Australian hit machine ​Diesel ​has recently announced the ​Sunset Suburbia ​project: a trilogy of EPs leading into an album in 2020. And to coincide with the release of new music, Diesel will hit the road once again this October. With his powerhouse band, Diesel will showcase songs from all three ​Sunset Suburbia ​EPs, plus hits and fan favourites spanning 30 years of music making.

Diesel says, “Suburbia has always held a strange fascination for me. I remember designer cul-de-sacs strewn with shotgun shells in Chandler, Arizona; little vignettes of skateboarding around closed service stations on weekends in Perth; some guy in the hot tub in his backyard where I’m riding my bike over the rail overpass in Sydney. I love going into where people live — the sights, the smells, the little repetitive things that make their world. It’s kind of a bittersweet thing but it’s the stuff of life and it has a way of making songs.”

After more than 30 years of recording, Mark Lizotte (Diesel) has found a more direct route from inspiration to revelation.

“I’ve really enjoyed [recording the EPs] as it elongates the recording process, allowing for each EP to take on a uniqueness. I’ve always been a bit bummed when getting to the end of making a record, and this in a way delays gratification, making 3 ‘mini albums’ on the way to an LP. I’m also really excited at the prospect of releasing each one as limited edition signed and numbered 10” vinyl to compliment the tour.”

On ​Sunset Suburbia (Vol. I), this union of spontaneity and experience yields four of the most instantly arresting songs of Diesel’s multi-platinum career: the kind of exhilarating FM radio hits that sealed his reputation as a 1990s pop-rock auteur with Hepfidelity​, ​The Lobbyist​ and ​Solid State Rhyme​.

“There’s a lot of lost innocence in these songs. ‘By The Scars’ is pretty much about one or two years in my teens when a lot of things happened… I lost my virginity, I had two guys with balaclavas point a shotgun at me at a gas station… It’s about the time you basically realise the world isn’t as safe as you thought.”

Vol. I of ​Sunset Suburbia f​ollows last year’s top-20 retrospective, ​Diesel 30​: a double CD which was led by the FM radio embrace of ‘Give Me Saturday Night’.

The second ​Sunset Suburbia ​EP will drop later this year, ​Vol. III is currently under construction, and an album, featuring even more new songs, is due in 2020. Be sure to catch the evolution of Diesel’s ever-expanding horizon as he and his band roll out ​Sunset Suburbia t​o a city, town or suburb near you.