Hello, my lovely listener wherever you may be. I’m so happy to be back with you, and very glad that you’ve decided to join me today. If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you’ll already know that I’ve got a soft spot for the blues. It’s a genre that really touches my soul. And today’s guest is one of Australia’s premier bluesman. He’s Dave hole, who first burst onto the international scene in 1991. With the first of his seven albums released by alligator records, Dave became the first non US signing for that label. No wonder Dave’s widely regarded as one of the all time slide guitar greats with Metallica’s Kirk Hammett naming him as one of his favorite guitarists. Not bad really, for a guy who grew up far away from the maddening crowd, in the hills outside of Perth in Western Australia, Phil like meeting him. Let’s do it. Dave Hall, welcome to a breath of fresh air fabulous to have your company, you’ve got an incredibly interesting story. There are many people listening to this today who may not have heard of you. And I guess that’s quite understandable, given that you’ve lived a rather isolated life, but there would be some very keen blues fans who know all about you. And I’m hoping to let everybody know about your story, because it’s a pretty awesome one, isn’t it? Well, it’s the only one I’ve got. But it’s one of his you know, so let’s start where it all began for you. And I know that at a very tender age, you discovered the guitar. Can you tell us what transpired at the age of I think you were 11 Weren’t you? When you got your first guitar?
2:19
Yeah, well, I was. I got into music by just listening on the radio. And I love the radio. I had it on 24/7 Got my parents crazy. And we go way back here to things like you know, Buddy Holly, and was Presley all that stuff. Way back, Chuck Berry.
3:08
I just loved anything with a guitar in it. So I loved any of the 20 guitar stuff that you heard on the radio. So I pestered my parents from the age of about six, actually, I was asking for a guitar. And finally they relented when I was 11. And that’s when I got my first acoustic guitar, started playing full of enthusiasm didn’t get very far. Stuck it under the bed as you do. And kind of gave up. But then, when I was 16, I met a guy at high school who was putting a band together. And this is now you know, Beatles Rolling Stones, mania, time, everyone had to be in a band, you know. And he was putting together a band and, and he wanted a rhythm guitar player and fill out the band. And I said, Oh, yeah, I play guitar, which is really not true, because I could hardly play a note. But he was really good. And he taught me a few chords. And so I got into it back into it then.
4:05
So what was it about the sound of the guitar that really got you as opposed to any other instrument?
4:13
The guitar is popular with just about everybody, right? I mean, when I heard the blues, I love the way the guitar can actually sing. You know, and some instruments sing I mean, any anything like a violin sing, and harmonicas can make vocal kinds of sounds and slide guitar, particularly as of singing quality. So I love that. But initially, it wasn’t that it was more than 20 Sort of like, I mean, it was just exciting. You got to realize that, like going back to the 1950s, though, the music that was there before we heard the rock and early rock and roll, it was pretty kind of smooth and orchestral and there was a guitar it was like really in the background and that’s something and then suddenly this this kind of really punchy instrument playing Dwayne Eddie had a few instrumentals and things like that, you know, the P Come on if you know that song, but it’s like no, no Don’t Don’t don’t know it’s a really punchy guitar riff. And you know, as a kid, I mean, I believe around on the furniture when it came on the radio and jumped around and just got excited.
5:43
You originally born in England, weren’t you? Yeah. Yeah, we end up in Western. So my parents migrated when I was four years old. What was it like at the time then growing up. I mean, you said how you spend all of your time listening to the radio.
5:57
Well, it was not far off the truth actually, because where I live was actually where I live now, or very close to where I’m living now. But it was pretty rural. I mean, we were in the middle of the Gera forest. And there was only we were on a hill. And there was only two other houses on that hill, and no other kids to play with. So I was pretty feral. I’d run around in the bush and do stuff like that. And I was pretty lonely child just by the fact that you know, I didn’t have anyone to play with so I kind of gravitated to anything like that, you know, the music was a kind of a little bit of a lifeline for me it was it was a communication of sorts. That probably I was missing in other ways. I just loved music really, but I think the the main formative influences were really the British blues things started rolling stones and the Yardbirds and John mail people like that when they kind of surface that’s when I really got serious about passionate about the music.
