Les Thomas sets his lyricism to the sounds of country-folk and Americana while drawing inspiration from the likes of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Steve Earle as well as local legends like Archie Roach, Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly.

Coming from a culturally and racially diverse family background, and with decades of grassroots activism as a unionist and social justice advocate, Les has a strong and direct connection to his community in Naarm/Melbourne and beyond.

His music has always been in solidarity with the oppressed, refugees, migrants, dispossessed, socially excluded and marginalised peoples and a good proportion of his live performances have been at rallies, picket lines and on the back of trucks at protests.

Over the years, Les has also shared a lot of music writing and interviewing, helping to promote local artists via the Unpaved website and songwriter sessions at The Old Bar and POME Richmond which got to feature people like Liz Stinger, Marlon Williams, Courtney Barnett, Van Walker and many others. He’s interviewed a wide variety of local and international artists including Steve Earle, Jason Isbell, David Bromberg, Eric Bibb and Valerie June.

His debut single ‘Song for Selva’ is based on a letter from a Tamil asylum seeker who had been detained without charge for 37 months. After strong community radio support for the song in the first week after its release, Selva was removed from Broadmeadows detention centre into “community detention”.

This new album All My Friends Are Superstars is produced by Stephen Grady (The Ahearn Brothers) and the following line-up: Les Thomas on vocals, acoustic guitar and baritone guitar; Stephen Grady on bass, guitars, keys, backing vocals and percussion; Jy-Perry Banks on pedal steel; Justin Olsson on drums; Jason Bunn on viola and violin; Louise Goh on piano, Peter Somerville on banjo; Justin Vilchez on mandolin; Hannah Acfield and Sakari Greenwell on harmonies; Megan Bernard and Tom Brooks on lead guitars.

His first album Survivor’s Tale was released on November 9, 2013 and has been described as 'an incredible collection of songs' (Denise Hylands, 3RRR) with an exceptional line-up of musicians including Jeff Lang, Ashley Davies, Mandy Connell, Ben Franz, Justin Bernasconi, Cat Canteri and more.