1966–1986: Early years and Innocent Bystanders Diesel was born on 31 May 1966 in
Fall River, Massachusetts, United States, and emigrated to Australia with his family, in November 1971. During his school days at Scarborough, he joined a newly formed band by Duncan Andrews named "Dark Spot". The band was Diesel's first. Andrews was on bass, with Bill Advic on electric rhythm guitar and Diesel on lead guitar. While the band was without a vocalist for some time, each tried out for the vocalist spot but it was thought that no one could sing well enough. In 1981, Dark Spot entered the battle of the band competition in Fremantle with an original song penned by Andrews with Andrews on vocals and bass. The band took home first place, largely due to the combination of Andrews' vocals and Diesel's guitar work. In his mid-teens, Diesel (as Mark Lizotte) performed with The Kind and Close Action. The Kind had Diesel with Denise DeMarchi,
Suze DeMarchi, Dean Denton, Gary Dunn,
John 'Yak' Sherrit and Boyd Wilson. and they released a single, "Lebanon", in 1984, with the line-up of Diesel, John "Tatt" Dalzell on bass guitar, Brett Keyser on vocals, Cliff Kinneen on keyboards and Sherrit on drums. The band played a mixture of
R&B,
blues and
Southern rock; Johnny Diesel & the Injectors moved to Sydney in September after taking up
management by
Brent Eccles, drummer for The Angels. They came to the attention of Jane Barnes, wife of hard rocker,
Jimmy Barnes (ex-
Cold Chisel), and through her recommendation, Diesel was hired to work on Barnes' third solo album,
Freight Train Heart. Diesel's band signed with
Chrysalis Records and their
eponymous debut album,
Johnny Diesel & the Injectors, was recorded in
Memphis, Tennessee with producer
Terry Manning from August 1988 and released in March 1989. His next release, "
Tip of My Tongue", appeared in February 1992, reaching No. 4 and becoming his highest-charting single. it also hit No. 1 on the Australian charts, Early in 1996, Diesel recorded the album
Short Cool Ones with Melbourne
blues musician
Chris Wilson as Wilson Diesel, released in February. The project also featured drummer Angus Diggs, bass player Dean Addison and Bob Woolf on keyboards. On 10 October 2004,
Andrew Denton interviewed Barnes on the
ABC TV program
Enough Rope, Diesel then performed with Barnes and his children, Eliza Jane,
Jackie and
Elly-May. Around the same time, Diesel released
Singled Out. An entirely
acoustic overview of his career, it earned an ARIA nomination. Over the same period, he also worked with Barnes on his
Double Happiness album, including a duet on the track "Got You as a Friend" and providing musical backing including guitar, drums, bass guitar, percussion and keyboards on various tracks. In 2006, Diesel released
Coathanger Antennae, an album recorded in two months. Of it, he said "We approached it like the
Stones or
The Beatles used to do where we'd just put down a few takes live and then picked the ones that we all felt good about", emphasising the focus on live recording rather than studio polishing. Diesel made guest appearances on the Australian leg of
Dweezil Zappa's 2009
Zappa Plays Zappa Tour, playing guitar and vocals after
Ray White's departure from Zappa's group. The year 2008 saw the release of the studio album "
Days Like These". The album peaked at number 17 in Australia. 3 July 2009 saw the release of
Project Blues: Saturday Suffering Fools, a blues album featuring a horn section made up of ex-Injector Bernie Bremond and family members Hank (Father) and brothers Michael and Brian Lizotte. Brian owned a theatre bar (under the name "Lizotte's") in the
Newcastle suburb of
Lambton, at which Diesel has played. Brian sold the theatre in 2023.
2011–2020: 30 years and Sunset Suburbia 4 July 2011 saw the release of "
Under the Influence" – a collection of Diesel's favourite and influential guitar music featuring tracks by Jimi Hendrix, Link Wray, Albert King, Neil Young and The Sonics. "I was doing these shows called 'Under the Influence' just for fun" says Diesel. "One night it would be Jimi Hendrix or Al Green and then another night I'd do the three Kings (Albert, Freddie and B.B)" he adds. "I thought it would be good to make a record like that." A "hand-picked" retrospective album spanning 20 years of recordings titled
You Get There from Here was released on 1 June 2012. Diesel made his scoring debut in 2012 with six-part series
Bikies Wars: Brothers in Arms, contributing the theme track "Highway Mind" and over 140 original score pieces. The first episode aired on Tuesday 15 May 2012. Diesel's real name Mark Lizotte is listed in the credits. Diesel's eleventh album
Let It Fly was released on 9 August 2013. "It's all of my life's work so far brought to fruition, in many ways. It's pretty encompassing," he said. "There's a lot of stuff I've never tried before either – like, there are folk elements that are quite different for me ... I guess when you start using mandolin and fiddle, it's gonna happen!" In 2016, Diesel commenced the "Pieces of Americana" tour and released
Americana on 1 July, which debuted at number 15 on the
ARIA chart. In 2018, Diesel celebrated 30 years in the industry with the release of a 30-track compilation album,
30: The Greatest Hits as well as national tour titled
Give Me Saturday Night. In mid-2019 Diesel announced the release of a
Sunset Suburbia trilogy. It consisted of two EPs, leading to a studio album in 2020. Two singles lifted from the two EPs were released in 2019, and the album was released in August 2020.
2021–present: Alone with Blues In May 2021, Diesel released "Six Steel Strings", the lead single from his album,
Alone with Blues, released on 16 July 2021. The album peaked at number 20 on the ARIA chart. During 2022 he presented a 12-part TV documentary series
Days Like These with Diesel, with each episode describing a pivotal concert by Australian artists:
Jet,
Baby Animals,
Hunters & Collectors,
the Angels, Diesel,
Rose Tattoo, Jimmy Barnes,
Eurogliders,
Archie Roach,
Icehouse,
Troy Cassar-Daley and Cold Chisel. ==Discography==