Las Vegas Weekly

November 27, 2009 · 1:36 PM

Twenty years ago today, Human Nature took root on the farm

By John Katsilometes

Kym Johnson and Imperial Palace headliners Human Nature.

Photo: Harrah's

The four guys attended Hurlstone Agricultural High School in Glenfield, Australia, about 35 miles east of their hometown of Sydney because their parents wanted them to receive a superior education. Hurlstone offered that, as it was set on farmland where the students grew and harvested vegetables and tended to livestock.

“None of us liked it. We were city slickers,” Andrew Tierney of the transplanted Australian vocal group Human Nature said Tuesday afternoon. “But we learned to milk a cow. We gave them pregnancy tests. I’ve had my hand inside a cow. My whole arm up a cow, actually.”

For this, he wore a long sleeve, up to his shoulder.

But beyond cultivating what was provided on the Hurlstone farm, Tierney, his younger brother Mike and his friends Toby Allen and Phil Burton sought to grow musically. They had developed a manner of vocal harmonization that impressed their classmates more than their ability to draw milk from a cow, and in November 1989 entered a “battle of the bands”-styled audition among musical acts from all prep schools in the district.

“My idea for us was to sing a song we’d known from Back to the Future, Earth Angel, and we sang it in the audition and earned our way into the show,” Tierney said. The foursome who would become Human Nature sang at a public performance for the first time. It was on this very date, actually, so the guys in Human Nature are celebrating their 20th anniversary today.

“We did the concert and were on our way,” Tierney said.

There also is a thread connecting the Dancing With the Stars championship duo to Human Nature. Kym Johnson, Donny Osmond’s professional dance partner, attended prep school with Michael Tierney. The Tierney’s mother, Wendy, taught piano to Kym Johnson’s mother, Barbara.

“Kym came from the same suburb as we did, so we’ve been friends since we were little kids,” Andrew said. “She’s always been a real standout, she loves music. Her and her mom have been to the show, they saw us even before we did our first performance (at Imperial Palace). It is really a small world.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at twitter.com/JohnnyKats.

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