Nick Larkins is an Australian rock musician who has played with various Australian acts, and solo. Nick was born in London but raised in Hobart, Tasmania. Larkins has been highly nomadic for much of his career. He has usually been based in the city of Melbourne, known as the live music capital of Australia, but has also lived and worked in Europe several times.
As a teenager Nick Larkins fronted some of Tasmania's pioneering punk bands, most notably REJECT, who smashed at least one guitar at every show, replacing the guitar solo with the guitar-smashing solo. He has also performed solo and with the following acts:
In 1993 Nick Larkins re-joined ARIA award winning group Wild Pumpkins at Midnight and moved to The Netherlands. Until the end of 1998 Wild Pumpkins were based in the Netherlands, returning to Australia for brief periods, touring and releasing 6 CDs in Australia, Europe and Brazil. Roughly half their recorded output was produced with award winning studio engineer Tony Cohen. (Birthday Party, Nick Cave, The Beasts of Bourbon, The Cruel Sea, Hunters & Collectors). WPAM albums and concerts featured guest appearances by other influential Australian musicians including Chris Wilson, members of Weddings Parties Anything, Joe Geia and Tiddas. Larkins and other members of WPAM performed with Aboriginal songwriter Joe Geia on and off for years. In 1995 Larkins and Dan Tuffy from WPAM toured Europe with Geia for several months during a break in WPAM commitments. On that tour they performed live on German radio station WDR to a Friday night drive-time audience of over 3 million listeners. With Wild Pumpkins Nick performed at the prestigious Montreaux Jazz Festival (Switzerland); shared billing with Santana, Björk, Nick Cave, Dirty Three, Tricky, Rage Against the Machine, Porno 4 Pyros, Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones), David Crosby (Crosby, Stills & Nash), Link Wray and others. They toured extensively in former Eastern Block countries, including the Former Yugoslavia in 1994 during the war, and also played festivals and clubs all over Europe. Larkins also lived and performed in Czech Republic in 1997.