Darren Smallman

Back in 1989 at the age of 15, Darren Smallman put down his keyboard, tuba and skateboard to start legendary Australian rock band Warped. The next three years saw him perform around Melbourne and Geelong with the likes of Bored!, Fugazi, 5,6,7,8’s and The Meanies, gathering a reputation for putting on a flat out live show finishing in a 15 minute noise sludge track Snufelupikus. Throughout these years the band produced all their own merchandise, recorded multiple demos sold at shows and were included on 3 compilations that were distributed worldwide, one that featured Darren’s track Dog Killer that was a live favourite.

In 1992 Darren left school and started a band Toad alongside Warped that featured members of Bored!, Tumbleweed and Fridge. Throughout this 2 year period Darren and School mates Jeremy Geddes & Glen Pearce had multiple exhibition spaces in old warehouses where they exhibited their art and promoted music events to coincide with the exhibitions. Toad disintegrated in 6 months and was the catalyst of what was to come musically. Toad breaking up and separating from Warped, he found himself wondering where to go. At this point he decided to follow new ground along the lines of idols Redd Kross, Dinosaur Jr and Buffalo Tom creating Thee Vinyl Creatures.

The band played alongside artists such as Spiderbait, Magic Dirt, The Dirty Three and Tumbleweed as well as playing Meredith Music Festival to 2000+ people. Recording an album, 8 inch EP and multiple demos until 1996 when he moved to Europe to travel.

On returning in 1999 he moved to Melbourne and formed The Sound Platform with past band mates Karl Inderberg and Simon Baird. The band took a more experimental line at this point incorporating strings, brass, electronics and samples to their shows and recordings. Even though the band toured Australia quite heavily it was mainly a recording project producing a demo album, a 7 inch EP and two CD EP’s. In 1999 Darren, Simon and Karl started the record label Low Transit Industries as a vehicle for their own releases. In 2003 the record label had started releasing/touring other artists such as The Essex Green, Trans Am, Royal City, Kim Salmon & The Surrealists, Black Mountain, Okkervil River and Of Montreal.

Whilst in the middle of recording their first full length album in 2005 the band found time restraints too difficult between work and the burgeoning label so decided to finish up the band to focus on LTI. Between 2003 and 2010 the label released nearly 100 releases and toured multiple artists in the US, Australia and New Zealand.

The label closed its doors in 2010 so Simon and Darren could focus on other interests with Darren building the back catalogue of most of his bands over the years which will end with The Sun & The Silver Anthology. The anthology is a collection of 6 releases, spanning nearly 20 years worth of material and ending in the final record that was never finished, The Sun & The Silver.

Darren has started performing again with material from the Anthology series.