Rai Thistlethwayte
Rai Thistlethwayte is a one of Australia’s most respected musical talents: a highly accomplished pianist, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. As a songwriter, he has been nominated for APRA Song of The Year. His band, Thirsty Merc, has sold over 250,000 albums in Australia, and has been nominated for five ARIA awards.
Since 2002, Thirsty Merc has released four studio albums and had a string of hits in the Australian Music Charts. Aside from his work in rock and pop, Thistlethwayte performs as a solo artist, based around his love of jazz, soul and groove music, sometimes under the name Sun Rai. He has released one full-length album entitled Go Nuts, four solo EPs and has toured Australia and the US since 2012.
Some of his notable collaborations have been with ARIA award–winning guitarist James Muller, trumpeter James Morrison, and Grammy-nominated US jazz bassist Christian McBride.
Currently based between Sydney and Los Angeles, Thistlethwayte records and tours globally with US funk/jazz/electronic band KNOWER (Louis Cole/Genevieve Artardi) and New York–based guitarist Oz Noy.
In 2020 he joined guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani’s touring band as keyboardist, played on Joe’s new album The Elephants Of Mars and has played over 120 shows with Joe in the US and Europe between 2022 and early 2024.
Ben Vanderwal
Ben Vanderwal is one of the most in-demand jazz drummers in Australia. In 2015 Ben received the West Australian Music Award for Best Jazz Artist and he has performed around the world including tours of the UK, US, France, Ireland, India, China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.
He regularly performs with Tim Minchin and Rai Thistlethwayte (Thirsty Merc), and has performed with John Scofield, Charlie Haden, Joe Lovano, Vince Jones, Howard Levey, Madeleine Peyroux, Guthrie Govan, Gilad Hexelman, Thirsty Merc, Megan Washington, James Morrison, Chris Potter, Kate Ceberano, James Muller and Nigel Kennedy.
He is featured on over 40 recordings including Tim Minchin’s protest song “Come Home Cardinal Pell”, which was the No. 1 iTunes download in February 2016 and was nominated for APRA Song of the Year (2017); the Hank Marvin releases Hank and Without a Word, which went to No. 8 and No. 9 in the UK charts, respectively; Barney Mcall’s Bell Award–winning Hearing the Blood, featuring Daniel Merriweather; and Tim Minchin’s new release Apart Together.