The Porkers

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The Porkers
Also known as	The Pork Hunts
Origin	Newcastle, Australia
Genre(s)	Ska punk
Years active	1987 – present
Label(s)	Sound System, MoonSka
Website	theporkers.com

The Porkers are a ska punk band from Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.

Formed in 1987 as The Pork Hunts, the band was eventually forced to change its name to the less offensive-sounding Porkers in 1990 after their regular Newcastle venue refused to present them with their old name. Because of this, their first release was the 1990 EP entitled Tired of Being Pork Hunts, which reached #6 on the Australian independent charts.^[1]

In 1994, their debut album Grunt! received rave reviews and entered the American market through Moon Ska Records. The album was a mixture of studio and live tracks, and included covers of Devo's Mongoloid and Radio Birdman's Aloha Steve and Danno.

The Porkers have toured extensively throughout Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Germany and Japan (a live album recorded in Japan was released in 2004). In Australia, they have supported groups such as No Doubt, Fishbone, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Rancid.

After 20 years, there have been numerous changes in the Porkers line-up, but two of the original members are still in the band: frontman Pete Cooper (aka Pete Porker) and Phil Barnard on saxophone.

The Porkers have recently become notorious to a certain extent due to the brief, but energetic, appearance of prominent Sydney night-club promoter 'Dan Bombings' as a dancer during a number of the band's live performances throughout the course of 2001.