7:43
stayed your parents musical terms
2
Speaker 2
7:50
they saw at work My father played many people remember the old skiffle bands or skiffle groups was a thing. And my father played with a couple of his mates. They were music lovers, but they weren’t musicians.
8:05
And were they supportive of you when you were playing more and more?
8:09
They were until I got serious. They were Additionally they were quite supportive. And I thought this was good for him, you know, he’s enjoying himself. And then when I was in high school, and I got really seriously into bands, they saw that as a bit of a distraction. So I went to university, and I was still playing in bands at night, and I was studying. I think the kind of the crunch came when I graduated. I got my physics degree, and immediately turned professional musician, you know, which they didn’t. That was a great career move.
8:42
You had to go back to that time, would you make the same decision again?
8:45
No, I wouldn’t. But I don’t regret doing it. Because I, I didn’t enjoy my time at university. I enjoy it. I had a big interest in physics. It wasn’t like I was doing it reluctantly. But my passion for music was stronger. So I had my time again, no, I’d lock myself in my bedroom and keep playing guitar to get better quicker.
9:07
So you regret is that you didn’t do enough music early.
9:10
It is a natural fact looking back now it is. Because I’ve learned over the years, that you absorb things more quickly. And you’re more adept at learning stuff when you’re young. So I would have applied myself in those formative years, like, full on, I’d have been one of these 12 hours a day. guitar players in the bedroom, you know, tight for hours, like I did.
9:32
So at age 16 When you joined the band, how good were you?
9:36
Oh, crap, totally. I took a learner. I learned as we went along. I could only play single notes. I was terrible at chords, and I wasn’t very good at anything. But I could play single notes just in a way it’s easier. So I kind of became the lead guitarist and just went from there really?
9:51
And your influences, I believe changed at that time too, didn’t you? You You got much more into the traditional blues.
9:58
Well, yes, I really I discovered the traditional blues by like so many of my generation but via the Rolling Stones, and the Yardbirds, and the other British bands, the animals always con bands and they were always doing covers of traditional blues which we’d never heard here and most people in England hadn’t even heard, but they were they always credited their influences and their stones did Little Red Rooster and they credited Howling Wolf as it being a Howling Wolf song and money well this Their name was derived from Muddy Waters song so that was intriguing and you know, you read the liner notes on early Rolling Stones arms and think well who are these guys? They’re copying who are they? I mean, they must be amazing and of course they were but we just couldn’t get the records and eventually we did. I made mine got the first deep blues that I heard a muddy waters record that was a seminal that yeah, it was an epiphany I you know the clouds parted and the sunshine I just was bowled over when I heard Muddy Waters right I couldn’t believe that music could be so powerful and that really set my course from there so one of the records, I mean, we made terrible mistakes like we’d only order a Muddy Waters name is McKinley Morgan sale. So you’d see that writing credit on a song and being McKinley Morganfield has written this song. We all McKinley Morganfield record on record chapters, so there’s no one. There’s no one of that name. Yeah. We didn’t even know that that was muddy waters. And they had these things, Chester Burnett, which was Howlin Wolf.
12:48
I’m chatting with Dave Hall. He’s one of the all time slide guitar greats and he’s talking to us from his home in Perth in Western Australia. Dave, tell us about what happened to you in 1976. Because that turned your life completely around, didn’t it?
Yeah, no, it was as far as my style of playing slide guitar is it was big influence because I broke the little normally you put the slide, which most people would know, you know, to metal tube or a bottle neck or something, you know, on your little thing of the left hand and playing the guitar slide up and down the thing. And I started to do that, because I was a huge fan of Elmore James and I wanted to try and do a couple of his songs. So I started to do that. And I only really just started learning it. And I went and kicked end to end when my mate was playing football and went up for a speaking Mark came down with a broken little finger. You talking Ozzy rules football, Ozzy rules, yes, yeah. So I had a cast on it. And I was playing in a band at this time. And I couldn’t play ordinary guitars and I couldn’t play guitar at all was cumbersome thing on there. But the slide that I had does fit quite snugly on the index finger on my left hand, and I could manage to just drape it over the neck and sort of fiddle around that way. And I thought I know what I’ll do is six weeks or so that I’m going to have to recover I’ll I’ll just fiddle around and find out. Because slide is a different tuning. You don’t use normally standard guitar when you can, but it was a different tuning. And so I didn’t know where the notes were but I was looking for you know, so I’m gonna learn all that stuff. And then when I get back into it when I get the cast off my finger. And so I sort of doodle around and making Yeah, this is kind of cool. So then I couldn’t wait. I got the cast off my finger put the slide back on so called correct finger. And it was all over the place was hopeless. Because I’d got in that short time, I’d gotten used to playing over the top of the neck. So the one thing seemed like a big deal because I was only going to do one or two songs on the slide guitar as a novelty. So they just grew from there because people would come up to me at the gig and they’d say, you know that one way you put that thing on your finger. Can you do that one again. And I love that song and two songs became three and four. It started to become a monster and took over more or less by popular demand.
