Dragon

Dragon got going in Auckland in January 1972, took their name from a round of I Ching cards consulted by original singer Graeme Collins, and crossed the Tasman to make Sydney home in 1975. It was Marc Hunter who turned them into stars, with his brother Todd, a co-founder, holding down the bass and, these days, the leadership.

The first run of hits in the '70s came mostly from keyboard player Paul Hewson's pen: "April Sun in Cuba", "Are You Old Enough?", which went all the way to number one in Australia in 1978, and "Still in Love with You". When the band regrouped in the '80s the songwriting spread out, and "Rain", written by the Hunter brothers with Todd's partner Johanna Pigott, gave them a number-two hit and a sleek, moody slab of pop rock with a chorus that falls like a cloudburst. Body and the Beat carried it, and Todd Rundgren and David Hirschfelder were among the producers they worked with. Tommy Emmanuel came aboard in 1985, and in 1987 they even worked Europe and the United States under the name Hunter.

Behind the hits the story is a grim one. Drummer Neil Storey died of a heroin overdose in 1976, Hewson died of a drug overdose in 1985, and Marc Hunter died of throat cancer in 1998. Todd carried on, and in 2008 the ARIA Hall of Fame inducted the band.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.