson left and the group relocated to Paris for six months;[6] they disbanded by 1998. In 1997 Danielson and Canham formed a band, Brill, which released one self-titled album independently.[2][7] In 1998 Romic joined Brill.[7] When Canham re-formed Pseudo Echo in 1999, he recruited Danielson to play drums. In the following years, Romic and Danielson formed The Fur Group and Fur Records in Melbourne with successful bands such as Skybombers.

In 2010 Chocolate Starfish reformed with a line-up of Danielson, Falvo, Nixon, Romic and Thompson.[8][9] They started work on new studio material, however a planned concert tour was cancelled when Romic was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in March 2011.[8] A benefit concert was held for Romic in October 2011 – at which he performed with Chocolate Starfish – and on 31 March 2012 he died of the cancer.[8][10] The band continued after Romic's death and from January to March 2013 they played on the Red Hot Summer Tour alongside Jimmy Barnes, Ian Moss and Dragon.[11][12] For the tour they used Tim Henwood (The Androids, The Superjesus) on guitar.[12]

In October 2014, the group released a self-produced rock EP titled Primitive. Drummer Daniel Danielson said "It's a little from where we left off in the 90s. I'd like to think that we still have that energy that we had back in the day." [13] On 31 October 2014, the group performed a one-off performance of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell album from start to finish.[14] In March 2015, the band released their first new single in almost 20 years, titled "Cinderella". All proceeds from the sale of the song were donated to the Jaime Wild Foundation in support for Jamie, who is a young woman challenged by motor neurone disease. [15]

In July 2019 Chocolate Starfish performed at the Big Red Bash at Birdsville in far western Queensland. Many considered their performance, especially that of Adam Thompson, to be one of the highlights of the three day concert. Songs played included Bat Out of Hell, You're So Vain and INXS's Devil Inside.

Works cited

• McFarlane, Ian (1999). Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop. Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86448-768-2.

• Official website
• Zoran Romic - Tribute website