15:49
You got noticed right around the world for that, didn’t you?
15:52
Well, when I made my first album, the very first thing actually was the guy that I sent a CD to the editor of Guitar Player magazine, Germany, promotional thing I did, I made the first CD and I fired one off because I loved Guitar Player magazine. And occasionally they did little articles in the back about local people, you know, this, this, this is, you know, building so from MIT, Wisconsin and Nick place, and I thought they might give me a little mention. So I sent it off. And he rang me up in the middle of the night, raving about it. And he said, but what are you doing, something’s different. And he so he heard straight away, that there was something unusual in the way I was playing. And of course, it was that I was playing over the top of the neck. So he could hear from the sound of it not, not just from the looks of it, but from the sound of it, that there was something unusual. And when I got a record deal and went to American started touring, the press made a huge thing of that, you know, like it’s playing over the top from down and over. And it was cutting funding to hang their stories on that was pretty surreal, actually, because I didn’t think it was anything special and everything just snowballed from that initial interaction with Guitar Player magazine, and they also push my case with different record companies.
17:08
What took you so long to produce your first album?
17:11
Living in Perth there was no way to record so there was no decent recording studios here. There was no interest in blues in Australia. As a matter of fact, I did make a small demo tape and I did send it to all the record companies in Australia. Most of them didn’t reply and one of them said Well, no, we can’t do that. Well, no one wants blues in Australia. We’re a very much pop oriented country
17:35
So you ground breaking with the way you playing slide guitar you ground breaking with being the first in Perth or in Western Australia. Indeed, maybe even in Australia to be making CDs. What can you name your favorite tune in on that first CD?
17:48
I think it’s short fuse blues, probably the that’s the title of the album, and I still play it at most shows. If you want to hear that song. You just have to wait a sec, because we’ll be right back.
18:08
Thanks for hanging in. I’m chatting with one of Australia’s premier slide guitar and blues masters Dave Holt. He’s a humble musical genius who hides himself away in the hills outside of Perth in Western Australia. This is one of his favourite songs. And the one that really saw him breakthrough in the US. It’s called short fuse blues.
19:33
Had a following that it was a local thing. People who were there week after week. You know, there was one particular gig I used to do every Sunday. And this place would hold about 400 people and it was packed every Sunday. And so we I did that for about five years. It was great. But of course it was preaching to the converted but it kept me afloat till such time as I could venture further afield, and of course, Bruce Iglau was the president of Alligator records got a hold of you? He signed you to alligator records with short fuse blues. And you became the labels first and only non US based signing? First for Dave Hall.
20:14
Yes. Yeah, that’s right. I took a bit of a gamble on me. Because initially, Jazzy Brett from Guitar Player magazine rang Bruce and said, you know that this guy you gotta hear in blah, blah, blah. Send a Copy to Bruce. And Bruce sent me a letter actually, well effects, you know, saying, I do love the album. But we only really deal with American artists. It’d be too hard. And you’re across the other side of the world. Reluctantly, we’re not going to offer you a deal or anything. I thought this was wonderful getting a letter from Bruce Ziegler. But I tried to tell my friends, there’s a rejection letter really, you know, I showed it to my friends. I will say pride. I’m so thrilled that he liked that level. And, you know, I saw that three weeks went by, and then he actually phoned me and he said, Have you signed with anyone yet? Well, no. And he says, Well, I’m reconsidered. We’d like to have you on the label. And, and this happened, I realized, I’ve worked out later because I now know stuff from alligator, you know, well, but they had been pestering him. So that the typical record company every Monday morning, they have a meeting, about how how’s everything going, and anything particular, you know, that we should be, you know, new signings, anything new music, what we should be doing, and every time they’d say, What about Dave Hall, and it’s nice to have, you know, like, so bad three weeks, three, Mondays in a row. And there was one one lady actually, who was like, she was sort of the a&r person there at the time. And she was particularly vehement about signing me and she was also the one who had recommended Stevie Ray Vaughn to Bruce Sigler. And Bruce had turned Stevie Ray down she sort of had a little bit of kudos there you know, like don’t do it again. So yeah.
