“Well this has been the fourth record I’ve done with Paul,” Dan says of the creative bond which started with 2004’s Ways & Means. “He’s always open to what the people he’s working with have to say – we’ve co-written some of the songs. He knows what he wants, but he doesn’t really have session musicians,” Dan explains. “He values musicians’ opinions. It’s definitely a Paul Kelly record, it’s not trying to meld our two styles. But you would probably find my personality in there if you knew what you were looking for.”
Immediately after wrapping up duties on the Paul Kelly record, Dan will jet back to London to continue work on his own record. With his prior release resoundingly sonically uninhibited, Dan’s unclear whether this record will continue down that path. “It’s hard to tell at the moment, it depends on how I mix it. Hopefully not as sprawling, information-overloading as the last one,” he smiles. “It’s pretty diverse, but I think I still need to write a few hit singles for this one. So I’ll probably mix the guts of it and then come back to write a couple more tracks. Now I’ve got an idea of what it’s sort of sounding like, then you can go back and tailor a few songs to kind of finish it.”
It’s hard to define what a hit single is in this day and age. Dan has received a fairly strong presence on Triple J and community radio throughout his career – not that such a reception constitutes a hit single. “I just think of a song that’s kind of catchy, one that kind of distils the ideas into something more understandable,” Dan examines. “I’m not thinking too hard about who is going to be into it. It’s that right combination of simplicity and hook-iness. I really like the songs I’ve written so far, but I could probably top it off. I have a bit of a plan that just hasn’t become a reality yet. “
Each record Dan has released, from the first two Alpha Males records to Dan Kelly’s Dream avoid adhering to a clearly defined genre. “The three records I’ve done, and the EP, I’ve pretty much altered my thing pretty radically,” he assesses. “The first one was very rock and roll, the second one was this tropicalia-indie thing, then the last record was just full on plus the kitchen sink. They’re all driven by the narrative of what’s going on in my head – I suppose that’s a really obvious thing to say. But they’re not tailored to a specific style. I seem to work from a general theme and come up with songs that are loosely related, then I just put the best ones on the record. It might have started as a concept record, but I just use the best songs in the end. There’s not much point having a concept if the songs are boring. This one I’ve tried to be a bit looser.”
“I’ve been in Brunswick working in a mudbrick studio with a friend. It’s super casual, the band’s been playing together for a couple of years now. I put the band together after the last record – the songs were already demoed. But this record, we became a live band and just played a lot. We went in and had a series of jams. I was making an effort not to think about the industry – or money – or anything boring like that. I used some of those jams – the band didn’t even know. We’d just make some stuff up, or I had an idea and turned it into a song. They thought it was just a rehearsal, but I sneakily overdubbed a bunch of shit on it,” he grins.
“I’d play the band the songs and they’d ask ‘did I play on that?’ That’s been kind of fun, we’ve got a good krautrock song, a more Curtis Mayfield tune, then more of a spastic Alex Chilton vibe, loose ‘70s space rock, and that Roxy Music sort of sound. It’s pretty diverse again.”
You can expect the new record to reflect the eclectic nature of its writing and recording process, which has pinballed from across the globe. “Last year I had a few weeks in London during the riots, and we wrote a bunch of songs. So it’s a real mix of stuff that we wrote on a computer in Dalston while people were burning buildings underneath us, plus these hippy collective krautrock jams we made in Brunswick,” Dan laughs. “It’s definitely not a super-industry orientated record, which I’m really happy about.”
BY LACHLAN KANONIUK
