Col Meredith

Who is Col Meredith?

Col Meredith is an Australian musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as the lead singer and songwriter for Australian rock bands Bourbon Street and The Feramones under the surname name Germano, and Late for Woodstock under the surname of Meredith, which he adopted professionally in 1995 after Bourbon Street’s first official breakup.

Col’s music career began as a journalist in his teens and he later became editor and publisher of Happening Magazine. As a journalist, he worked closely with Frank Zappa, Ozzy Osbourne, George Thorogood, Jerry-Lee Lewis, Mick Taylor and others in the music industry. During this period, he wrote songs and performed with guitarist Alex Peck in Orange County, CA.

At age 22, he left the publishing business and moved to Coolangatta, Qld, Australia where he met Paul Rye, Peter Worrell and Simon Dundon to form The Blest in 1983. The band cut its teeth in country Queensland over the next few years. In 1987, a line-up change saw the group morph into hard rock band Bourbon Street.

Based in Byron Bay, NSW, Bourbon Street, with Simon Dundon, Lenny Patch and Horace Bevan, released their debut single on vinyl in 1987 thru Merovee Music. Eyes the Size of Stars, written by Germano, charted in the top-10 locally but never found popularity outside the Northern Rivers area. A full length album followed in 1988 called Stronger Than Dirt. While the album spawned no radio hits, it eventually sold more than 10,000 copies and its first track, their cover of Neil Young’s Powder Finger, inspired a Brisbane band of Bourbon Street devotees to adopt the title as their band’s namesake.