Hindley Street Country Club Partnership ends in Supreme Court

With 250 million YouTube views and rapidly approaching one million subscribers, Adelaide band Hindley Street Country Club should have been a very happy collective. Instead an ugly court battle has laid bare an audacious and acrimonious split that emerged in May 2021 when co-founder and producer Darren Mullan suddenly disappeared from the weekly videos.

In short order the videographer and a number of major stars left, leaving HSCC looking less like the eclectic collective it had been – with over 110 different faces appearing across three years – and more like a cruise ship covers band. Suddenly some awkward product placements started to appear. Mullan's signature flourishes were missing, and HSCC was in the hands of one man – bass player Con Delo.

Delo is a package of bravado, brilliance, arrogance, charm, seething explosive anger, musicality and lofty demands. He had signed a rep agreement with me in late 2019, after seeking someone to promote the band outside of Adelaide. The agreement terms were soon overlooked as he changed everything. What was a 50/50 profit share became a demand for $10,000 a show – just for him. The band would get $400 each. He called me every day for a year – including Christmas Day - often more than once. Sometimes from his car, his signature opener: 'Jules, this will only take a min…..' followed by an explosion of road rage at some hapless Adelaide motorist who suddenly had a bald maniac exploding at them. "I turn green", he told me.

Often the topic was the growing number of shysters, grifters and Vegas bottom swimmers who were feting Delo. The YouTube numbers acted as a magnet. The more views, the greater the delusions as Delo was duchessed by a stream of fast talking shonks offering tours of the East Coast of the USA (unlikely), a month's residency at Dolly Parton's theme park (unimaginable), or a long season at one of the broken Vegas casino rooms.

"Con, I've spoken to people about Vegas", I said. "You gotta BUY the room and float the show, they will drop you after two weeks if it doesn't sell". And I said: "'Show?' You don't have a 'show', you are an excellent covers band but without dancers, costumes, video or a theme. And they will be as confused as fuck with the COUNTRY CLUB reference. I can't get venues in Australia to take us seriously because of that!"

One venue booker in Queensland told me outright: "We don't do country". FFS, I'd replied. "Eskimo Joe doesn't have a penguin in it! HSCC are not a country and western band."

But the calls kept coming, akin to a daily Delo bellow. At one stage, Delo said someone claiming they represented Hugh Jackman offered he would like to work with HSCC. Like stage fog, the hype and delusions vaporised.

The pandemic killed my involvement since I had an agreement that could not be delivered. At one last meeting in Sydney early 2021 when he came to see his kids, he turned strangely melancholic. "Jules, this is my last roll of the dice. I'm a middle-aged cover band bass player". Then he paid for my coffee and toastie. It was disconcerting. At that meeting he was obsessed with overthrowing Mullan and I'm cautioning him to settle amiably. "Yes Darren will be looked after", he said solemnly.

I look at myself in the mirror today and ponder how I got involved in this Greek tragedy. I'm aggression adverse and yet I'd partnered with a human hand grenade. The music spun me, some of the 300+ live recorded HSCC tracks just went to another level, particularly those featuring the now departed Sarah Lloyd, Nikki Heuskiss and Andy Seymour. (I now represent two of these).

Come May 2021 and Mullan was disappeared. He went legal. Delo ignored the lawyer, then started corresponding with his own version of garage law. Eventually Mullan raised a Supreme Court writ and Delo was forced to rent a lawyer. Costs on both sides skyrocketed. The weekly payments from YouTube were frozen.

Meanwhile Delo found a new artist rep in former Fleetwood Mac manager Dennis Dunstan. Dunstan had weathered many wars with that band, which fuelled legends, books and documentaries. Presumably his experience and counsel would easily deal with Delo, and soon a series of live dates were booked as borders opened and restrictions eased.

The 'new' version of HSCC sold out most shows, with more booked into the future. They are reportedly an excellent live show – albeit without a theme.

I was approached by Mullan's barrister and swore an affidavit in which I recounted many discussions with Delo about his HSCC partnership. I detailed conversations in which he expressly directed me to not talk to Mullan along with a lot of partnership detail.

Amazingly Delo was claiming in court documents that there never was a partnership with Mullan, that they were simply joined contractually - without producing a contract to support that proposition. It was plain: Delo was attempting to take over HSCC while trying to restrict Mullan's future career. Mullan was unable to start his own YouTube channel while the matter staggered through long and costly mediation.

Delo had incorporated a new HSCC company and venues were now eager to sign deals without knowing the ultimate control over HSCC was in jeopardy. That stuff is kryptonite for venues who all know of shows that come branded and then get stiffed when an original band member takes action to remove the brand. HSCC was on very fragile ice.

Mullan wasn't talking – to me – but sources said he was so incensed at proceedings he was prepared to shut the YouTube channel and thus strangle the project. He had, I was told, supervised distribution of proceeds from the videos to the players, using a complicated formula. Delo was less inclined to be equitable and was issuing various stories about what had happened with Mullan. The band room became toxic, departing musicians spoke of a culture of aggressive control.

It was never clear how the YouTube revenues are split – I estimated current payments were pushing over $5,000 a week based on the exponentially growing views. Some songs have reached 10m+ views. The catalogue before May 2021, when Mullan got disappeared, continues to yield solidly. Some of that money did filter down to the individual musicians who were initially delighted to get worldwide exposure and thousands of comments during a global lockdown.

A YouTube interview with ManOPause in June 2021 unsettled some of the diaspora, as Delo spent almost an hour taking complete credit for the success of the band, which until then was looked upon as a collective. Delo bounced between narcissism, vanity and false humility in the video with the American hosts drawing him out in disbelief. Soon tagging itself as the 'World's Greatest Cover Band', the rift between the talent and the boss grew.

Then came the Supreme Court showdown, after Delo and Mullan were said to be in prolonged mediation. They settled on terms that are not public, and Mullan established his own YouTube channel called 'Sing it live' at the end of April 2022. The legal costs for almost a year of lawfare would be astronomic.

Delo and Mullan were approached for comment but did not respond.