Bruce Springsteen has called Donald Trump a demagogue, saying his band are part of what the “new American resistance” against hate and division.

The singer has posted a message of solidarity with weekend protests against the new US leader and repeated his criticism in Perth on Sunday at the start of his Australian tour.

“Our hearts and our spirits are with all the millions of people that marched yesterday and the E Street Band – we are part of the new resistance,” he said during a sound check rehearsal.

Springsteen, who supported Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign, often sings of human rights and equality and his current set list has a strong political theme.

“Plenty of good people voted for Donald Trump on the basis that I’ve written about for 30 years which is that the industrialisation of the United States and globalisation and technological revolution hit many people very, very, very, very hard. The recovery that occurred in the United States didn’t really get down to a lot of those folks and so I think it makes you easy pickings for a demagogue, which I believe Donald Trump is.”

Springsteen added that he hoped Trump’s infrastructure programme would succeed in bringing jobs to places where layoffs have hit hard.

His comments came on the weekend that anti-Trump protests were held across the US.