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It’s possible you might have seen all three Flatlanders in Australia before – but certainly not together. Joe Ely toured decades ago with Cold Chisel while Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock have been here a couple of times. Yet 2010 sees the trio united in their renowned line-up and touring here together for the first time.

I met them in San Francisco last October during the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and I am fairly certain I have never been in the same room before with three such music legends!

Their visits might have been years ago but Joe still recalls Jimmy Barnes fondly and Jimmie and Butch shout out to Rhythms’ own Keith Glass and Texas Dave McGarry who brought them to Moruya back in the ‘80s (and also hosted Townes Van Zandt, Lucinda Williams and Flaco Jimenez). Their memories are as sharp as a tack.

In fact, if I had a hat I’d have to tip it to Keith Glass whose musical taste and promotional derring-do (he might say insanity) not only brought Gilmore and Hancock to Australia but also Townes Van Zandt. Even back then, Glass would tell me these musicians were legends. The duo’s live album of the Australian tour, released in 1990 also features a version of Paul Kelly’s ‘Special Treatment.’ Kelly guested on that album and later paid tribute to Gilmore with ‘Sydney From A 727’ on his 1992 album Comedy.

The sixty-four year old Gilmore was born in Amarillo, Texas and raised in Lubbock. He revered Hank Williams and was influenced by his father who played guitar and loved honky-tonk music. In 1964 he was introduced to Buddy Holly’s father who later paid for him to make some demos which is where he met a young Joe Ely.

Ely, now 62, had been attending Lubbock High School but was looking for a music career. After school he washed dishes at a takeaway chicken shack and at night he would go out and play music. After leaving school, joining a couple of different bands and after traveling around Texas ended up back in Lubbock.

Gilmore had been friends with Butch Hancock since their school days together at Atkins Junior High School. The same age as Gilmore, he studied architecture but dropped out and drove a tractor on his father’s farm while he pursued music. He claims that architecture helped him to learn how to ‘build songs.’

After a stint playing music in Austin, Gilmore moved back to Lubbock and within a few days introduced his two friends who had not known each other. Soon afterwards, The Flatlanders outfit was born in 1972. The group’s first recording was produced by Shelby Singleton and became famous for the fact that it was not released until Rounder Records put it out as More A Legend Than A Band in 1991.

The group disbanded in 1973 and all three musicians forged their own considerable solo careers. For a while Gilmore moved to Colorado and apparently spent some time in an ashram and studying metaphysics. He moved back to Austin in 1980 and his first solo album, Fair & Square was released in 1988. Since then he has released eight albums. You can also see him in The Big Lebowski (quite possibly the greatest film ever made) as the bowler called Smokey, who is warned by a gun-wielding John Goodman for over-stepping the line (or as Goodman’s character Walter puts it, for threatening the downfall of Western civilisation).

Ely toured with The Clash and contributed backing vocals to their hit ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go?’ while his own album Live Shots featured Joe Strummer guesting. Then came the Australian tour with Cold Chisel in the early ‘80s. Since 1997 Ely has released more than 20 albums – studio and live – and has also worked with Bruce Springsteen, Uncle Tupelo, Los Super Seven and James McMurtry.

Butch Hancock moved to Austin after the Flatlanders temporary demise, formed his own label and became the most prolific of the trio in terms of solo recordings, releasing nearly 15 albums. His songs have been recorded by his mates Joe and Jimmie as well as Emmylou Harris, The Texas Tornados and others. In the ‘90s he moved to Terlingua, claiming that there were too many distractions in Austin to get his writing done!

While the trio occasionally got together for gigs during their long hiatus, it was working on the music for the Robert Redford film The Horse Whisperer that firmed up a more permanent reunion. In 2002 they released Now Again on New West Records, followed two years later by Wheels Of Fortune. Last year’s Hills & Valleys, produced by another Texas legend in Lloyd Maines, was acclaimed as their best since the reunion. Their status was confirmed when they appeared last September to a standing ovation at the Americana Music Awards in Nashville.

In the chaos of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival I managed to get some time with the trio just before they go on stage in the cool of the late afternoon. I am surprised they would want to talk then but the veterans are completely relaxed. Later, their great show elicits a warm response from a huge crowd.

“We’re talking about coming over and doing some stuff and bringing him to Texas,” says Joe Ely when I mention that I had interviewed Jimmy Barnes just a few months earlier. “It’s been too long since we got together. We tried to get together two or three different times and it’s either he‘s running hard or I’m running hard.”

Ely recalls that the first time he met Barnes was when he booked him for the Tornado Jam festival that he put on in Texas. Also on the bill were the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

“Jimmy Barnes was coming over,” he recalls, “and we ran into each other and I said, ‘Hey come play the festival’ and he said alright. He came played it and he knocked them out and invited me the next year over.”

“I can’t remember the exact date,” answers Butch when I ask him about his time in Australia, “but it was in the 80s. I had gone down to New Zealand and had done a couple of gigs one year and the very next year Jimmie and I went to New Zealand and came over to Melbourne. Then two or three years later we came for a whole month.”

“I don’t remember a thing!” he laughs. “It completely blew my mind especially just getting to skim the surface of the Aboriginal culture. It was a magic time.”

“I loved every minute of it,” agrees Jimmie.

“We never really got together as a band,” recalls Joe when I ask about the history of The Flatlanders. “We got together as good friends in the early ‘70s and started playing music together and just happened to make a record. The record just never came out so we just went different directions then always stayed in touch, worked on different things, different projects, never even thought about doing another record until we got together and wrote a few songs about 1998 for The Horse Whisperer. Because of getting together and writing together we realised, ‘Wow!’

“We never thought we would write a song together because we thought that was against the law. The songs turned out completely different than anything we would write on our own. So, ever since then we’ve gotten together every few years and put a record together.”

“I’ve always been surprised at anybody’s response to anything!” laughs Butch when I ask him if he is surprised at the warm response to their reunion. “I am amazed at all of humanity.

“We have kind of had a running joke through the years. The Legendary Flatlanders was laid on us by a friend of ours way back in the 80s or 70s – or somewhere back there. So it’s, oh sure, do you live up to a legend or do you have to live it down?”

What’s the magic that happens when the three of them get together?

“It’s always been a mystery to me from the very beginning,” replies Jimmie. “Even in all the time that people thought that we were apart – like as if we had disbanded – the thing is we’ve all been best friends the whole time and just doing this. There’s just something about the way the three of us just interact with each other that’s just always fun, it’s always entertaining. We’re three such different people but for some reason we blend in a very unique way.”

“We try not to define it,” adds Ely. “Every time we define it, it falls apart on us. We called it Western Beat at one time, then we called it Bulldozer Rock, then we called it Jackhammer something or other. We just do what’s on our mind in the day, whenever we are sitting down to write a song. We don’t have any preconceived notions.”

“One thing about our music is,” says Butch, “it’s guaranteed.”

Of what?

“It’s just guaranteed,” he says.

“It’s also 100%,” adds Jimmie.

“In fact, there’s no two ways about it,” says Butch.

“And it’s fortified,” concludes Jimmie as they all break up into laughter.

Hills & Valleys is available through Shock. The Flatlanders tour in March.