the bhagavad guitars were formed in 1985 as inner circle in canberra by jeremy butterworth on guitar, vocals and flute, john underwood (a.k.a. john kilbey) on guitar and vocals, kynan hughes on bass guitar and matt kerr on drums. as teenagers they had played together in a band while students at dickson college. in 1987 they relocated to sydney and renamed themselves, the new name, "was derived from a pun on the title of the hindu book "bhagavad gita"." butterworth later reflected, "we started off seriously interested in eastern thinking, different philosophies, meditation... etc but now we're more cynical."