Photo credit: Jesse Lizotte

Diesel revs up for By Request tour

Diesel dives into democratic setlist creating, where fans become the framework for his performances!

Not many artists stand in the kind of privilege Australian guitar virtuoso Diesel occupies — not the gold-plated, ego-soaked type, but the rare creative freedom earned from decades of turning crowds into puddles with nothing more than a guitar, a gravel-slick voice and the sort of musical instinct you can’t teach.

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Operating under the moniker Diesel, American-born, now fully Aussie-adopted Mark Lizotte has spent decades bouncing between guitar hero and genre-hopping alchemist. He exploded onto the scene with Johnny Diesel & the Injectors before making the smooth solo pivot in the ’90s to become Diesel: ARIA hoarder, chart stayer, festival regular and the kind of live performer who makes other musicians rethink their life choices. He’s opened for Jimmy Barnes, teamed up with studio legend Terry Manning, played every instrument in arm’s reach… because why wouldn’t he? Diesel melts blues, soul, jazz, rock and raw emotion into a sound that feels like its own weather system. With 2023’s Bootleg Melancholy, the warm, cohesive, glowing with pop shimmer offering, he proved he’s still steering the ship, still breaking hearts, still making it look effortless.

Now he’s throwing the rulebook out the window yet again with his most intimate concept tour yet — a show where the setlist isn’t his, but yours.

 

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By Request puts the power in the punters’ hands. Think choose-your-own-adventure, but with decades of hits, deep cuts, emotional gut punches and blues burners to pick from. It’s a musical democracy, Diesel-style.

“The idea came from a lot of interactions with fans through Facebook and Instagram where requests would always fill the comments when shows were announced,” Diesel explains. “We trialled it with a box being put out before shows, and audience members would write their request on it and I would form the setlist from there before the show. It worked so well we decided to do it again – though this time we’ve streamlined the process to make it digital and audience members can write down their reasoning for their song selection as well.”

While it’s not a requirement to get your song across the line, a good story absolutely helps. Diesel’s a soft touch for sentiment, and the more a track has meant to someone, the more likely he is to breathe life into it on stage.

“The most enjoyable thing for me is reading why [songs were selected]. Some of the little stories about how it’s impacted them, that’s a great tangible digestible way that I know the way my music has affected someone. I get to hear this a lot face to face but there’s something about having it in writing that is really amazing and I feel really humbled by it,” he says.

“You know when I’m making songs, they mean something to me – that’s just the way I write but when it’s interpreted by someone else and translated into their situation it makes the song feel so much bigger than me…”

 

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For an artist who writes from the heart — and has 17 studio albums’ worth of emotional landmines to draw from — there’s plenty for fans to latch onto. Luckily, Diesel has the unfair advantage of being able to revisit old songs like he wrote them yesterday. His band, meanwhile, are the ones sweating bullets trying to follow his improvisational shapeshifting. Occupational hazard.

The By Request tour rolls from late January through April, pulling into Memo Music Hall in St Kilda for his one and only Victorian stop on Friday 24 April. It’s a show that lands just as whispers of album number 18 start to warm up.

“There’s generally this post-album depression pillow for me where I just itch to start a new project… But we’ve got an album in the works and I’ll be looking at mixing hopefully in early 2026,” he explains.

“This one I’ve been exploring more of the pop side. There’s always going to be a thread of blues or Americana in my music but I’m really enjoying going a little more light and vibrant with my sound.”

A lighter, brighter Diesel? That’s a whole new reason to start filling out that request list.

Tickets for By Request are on sale now — dive headfirst into Diesel’s catalogue, pick your moment, craft your case… and maybe, just maybe, your song will be the one that roars to life under his fingers.

Tickets can be purchased here.