Stories and music to tell meaningful tales

AUSTRALIAN music veteran David Bridie is touring his new album It’s Been a While Since Our Last Correspondence with a stop scheduled at the Bendigo Bank Theatre next week.

The album is a combination of spoken word and music and it was something Bridie said he was inspired to do.

“I’ve quite liked other artists who have done something like this in the past,” he said. “Like the Talking Heads and Laurie Anderson.

“I liked the idea of curating and choosing who was going to write and speak their stories. I’m really happy with the array of artists that I’ve got to do that.”

A former frontman of Not Drowning, Waving and My Friend the Chocolate Cake, Bridie said he hit up his contact list to find the best stories and storytellers he knew.

“It’s a lot of friends on the album,” he said. “I’m friends with Kutcha Edwards, I’ve worked with Catherine Deveny and Anthony Morgan in the past.

“Damian Callinan I’ve known for years, and I’ve worked with, so it’s a range of comedians and actors and writers I know.”

With a diverse mix of creative voices, Bridie said some of the artists on the album have important stories to tell.

“Farhad Bandesh, I met up on Manus Island on a trip up to Papua New Guinea,” he said.

“He was in the detention centre up there and he is a Kurdish artist and activist who’s now in Melbourne and his story is phenomenal.

“His and Kutcha’s stories are just these real, vital, and potent Australian stories. It was wonderful to be able to have them on the record and it was great to put some music to it as well.”

For the show itself, Bridie said some of his friends will come along to perform from the latest album, but there’s also a large back catalogue of music to choose from.

“The songs are from over a 30, 34, 35-year period long,” he said. “It looks at the different writing at different stages of my life.

“At different shows, we change the set list around a bit, but I always play some of the more well-known and popular tunes from my earlier bands.”

David Bridie will be performing at the Bendigo Bank Theatre on Friday 7 July with tickets available via bit.ly/3r5pnXe.