Sexy sounds and going against the grain

MUSICIAN and frontman Dave Graney is feeling cold, freezing in fact.

The artist is dreaming of Northern NSW’s sunnier climes as he prepares for the 30th anniversary tour of the Coral Snakes’ seminal album, The Soft and Sexy Sound, on November 11.

“Melbourne’s having a very Siberian winter, so it’s great to have a distraction,” Graney said.

“We’re looking forward to coming up to Byron and playing the theatre for the first time.”

Long celebrated for their sophisticated mix of art rock, pop, and lounge-inspired grooves, the national tour will celebrate the 1995 gold-selling album that attracted legions of fans and the ARIA Award for Best Male Artist the following year.

Along with the original members of the Coral Snakes, including Clare Moore, Rod Hayward and Robin Casinader, Graney and the ensemble are known for their prolific output.

“We did an album every year for four years and five albums between 1992 and 1995,” he said.

“A lot of it was just thought up quickly and almost unconsciously in a way.”

The band has continued to release an album a year ever since, but the artist said The Soft and Sexy Sound was created in a vastly different era.

“When we were with a major label, it was still a monolithic thing with tonnes of people involved – record shops, photographers, A&R and much more entertainment writing in newspapers – lots more people in general,” he said.

“Music was thriving, but Australia was enthralled to American grunge, and we’d come from an earlier period and swam against that music – it was full of angst and distortion, and Sexy Sound was incredibly direct.

“People used to think I was being ironic, because irony was everywhere, especially in grunge music with the influence of Sonic Youth and Pavement – that middle-class American irony, where nobody actually said anything.”

In returning to the record, the band is now deep in rehearsals to perform the album live in sequence.

“I’m reacquainting myself with the songs – it’s a great recording – and a lot of the songs are fresh to us and quite complex,” Graney said.

“We only ever made music for our artistic pleasure, and we generated our own ideas – we weren’t suddenly influenced by Soundgarden or whatever.

“But I did love a lot of music at that time, the Beastie Boys, trip hop, and gangster rap like Tupac, Notorious BIG and the Chronic with Dr Dre.”

While Graney’s modern shows with Clare Moore feature different instrumentation and a more recent catalogue, he is excited about the nostalgia of the anniversary tour.

“This is gonna be strictly Coral Snakes era, one for the purists,” he said.

For tickets, visit byroncentre.com.au