Dave Graney is still doing it his own way

DAVE Graney has been making music his own way for decades, and likes it that way.

The idiosyncratic and highly prolific singer-songwriter and his long-time musical partner Clare Moore are touring nationally to promote their new rock-influenced album Laburnum Of The Mind, and will play in Geelong next week.

Graney has been putting out albums since the late 1970s in various guises – including Dave Graney ‘n’ the Coral Snakes – and with various collaborators.

He has settled on a core lineup over the past 20 years, featuring himself, Moore, guitarist Stuart Perera and bassist Stu Thomas.

“I like all the records we’ve made,” he said. “They’re all different approaches affected by technology, sometimes.

“All of our ones for the past 10 years we’ve probably done at the same studio in a way that we like and we record them really quickly.”

Graney said the latest album was broadly a “rock” record but even that genre description only went so far.

“You can say it’s a rock record to people, and they can still be confused about what you mean,” he said.

He said Laburnum Of The Mind was tonally similar to a swathe of bands, reeling off The Doors, Wire, Urge Overkill, Steely Dan, Queens Of the Stone Age, The Replacements, Pulp, Roxy Music, The Fall and The Blue Oyster Cult.

“Those kinds of lyrical flights and suspensions, Bo Diddley and Latin beats and diminished and augmented chords. Expensive inversions. Flash stuff,” he said.

“Though there is also a lot of dumb, irrational, loose and goofy as well.”

Graney’s cat also made a contribution to the album.

“She just jumped on the piano and pushed over some boxes and so I kept it on the recording,” he said.

“She’s a genius, like all cats.

“I didn’t allow her any songwriting credits; that would be encouraging her.”

Graney lives in Melbourne’s suburbs – the new album takes its name from a station on the Belgrave Line between Box Hill and Blackburn – and has never aspired to be part of the inner city music scene.

“Melbourne’s a cliquey place and I’m not in any cliques,” he said.

“I’m an older artist but old artists are supposed to write and sing sad, reflective melancholy music and I don’t do anything like that.

“If you ask me about what the scene is, the scene in Melbourne has Dave Graney and Claire Moore in it.

“And if it didn’t have us in it, it would be a bit poorer, you know, because we’re doing our own thing, and have done it for a long time.”

In Geelong, Graney will play two sets with a selection of songs from Laburnum Of The Mind as well as tracks from throughout his career.

“Nobody else does it in the same way that we do it, in a way, and my lyrical flow is without parallel in the worldwide music scene,” he quipped.

“So that’s what people can expect: something they can’t get anywhere else or from anybody else.”

Dave Graney and Clare Moore will perform at the Courthouse Theatre on Friday 24 July. Doors open at 7pm.

For more information and tickets, head to davegraney.com.