22:47
Stevie passed away in 1990 at the age of 35. Despite the fact that his mainstream career spanned only seven years, He’s regarded as one of the most influential musicians in the history of blues music, and one of the Greatest Guitarists of All Time to delegate and having their staple of the time but their big star was Albert Collins, they had people like Johnny Winter, Roy Buchanan, Billy Branch, Otis Rush, the people that I liked, I mean, that’s why I wanted to be on alligator, probably a good 75% of my CDs that I was fine. At the time. Were alligator, obviously, that I yearned to be on that label. I mean, I didn’t drain that I’d ever been on the label.
23:36
I mean, a stupid question. I can imagine the answer, but how did you feel then when the signing got done?
23:41
Oh, brilliant. I mean, but it was all quick. It was like, you know, okay, now we’re gonna put the record out because I’d already made it that didn’t have to record it. They just took it as it was. And so what we’re gonna release it and you’ve got a tour, that was the thing that was like, you know, pack your bags and let’s go.
24:30
It was a baptism of fire. We landed in Chicago’s the home of blues in America, and we have one night off to be basically rehearse. And then the next night, the first gig and it was a Buddy Guy’s legends club in Chicago, and it was sold out. They promoted it really heavily, you know, this guy from Australia and press were all there and but the guy was there, you know, it was like, I’d died and gone to heaven. You know? It went really well and the reviews like in the Chicago Tribune and that will go on And we’re off and running. We only had two nights off in the nine weeks off the tour. And everything was one night as we really ran ourselves into the ground. And I think the whole band lost kilos, I never really drained and I would ever do the touring America as a blows out. I mean, God knows I don’t need blues artists to import blues artists, they’ve got, you know, enough of their irons. So it just seemed like unrealistic. And you get that imposter syndrome, where you actually think I don’t really belong here. People are saying, Oh, it’s great. And you know, you’re touring. And this is me what’s going on? You know, you don’t feel like you belong in in that context. realize that’s not unusual for artists.
25:44
So what was it about you? I mean, you were an exceptional guitar player. But was it that unique way of playing slide that really got everybody’s attention?
25:52
I think it was, it was probably the thing that tweaked clear interest. The first album was like 50%, slide guitar songs and 50% band and blues guitar. But I think that did get a lot of interest. It’s really hard to analyse your own playing and performances, especially with blues you just do what you do. You just do what feels what you feel in your heart and you just express yourself through the instrument. And you’re saying and you know, when you’re with people like that, it’s great
to be objective about yourself for sure. But I mean, you had people like Metallica’s Kirk Hammett saying your slide playing kills him. There were others like Gary Moore who heard that album Short Fuse blowers who was so impressed that he invited you to come and do some European tours with him didn’t it?
26:35
Yes, that’s right. Did a couple of tours with Gary and I think that’s probably the best thing for a musician like myself is if your peers but also that especially your idols if they like what you do. I mean one of my highlights was when I just rushed through I told you I grew up playing his record over and over in my bedroom when I was a teenager when he came to us twice came to a show of mine in Chicago and both times came up and played and that was surreal.
28:19
A review of you in blues review said that if this guy played with any more feeling, you’d have to go on Prozac. I like that. Did you read your own reviews?2
28:29
Well, not all of them. You know, I mean? Yeah, well, certain certain tire lights and things. I mean, the record companies always collect all reviews of all our artists, so you know, any, and any good ones. They use them in promotion, if it’s appropriate. But obviously, you know, when you’re touring America, like a breakneck speed, and you’re going from town to town, I mean, a lot of the press that you you’re doing interviews all the time, and going, like usual thing you’d get to a town, go straight to a radio station and do the local radio thing and then do a soundcheck and then find get a bite to do the show. Sign things, try and get a bit of sleep, get up traveled. And next, do the radio, you know, so you’re on to the point where it’s no time to sort of think about reading.
