Innocent Bystanders

About

Before Mark Lizotte became Johnny Diesel, he was a teenage guitarist in Innocent Bystanders, a Perth band that stood out in a city ruled by cover acts. Formed in 1983 around singer and songwriter Brett Keyser, they played their own songs and still pulled crowds, with Monday night residencies at the Herdsman Hotel drawing over 250 people, plenty of them music industry types. The sound leaned heavily on Cold Chisel and Bruce Springsteen, and the lyrics were full of local colour: beaches, hot summers, weekends down south, even the demolition of the Scarborough Beach Hotel. They cut a live cassette at the Subiaco Hotel in 1983, then flew to Sydney to record the single "Lebanon" with Peter Walker, known for his work with Midnight Oil and Cold Chisel. It reached number 98 on the Australian chart, and "Dangerous" followed in 1986 at number 97. Lizotte left that June, taking several bandmates with him to form Johnny Diesel & the Injectors. Keyser rebuilt the lineup and released the album Don't Go Looking Back, which hit number 59.