“We played at the Sydney Opera House this year as part of the Independent Music Awards – we won Artist Of The Year a couple of years ago,” Frasca reminisces. “These big iconic venues of Australia are the ones you dream of playing at. We look at each other as a band and we go, it’s really fucking worth it – we played at the Sydney Opera House! We went to New York and recorded an album. Just that itself was an amazing achievement. When I first started making music I couldn’t’ see myself working with an internationally acclaimed producer in another country. I think a lot of people limit themselves when it comes to how big they dream. Once you take the limits off and look at it realistically, you go, ‘What steps do I have to take to make that goal a reality?’
“We really try and build on what our strengths are as a group. I’ve got such a great team. We’ve spent many years building and getting there. There’s a really great energy pushing behind what we do as a band. It’s a belief that we can do lots of different things, and you’re always striving for that next big one. With the International Songwriting Competition it’s opened a great many doors in Europe – we sold all these albums over there. We’re actually going to head over there and spend some time playing next year which will be really exciting and completely different for us – we’re looking forward to that.”
And where did the evocative title Sound Painter come from? “There’s a great fella by the name of B-Rad who is one of the most incredibly unique legends that I have had the pleasure to cross paths with. He writes these incredibly long emails that are just wild, and he’s been calling me the sound painter for many years. We tossed around maybe 30 names for the album but it just kept coming back to Sound Painter, because that’s what we are as musicians really.”
But B-Rad isn’t Frasca’s only fan After launching Bob Irwin’s Wildlife Foundation with the legendary Slash (we’re not worthy), the guitar god and his band made it clear in no uncertain terms that they dug Dallas Frasca’s sound. “There was a good 20 minutes of air-fisting in the care from my guitarist,” remembers Frasca. “These are the musicians that we grew up with and were inspired by. He’s the world’s best-known guitarist. He’s just an absolute champion. His heart is in the right place, he’s involved in animal activism. He uses his influential role for some really good causes.”
Asked about the process of creating Sound Painter, Frasca reflects, “We had this thing in the band where we always put 100% of our energy into our live shows and improving them. I had this huge light-bulb moment in my lounge room when I was sitting across from Jeff Curran, our guitarist, who is one of the most talented musicians I know. He plays left-handed and upside-down, he’s quite a unique guitarist. I hear him constantly playing across from me on the couch or in the van – wherever we are – and I was just like I feel like our audiences have only seen around 10% of our musical capability. They’ve seen our crazy antics on stage and that’s always been where our strength is but I ended up going, ‘Okay, let’s just completely stop, take some time off, and put that creative energy into songwriting and working on the album.’
“We ended up coming up with 100 ideas, 100 songs – a lot of them shit. We spent four and a half months every single night working on these songs. By the time we got to New York to record we were ready. We recorded demos on our iPhones, Skyped with our producer Andy Baldwin all the time. Andy definitely pushed us beyond our limits. He’s just a magical character. Everyone who has met him just goes ‘what a guy’. We would never have made the same album if it wasn’t for him. There were lots of factors that made the album what it is, but we put the work in.
“Our audiences over the last six months have made this a really positive experience for us,” says Frasca as the Sound Painter tour is coming to an end. “These will be the final shows for the tour in Australia. It’ll be the biggest show that we’ve done in Melbourne.”
BY JOSH FERGEUS