29:17
So how long after did the next album come by?
29:21
Well, pretty quick. I made an album really quickly. I think it was about I think it was just over a year that the next one was released. And the record company’s existence. Yeah, well, they It starts by mutual agreement, but I tended to because I’m now working on that one. Mm 11. So, but I tended for the first few that was like about 18 months into and that seemed to be about, well, that as quick as I could turn him out, actually, by the time you tour on the back of an album, and you’re trying to write songs and get material together at the same time and then record it works on the basis of when when it’s going to be the release and then you know So when do you need to have the recording done by when you have the mixing and the mastering thing done. So there was a period of time, I think the first 10 years, particularly, but really for 20 years, where I just wasn’t processed, you know, we just making wasn’t boring, but it’s like this, you know, you make a record, you tour on it, and you promote it. And then you take a little bit of time to get together the next material, which you’ve probably been working on all along anyway, do and then repeat the repeat the cycle? Did you see it as a pressure on you to keep turning them out?
30:35
It didn’t seem too bad. I mean, there was times when it was a bit of pressure. Yeah, I’m particularly released, the record company, you know, has to work on, you know, you’ve got distributors, everything’s got to be done in a certain order in a certain timeframe. So at times, I was like, yeah, you’ve got to get it done. By this time. And, and the other thing, I think that the biggest pressure I found was, when we book a studio to do a recording, and it’d be a lockout. So you know, you’ve booked the studio for this week, and then I catch a cold, and I have to do the vocals. And so you’re struggling to do the vocals you’re not at your best, but you just have to do it. There are some songs on certain albums that I can hear. And I’m going I wish I could do that again because I was struggling having flu or cold.
32:16
How would you describe the evolution of those albums? How did they change one to the next?
32:22
Well they changed but I don’t know if evolution is the right word, because the blues is something that it’s kind of timeless. I mean, I dig back, even now today. I mean, I’ve write songs in the style of that someone like sun house, or some of these old guys that were playing in the 1930s it’s a big influence on me. Some of those Charley Patton, and John Robert Johnson and all that, so I don’t think it’s like an evolution for me personally or even for blues in general. It is what it’s kind of what it is. Every song is different, every performance is different because it’s improvised. And because it’s comes from where you are at that time. So my albums when I hear them or think about them, they are associated with a particular time and a particular era and particular songs have meaning of significance to me and it’s kind of like they’re just they’re all different but I wouldn’t say that they’d like this one is builds on this one and build on this and then change direction don’t end to this one. They do have character, slightly different characters. Some of them are more full-on some of the more slightly more introspective in the songs that I was writing songs you know, depending on what was going on in your life at the time Yeah,
well when my father died I did the next album I did was under the spell and you can hear either on quite melancholy it’s all it’s all pretty down and there’s a couple of songs about my father on there and stuff. So it reflects your life the songs you do and why you play them?
34:42
By the time you got to the album ticket to Chicago, you had some incredible players on there with you. Tell us about that.
34:48
Yes, well that was using Johnny became the bass player was Albert Collins bass player. Really the rest of the band was made up pretty much as buddy guys band. Recording with him was was wonderful. because they were just such great players, he did alligator put those guys together for you, or were you able to call on Him to do? Um, pretty much? I mean, well, we all we discussed, Johnny B Gaiden was never going to I said, Can we get Johnny? Can we get him, you know, and so, yeah, we’ve gotten contacts and he was keen to do it. That will go on. So I knew well, I knew their work.
35:23
And you still with Alligator today?
35:25
Not as such last time I did, or at least more or less independently. The problem being that with COVID I couldn’t tour in America. And it’s pretty essential, particularly now, the way the record industry has gone now. As we all know, it’s all streaming and everything like that. And live performance is now the big money earner used to be. Do live performances to promote your record when you put a record out to promote a live performances.
35:55
How things have changed. Stick around to hear what Dave’s up to today.
