Human Nature brings music from 30-year career to Canberra's Royal Theatre

The Australian boy band from the 1990s first tried their hand at Motown covers in the early 2000s.

It was a career move that was not only commercially successful but saw them pick up one of Las Vegas' coveted residencies - which they are set to return to following their 2022 Australian tour - and be introduced to an American audience by none other than the king of Motown himself, Smokey Robinson.

But while this chapter of Human Nature - aka Toby Allen, Phil Burton and brothers Andrew and Mike Tierney - is so linked to American music, it was a project with an Australian singer that first helped spark the idea of covering Motown songs in the first place.

The year was 1997 and Human Nature was invited to sing on John Farnham's song Every Time You Cry. A video that saw the four-piece and Farnham dress in suits and sing into retro microphones, not unlike the stars of Motown once did.

"It was in that moment, I think we all thought maybe at some point we could actually channel those groups that we've been inspired by and do an album of it," Andrew Tierney says.

"So that was in '97, and we didn't do the Motown record until 2006, but I think it was somewhere in the back of our minds that could be something we would do for an album or even just for a live show, to go back to those groups like The Temptations.

"We mentioned it to our record company at the time and just said, 'Look, maybe one day we could do this'. And it just stayed in there as a seed of an idea for many years. And then finally, we decided to do it."

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And what a decision it was.

Tierney remembers being concerned that the band, who still had a pop career at the time, were too young to do a cover album. They were in their early 30s at the time and didn't want to end their career (or sentence themselves to a life singing on cruise ships).

Still, they loved the music and that's ultimately what led them to not only record six Motown albums, but it's also part of the reason these four white guys from Australia have been accepted in Las Vegas for singing traditionally black music.

"We had fewer reservations than I think we probably should have, starting the residency in Las Vegas," Tierney says.

"Motown music came out of such a volatile time socially in the 60s, with the race significance of the music and the artists that were doing it at the time. And I think the sensitivities in America are much more than maybe we [realised].

"We didn't think too deeply about the social significance of the music. We were maybe a little bit ignorant, but we weren't worried. We were just doing it because we loved the music.

"And that's what Smokey saw in it too. He said, 'I see you're not trying to take a culture, you just love this music. We made this music not for black audiences or for white audiences. We made it for everybody. And so to see this group from Australia, loving the music and re-imagining it for their audiences, that's kind of like the realisation of our dream because that's what we wanted to do with Motown. We didn't want to just keep it for a certain audience.'

"And so that gave us the confidence to keep doing it because that's exactly how we approached it."

That section of Human Nature's career will no doubt be a highlight of their upcoming Canberra show, but not the only thing that will be covered.

The Royal Theatre show, which is part of the group's People Get Ready, Again tour, is tipped to be their most intimate show to date.

The group will take the audience back to where it all began - their debut album Telling Everybody - before taking them on a journey throughout their almost 30-year career.

"We share the stories between the four of us and so I'm listening to other guys talk and just thinking about the different moments in our career ... and it's cathartic," Tierney says.

"Each time it happens is like, wow, we got to do that.

"And I go back and think of what I was maybe wearing at the time, or where I was in my life at the time. Songs will kind of trigger those memories. So it's really fun to be able to reflect on having done all those things, and then also realise that we're still doing it."

It will also be a "see you later" to their days as a four-piece - for now, that is. While Toby Allen and Andrew and Mike Tierney will continue the group's residency at Las Vegas' South Point Hotel, Casino and Spa, Phil Burton decided in 2021 to move home to Australia with his family.

"We had 11 years in Vegas, our family, and it was a great experience but it always felt like we would come home eventually. That was always the plan," Burton told The Newcastle Herald.

"The kids are settling back into Aussie life. We wanted them to experience what we did growing up - a little bit more of a laidback existence."

Human Nature will perform at Royal Theatre on Saturday at 8pm. Tickets from $111.55 from Ticketek.

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