Not many can claim the wit and charisma of Damian Cowell. A force to be reckoned with, Cowell has long kept the entertainment industry on its toes as the frontman for anarchic alt-rockers TISM, Root! and the DC3 – but at this year’s Darebin Music Feast, his powerhouse mega-project Damian Cowell’s Disco Machine will be channelling their trademark energy into the Feast’s grand finale: The Reservoir Stomp.
“I think it’s where I feel like I fit in best,” Cowell says. “I certainly don’t fit in the inner city – the alarm bells usually go off when I walk into a ‘cool’ venue. Not saying that the Resi Bowls Club isn’t cool, but I feel that I’m communicating on a level that people understand when I’m out in the ‘burbs.
“I’m actually looking forward to seeing The Fauves,” he continues. “I’d spent some quality time on buses with them in the ’90s, and they’re a very edified and innate group of individuals. Despite their deliberately shambolic image, they’re all extremely well-read gentlemen and I think they remain underrated to this day. It’s going to be one of the highlights for me.”
A day of comedy, music, food and barefoot bowls, The Reservoir Stomp promises to electrify – something Cowell relishes. On top of a high-octane live show, the Disco Machine’s latest album, Get Yer Dag On, continued their blend of cheeky social commentary and boppy beats with a choc-a-block lineup of guests (including Judith Lucy, Shaun Micallef, Adalita, The Bennies and Kate Miller-Heidke, to name a few). Never one to disappoint, Cowell promises a great time.
“Given the fact that I’m sort of plain-looking, I’ve surrounded myself with beautiful people,” Cowell says. “There’s a video-screen going the whole time, because everyone these days is able to fragment their consciousness, and I’m up with the zeitgeist on that. Everything’s happening – it’s a wide-screen experience. You know that none of it is particularly high-brow, and that makes you feel – hopefully – reasonably comfortable. This is not Kafka. This is ‘Jessie’s Girl’.”
Cowell’s uniquely dystopian disco has long struck a chord. It’s fun, but unashamedly honest. “I just sort of throw in a few little parts,” he explains. “It’s like when you have a beautiful Indian curry which you’ve made yourself, and you chomp on a bit of cardamom in there.” Constantly traversing the worlds of comedy and music, Cowell’s razor-sharp satire has developed a generation-spanning following.
“If I was going to be true to myself, I have to say I’d rather there not be so much material to write about,” Cowell admits. “It would be a nicer thing if the world wasn’t threatened by people with bad haircuts and we weren’t about to vote on something that I reckon in about 50 years time, they’ll be looking back and going, ‘They actually had a vote on that?’
“I can’t explain the yield that my stuff’s had, but it does seem to have – that’s why I’m still around, I suppose,” Cowell continues. “I get hugged by blokes in supermarkets who say that I changed their lives, which is pretty weird, y’know. I’m totally beholden to these people. It’s wonderful that somewhere along the line I seem to have touched a nerve.”
His trademark self-deprecation aside – “Most of my songs position me as a character who has chosen an incredibly boring life and yet still complains about it,” he half-jokes – Cowell’s keen to welcome new friends to their “happy little family” at this year’s Resi Stomp. Among an incredible lineup, Disco Machine’s ready to party, and show why the neighbourhood shindig is so important.
“At the risk of sounding incredibly old and ‘my-day’, when I was a teenager, bands who had records out – who were on the radio, or on TV – would be playing in the suburbs, in all those horrendous beer-bars,” Cowell says.
“Rock was in the suburbs, and for so long it hasn’t been. I really reckon this kind of thing is, I believe, the way of the future. Maybe things will turn around. Who knows? We might have a new Billy Thorpe.”