36:08
So glad you’re still with me. I’m sure if you hadn’t have heard of him before. By now you’ve come to really appreciate Dave hauls, energetic, high volume, rock and roll blues music and very unusual playing style. While unfortunate for the USA and Europe. Given that it’s 75. Dave’s unlikely to tour there again, there is some good news ahead. For Ozzy fans.
36:31
My age is pretty grueling. I’ve done it for 25 years. I don’t know if I’m particularly keen to do more of the same for another how many years and then drop dead. We do get festival offers and stuff, maybe just do a couple of interesting things. We’ve been sort of not accepting them lately.
36:50
I get that too. It’s a huge effort, everything gets harder. Certainly, post COVID The whole travel situation got amazingly worse. And as one gets older, it all seems a bit too high. There wouldn’t be too much lift on your bucket list to achieve you’ve gone beyond your wildest dreams in your career anyway.
37:07
Well, I have in the blues market is you know, so I’ve never been one setting goals to achieve. I’ve never been like that. Things that have happened, as we’ve discussed to me have been more or less coincidences. I’m just one of our really lucky guy that I got to record and that someone got to hear it and you know, so it’s all kind of happened to me. And I’ve never been overly ambitious but I have done things that I feel like I don’t know, I’ve just been repeating myself really which has nothing wrong with that because I enjoy playing to audiences. I mean, I love playing but there’s no real imperative to sort of get out there and like make a name for myself and all that sort of thing. I just I kind of do what I want to do.
38:31
My German agent used to phone me and he’d say, you know, we’ve got this festival and it’s a really great festival pays really good money, you know, very good. And then, you know, a few a few years ago, I said, Yeah, I’m really mainly interested. I really want to do things that I enjoy. So now I get phone calls. And there’s this festival day and it will be such fun that’s the sales pitch now. You’ll love it.
39:32
Dave, you’ve got a new album out now too, haven’t you?
39:36
Well, now it’s I’m working on a new one, but it’s not released. The latest one was released a month something like that go that’s going back down.
40:17
What’s the song-writing process like for you? Do you write the music first and then pop the lyrics on top or the lyrics come first,
40:24
there’s a bit of both. But more often than not, it’s the music. Although I tend to have a whole collection of lyrical ideas, you know, stuff that comes up, and I jot them down. So they might not be like complete songs, but they’re starting points for songs, and maybe ideas or concepts that might evolve into a song. And then when I get a musical idea, if it doesn’t immediately present itself as music and lyrics, which sometimes does, then I’ll look through those lyrics and get that you just grasp inspiration from wherever you came really with these things.
40:57
And the lyrics come to you from everyday life.
41:02
Yeah, for the most part, I mean, some of them are personal. Some of them are written about events, or people I know. Other things can be triggered by simple things, like someone will say something like a dead or alive or subtle, you know, just saying that’s common in their language. And it will sort of give you an idea for a song to build on. Yeah, yeah, wherever and whenever.
41:27
So you’re not under any pressure to put this next album out. And you release that yourself, too, will you?
41:32
Yeah, I think so I have the opportunity at any time to release to to go through the record company I used a lot in America, alligator records. Always open to me to do that. But there’s a proviso and that means I have to go there and do some pretty heavy touring to promote. To be perfectly frank, record, companies are becoming less and less important for people like myself, because they only using the same channels, it’s all streaming now. So they’re really, really their promotional machines, record companies, which you can do your own promotion, really, if you want to spend money on it. So it’s this changing. I mean, it’s probably different. If you’re an up and coming pop star, you know, and you really want to get elevated to the sort of upper echelons of the pop world or something like that. I mean, you probably probably still need one of the major companies to get behind you and do everything that’s necessary. But for people like myself, which is more of a niche thing.
42:30
And of course, you don’t need to grow an audience, you just need to let your audience know that you’ve got a new release.
42:37
That’s right, I have nothing. It’s not as a cult following. And so those people are kind of on board already. And I can let them know that there’s a new album and they’ll find out anyway, but you hope to sort of get a few new people each time.
43:48
Used to be obviously, years ago, if you didn’t have a record, you’ve been using a record company, have you distributed your mind or your CD or whatever? You needed record companies to access the record shops and distribution networks in America and Europe and all that? Well, now, because we’re streaming, it’s that short circuit of that requirement. So I still will go through the company that I’ve been I used last time that to warehouse stuff in the States, for example, it’s all doable.
