Kicking off on Monday night, Naylor teams up with You Am I’s Davey Lane and drummer Brett Wolfenden (Dirty York, Davey Lane Band) to form Marshmallow Overcoat. “It’s all ‘60s covers,” says Naylor. “[Davey and I] share vocals and we share bass and guitar. Brett sings a couple of songs. It’s just pure joy.”
Tuesday night brings together another all-star collective, The Underlings, which features seasoned session men Peter Luscombe on drums, Bruce Haymes on keys and Steve Hadley on bass. “I call ourselves a mature age cover band,” Naylor says. “That’s a band that plays whatever it feels like. We can play Todd Rundgren or Hall & Oates or The Beatles or Led Zeppelin or Stevie Wonder.”
Wednesday night’s gig will comprise a stripped-back performance from Naylor and The Anyones’ Steve Pinkerton, alongside the rock-nerd novelty that is Solid Gold Bingo. “We did this duo thing last year at the Yarra, basically we just do ‘60s-‘70s covers,” Naylor explains. “Mick Thomas [Yarra Hotel owner/ ex-Weddings, Parties, Anything] thought it’d be great to incorporate some element of trivia into that and make it a bingo night. It was actually quite a lot of fun. We play our favourite songs but we play them in a duo format and that creates restrictions, but within those restrictions we try to maximise the sound of two people playing.”
Things begin to heat up on Thursday night thanks to a performance from The Grapes. Naylor initiated the psych-country project in the late ‘90s with fellow Melburnian songwriter Sherry Rich. In 2013, the pair released their second LP Western Sun.
“It’s always a thrill to play with Sherry,” Naylor says, “and a thrill to play with a full band. Steve Pinkerton’s drumming and Doug Robertson, formerly of Ice Cream Hands, is playing bass. We’re surrounded by friends and it’s a beautiful experience playing music with all those people.”
Then comes the main event; Friday and Saturday nights will encompass a double header of Even shows. Since the mid-‘90s, Naylor and his Even cohorts, bassist Wally Kempton and drummer Matthew Cotter, have released six albums. With two sets each night, they’ll have time to unearth plenty of old favourites.
“We won’t repeat a song,” Naylor says. “For those supporters of the band, they’ll get two nights of different material. There’ll be absolutely no order to it. It’ll just be purely what we feel like playing at the time.”
It’s only fitting for Naylorpalooza to conclude with these two gigs, as Even is the band that launched Naylor’s career. The covers shows at the start of the week will provide optimal insight into the sounds that informed Naylor’s songwriting style, which bagged Even a relatively modest but exceptionally loyal following in the twilight years of last century.
“We’ve always considered ourselves a band on the fringe of every scene,” Naylor says. “We were never hip enough to be the cool band of the ’90s. I like being a fringe-dweller, because mainstream society’s pretty stale.
“We’ve been very fortunate,” he adds. “A lot of similar bands from that era didn’t really get a shot at triple j. We got a really good run with triple j that set us up nationally, albeit on a very small scale. I try to think less about it as I get older, because none of it really matters. The only thing that matters is the music. It’s not how much money I’ve got in the bank or if I’ve got an ARIA or not. Those things don’t reflect the art.”
For much of the last decade Naylor’s been a member of Paul Kelly’s touring band, and just this year he’s joined his mate Pete Luscombe in the RocKwiz Orchestra. Interestingly enough, in his younger years Naylor was reluctant to avail himself for other people’s projects. Evidently, he’s changed his tune in recent years.
“Since Even became less active, I’ve become an adaptable team player,” he says.
“When Even was at its peak, I was fully focused on being the guy. But that has its pitfalls as well, because I just become so self-obsessed that I drive myself crazy. With the advent of parenthood and the extraction of my own head out of my own you-know-what, I became a little more balanced and not so egocentric. I want to be remembered as a great songwriter, sure, but I’m not going to sacrifice certain things to make that happen.”
Nevertheless, Even remains his most prized outlet. “I love doing everything that I do musically, but my favourite thing in the world is making an Even album,” he says. “That’s the absolute mountaintop for me. I’m so lucky I get to do all those other things that feed that and allow it to happen. It gives me the freedom to buy myself some time to do that.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
