When iconic Australian rock act Powderfinger announced their split last year, it sent waves through the music community. Following the conclusion of the massive Sunsets tour, the Powderfinger name hasn't completely disappeared off the radar, with a single release to aid the Premier's Flood Relief, as well as special edition merch still going strong.

I chat with the band's lead guitarist, Darren Middleton, about the release of Footprints, Powderfinger's only authorised biography and compilation record.

Hey Darren, how’s it going?

Yeah, pretty good thanks, yourself?

Not bad, not bad.

That’s good.

How’s your day been, pretty busy?

Uhh pretty busy, a busy couple of days I suppose. I’ve just been doing interviews and that sort of thing.

It doesn’t feel like that long ago you guys were doing the farewell tour, but when I looked back on it, it’s been a year!

Yeah, it’s flown by! It really has flown by.

Although it’s been about a year since Powderfinger officially disbanded, the ‘brand’ is still on the go with the production of different pieces of merch, new material etc. I guess in some ways it’s like the band hasn’t gone anywhere!

Yeah, it doesn’t feel that way for me, because I took myself and my family on an European holiday for the first seven months of the year. I didn’t bump into too many… well I didn’t bump into any Powderfinger fans! It was well and truly out of my mind at that stage, and we were doing a few interviews with Dino [Scatena] for the book, but apart from that, I was too busy enjoying the Italian countryside or wherever I was!

But yeah, coming back to Australia, it’s all started to fire up. I think it’s just firing up for a very short period of time, while we’ve got this Greatest Hits and this book coming out, I suppose we have to get amongst it again. I’ll tell you what though, it’s funny, and it’s like waking up from a long sleep, getting back into the media/promo sort of mode!

You guys are doing promo for the release of the upcoming Footprints album and biography. The biography is something I’m particularly interested in as I know that the five of you have been notoriously private – what made you guys decide to produce this book?

Well we have been fairly private about what goes on behind closed doors in the past, not to cover up some ugly beast that exists within, it’s just that we never talked about it or we never felt the need to get too personal. The band is the band and our private lives have always been private lives. The book isn’t really an exposé on our private lives as such, more the machinations of the band, behind band room doors. You know, it’s been kind of interesting, looking back on it all and trying to remember pieces from the early days.

Already, I’ve seen some headlines, now that the word is out that this book is coming out, you know: “What were the reasons behind the break up?” etc. That sort of exposé and scandalised aspect to the book, but it doesn’t seem to be that way at all.

I’ve cottoned on to some of those headlines floating about that are like ‘this guy versus that guy’… It’s hard because those things get taken a little bit out of context. I think people are smart enough to realise that and that it is a sensationalist headline to get them to read the papers. But you know, it would be unnatural for any relationship of 20 years to not fight. You’ve got people are passionate about what they’re doing and you don’t always agree and that’s also part of the fire that fuels the band. So it’s necessary, to a degree.

The reason why we managed to actually stay together for so long is that we’d fight and then kind of get over it. At the same time, the main reason that we ended up splitting is not because we couldn’t stand each other, because we’re all still friends at the end, but just because we’d kind of run our course. We didn’t want to have the memory of the band fly into that place where it’s like ‘Oh who gives a rats arse about them now, they’re still putting out albums that sound exactly the same as the last four records’. So it is kind of a romantic fantasy, that the memory of the band is kind of frozen in a good place. I think that’s something that IN twenty years, we’ll be going ‘Yeah, I’m pretty glad that it ended up that way’.

It was such a great moment for you guys to go out at the top of your game. You know, people will say stuff, but the majority of the fans probably realise that it was time and they’ve gotten some great memories from your career.

Absolutely. It’s a chance for all of us now to fall in love with another band, hopefully. I’d love to.

The book is also going to include some candid photos from the band's private collections. There must’ve been some great moments of nostalgia when looking back, was there?

I’ve carried a camera around for the last fifteen years, but there’s some great, mostly unreleased photos in that book of all the members growing up or when they joined their first band and then photos from our touring life. I love photo books, so I’m into that!

If anything you can track the trends in haircuts…

[laughs]Yeah, there were really some disasters and I’m more than guilty of some clothing apparel and hair disasters! All part of growing up, right?

The Footprints album, scanning the band’s career from 2001 until now has a great track listing…was it a bit of a task in deciding which songs would feature?

It wasn’t too difficult, actually. There’s a bunch of songs that just had to go on there because they were big singles and they kind of had to go on there. Then there are some songs that were just really good live, that the crowd always resonated with and that we liked. Then there are a few songs that never saw the light of day on radio or barely live and they’re just songs that we loved and kind of felt was a good representation of us. So it wasn’t overly difficult to get it all together.

The first compilation record, Fingerprints went multi-platinum. With the notion that this album could go the same way… that’s got to be a humbling feeling.

Yeah, it always is. We don’t know what to expect from this Greatest Hits package. Don’t know what to expect, we never have assumed anything.

I guess the release of this record and of the book doesn’t come as such a surprise to the fans – one of the things that anyone who knows anything about the band is that their relationship with their fan base has always remained remarkably tight. Is it fair to say that this is some sort of final present?

It pretty much is. There’s nothing really left behind that is waiting to see the light of day next year. So I don’t think you’ll hear from us, you certainly won’t hear from us as a band collectively after this has all run its course, for sure.

Do you feel like there’ll be a sense of finality once this package is released, that this is finally it?

I think you’re right. This could be the final thread to be untangled from the whole project. It’ll be good, I think we haven’t left the door open. Of course we get asked about when the reunion is going to be and all that sort of stuff, but we’re not really leaving that door open in that sense, SO everyone can get on with their lives and do whatever it is they want to do.

There are some new songs that are going to be on the compilation record. Can you tell me a bit about why they didn’t make it on to previous records?

The first new song, “Empty Space”, on Footprints, we recorded that about five years ago and it just didn’t fit with what we were doing. We loved the song, we thought it was really good, but it just didn’t fit in. It kind of made its way onto this record because we were in the studio and we did record maybe three or four songs and one of the other songs, “Silver Bullet”, stuck its head up and we went ‘Okay that’s cool’. Then someone brought in “Empty Space” and we went ‘Oh we should use that’! So we put some keyboards on it, remixed it and it’s finally seen the light of day.

What’s happening with you in terms of music nowadays?

I’m just starting to get the vibe back for it all. I’ve started writing again and I might do something myself sometime. I’m in no great rush though, there’s no timeline for me. I suppose though, the other thing that I have done quite a bit of over the last ten years, is producing or mentoring or co-writing with younger bands. Passing on whatever it is that I can pass on to them. So I definitely think I’ll do more of that while I’m down here to. I love working with young, enthusiastic, unjaded kids, it’s awesome.

I guess there are a lot of young musicians especially who’d be looking up to you guys because you are so well-known.

Yeah I mean, I’m going to start sticking my head out there and see what happens!

"Footprints: The Best of Powderfinger (2001-2011)" is available from Nov 4, whilst the "The Inside Story of Australia's Best-Loved Band Powderfinger: Footprints" is released on Nov 8.