44:18
And if you’ve managed to circumvent the record company, take the money yourself. Why do we always think of Spotify or Apple Music? But there’s actually literally hundreds of streaming services?
44:29
Yeah. Your age to have kept up with all this modern technology and the whole new way of doing music? I guess you had no choice?
44:38
Well, that’s probably right. But I don’t feel I’m up on it really particularly, you’ve got to sort of hang in there bit by bit by sort of trying to go with the times because otherwise, there’s no point you know, I mean, it’s things are changing. Everything’s changing on almost a weekly basis. Now. I mean, the whole AI thing coming into recording industry is going to really change things again, so who knows where it’s going.
45:01
We’ve certainly seen a lot of changes in our lifetimes, haven’t we? Yeah. This is it. Yeah.
45:08
Dave, just point us to your favourite track from that latest album that is available. Which one do you like best?
45:15
I do like the song too little too late. I mean, it just like it musically. It is lyrically about a slightly pessimistic point of view about global warming and where we’re going, you know, are we doing too little too late for everything? That’s sort of the thrust of it. So yeah, just like it’s worked out quite well.
46:50
I did want to ask you about fact that you are out touring around Australia again. I happened to catch your show just a few months back when you were in Melbourne. And I believe you’re coming back to Victoria soon. Tell me about this tour that you’re doing and who you’re working with?
47:05
Yeah, well, let’s say the kings of the blues lineup again, that’s myself, and Jeff Atchison, and Shane Pacey. And we sort of front a really good rhythm section. It’s a celebration of the music of the three things are the blues, Bb, Freddie and Albert King. And it’s so much fun to do. It’s absolutely great. And I’m really enjoying the camaraderie and doing songs that I’ve been listening to all my life songs of those guys that I learned to play listening to those and so it’s really a no brainer for me platelet stuff, and it’s great, and it’s been well received.
48:01
For anybody who doesn’t know Jeff Acheson, and Shane Pacey, can you tell us a little bit about them? Yeah. Well, Shane is best known for the Bondi cigars, which is a band out of Sydney, right? Yeah, Sydney blues band well known around Australia to any blues enthusiasts. And he also fronts his own little shine pasty trio. And then Jeff Epstein is known mainly around Melbourne, because he’s a Melbourne guy. And he’s had a band called Jeff Acheson in the soul, because that’s been pretty well known.
48:30
The three of you are an incredibly powerful combination, you just click Don’t you, there’s so much chemistry between you. The connection is the music. You know, we all love that music. And the thing we have to be aware of is we all front Aran bands. So we’re all used to being it’s all about me, you know, when we play with our own bands, that we’re very careful and we’re very considerate of each other in will in one song, one of us will be taking the vocals and maybe the lead of the song and the other support that person you were swapping around throughout the show, taking the lead on a song, the fact that we are all able to keep our own egos in check enough to turn off works is something of a miracle for League guitar players. But it’s fun and it’s good. Enjoying it, but there’s still scope. You know, we haven’t been to Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, there’s possibility of doing this there as well.
49:25
And what about a recording? That would be another thing we’ve got to watch out that we don’t get seen as a tribute band, you know, because we’re not we’re not trying to play notes and I like BB King and King not that we could because they were had their amazingly original styles. We’re drawing on this thing, but we’re doing our own thing with their songs and been the star wars but it’s not what you would call a tribute band
49:51
Yet you are paying tribute to them in a huge way, bringing their music back to people that have loved either their sound or to audiences that have never even heard Have them and you’re doing it with such style and such passion and enthusiasm, it’s infectious. You must come out of a performance just exhausted.
50:10
Getting a little bit like that these days, but not really I it’s, it’s for me, it’s fun. It’s an enjoyable thing to do. I just have playing guitar and playing blues. The time on stage is always the best time to like when you’re touring, you haven’t slept for days, and you can’t get time to eat proper food and all that. But the time on stage is the payoff. That’s what you have.
50:35
Thank you so much for chatting with me today. Can’t wait, as I said to see you back here and for our American and European and anywhere else fans listening. They can get hold of your CDs, they can listen to you, and maybe not necessarily see you so much. We’ll just keep you here in Australia.
50:52
On Thanks. It’s been a pleasure.