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The Rockmelons were Australian pioneers in the dance/electronic field. In the beginning the Rockmelons were the underbelly of the musical shift happening in Australian music at the start of the Eighties, when pub-rockers INXS started to "swing" and pop groups like the Models and Pseudo Echo played with "groove". Fuelling that sound was the American funk, soul and hip hop Australian radio wasn't playing. Sydney's Ray Medhurst was a fanatical fan of that music. He recruited The Jones brothers, Jonathan and Bryon, to help him try to play that kind of music live. Like Ray they were relative musical novices and brought in an old schoolfriend, Vinnie Dale who had a bit of musical knowledge and was able to help them translate their ideas into something like reality. For Ray's twenty-first birthday party Ray and Bryon had rung up a local venue with a bunch of ideas, pointed them to bands to hire for the night, and staged an 'event'. Now they started applying that kind of entrepreneurism to "their" music. Instead of going out to find an audience they brought the audience in. Ray was living in a warehouse, and the fledgling Rockmelons held a party at which they provided the entertainment, experimenting with blending the live energy of a band with a disco nightclub atmosphere. That party developed into more parties, at Ray's and other people's places and at actual venues. A Rockmelons performance became a bit of an event. They added two djs who would scratch and dub records, leading into the band's live performance, all very novel and innovative at the time. As well as writing original material Medhurst and the Jones brothers were also organizing everything, acting as their own managers. Playing their keyboards and synthesisers around Jonathon's self-constructed and designed electric dulcimer, after a while Ray decided to add some vocal interest to their instrumental creations by vocodering his voice on some songs. Jonathon also was responsible for drum programming and sequencing, at a time when these were only just being developed technologically in Australia. The band found themselves at the end of a lot of stick by playing live without a drummer. Even though Jonathan was more than a capable drummer, the Rockmelons would persist on performing drummerless for several years. When the novelty of Ray's vocodered started wearing off they decided to bring in a series of guest vocalists. By the time they released their first single 'Time Out (For Serious Fun)' the Rockmelons were using three singers - Peter Blakeley, John Kenny and Sandi Chick. Sandi sang on that first single. By then they'd also added a guitarist/percussionist. Sometimes there could be ten or more Rockmelons on stage. Even that first single happened unconventionally. Wanting to learn about recording techniques, Bryon and Jonathan were offered some free time at Alberts studios. As they fooled around for the next two days they came up with what became 'Time Out (For Serious Fun)'. Before embarking on a solo career, Peter Blakely took lead vocals on the second single 'Sweat It Out'. The third featured John Kenny, and for the fourth,'New Groove,' they introduced another name, Wendy Matthews. It was this fluid Rockmelons which put together its first album, 'Tales Of The City', winning the 1988 ARIA for Best Debut Album. The second Rockmelons album 'Form One Planet' changed everything. For three tracks they introduced Deni Hines on vocals. When their Deni-led version of 'Ain't No Sunshine' became a pop hit, a second Deni track 'That Word (L O V E)' was released as the follow-up. Although mark Williams also made a major contribution to 'Form One Planet (especially on "Stronger Together", which was an underground dance hit in the UK) in most people's minds, and through pressure of their success, Deni became the Rockmelons' official lead singer. With that, some of the Rockmelons' uniqueness disappeared. Success also meant touring, and with that some of the pleasure disappeared for the founding Rockmelons. When subsequent singles with other singers failed to make an impression the Rockmelons' unit postponed their own recording and performing career until some unforseen date and started applying their talents and skills to the benefit of others. They wrote and produced hits for CDB, recorded and produced Marcia Hines' '99 album 'Time of Our Lives', and worked with hit dance duo Kaylan. In late 2001 the Rockmelons were as surprised as anyone else when their record company suggested a new album, the first in ten years. Festival Mushroom Records research suggested that a Rockmelons album would be well received. 'Rockies 3' was the result. In more recent years Bryon Jones had been closely associated with executive producing albums for Australian Idol winners.
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