‘I’m a career musician, I can’t stop. If I stop, I’ll go mad’ – Dan Warner
Acclaimed album Maybe …..Then Launch at Memo, St Kilda, Saturday March 4.
By Jeff Jenkins.
Music journalist, author and Painters & Dockers frontman Paulie Stewart recently remarked, “Melbourne is acknowledged as one of the world’s great music cities and it’s thanks to the likes of Dan Warner. As a solo artist, in a duo, or a band, this guy is an underrated champion whose songs resonate and performances inspire. I’ve always loved his original work.”
As Dan Warner gets set to launch his new album, Maybe, then… – his first in eight years – he sat down with Rhythms to chat about the strange power of childhood memories, why he loves working with a band, and his favourite music.
Maybe, then… is Warner’s fourth solo album, but he highlights the importance of his band, The Night Parrots, who take their name from his second solo release.
“It’s super-important to me to have my own band,” Warner says.
Of course, Warner also continues to play with The Warner Brothers, the group that brought him to the nation’s attention in 1992 with the single ‘Stuck In Melbourne’, written by guitarist James Stewart.
“The Warner Brothers is a successful band in its own way, a conglomerate of a lot of strong personalities, but a lot of my songs don’t suit that music. Stewy’s way more country than me.”
The Night Parrots features Marcel Borrack on guitar, Ashley Davies on drums, Nathan Farrelly on bass, and new addition Clio Renner on keyboards.
“It’s nothing like Warner Brothers gigs – there’s more breadth and openness in the sound. It’s really built around Ash’s drums; he’s such a great drummer and he really understands how to play to lyrics. It’s gentle, but it can also be powerful in its gentleness.
“The record sounds like a band. We pretty much recorded it live – it’s the band playing, with very little embellishment. Once a band finds its way, it doesn’t sound like anyone else: it’s a band record and it’s this band.”
Borrack – who has his own solo career – co-produced the album and is a key part of Warner’s creative life. Watch Marcel’s video for Wrangle Dangle.
“I’ve made records with bands where it’s like a party, but this is not like that at all,” Warner points out. “It’s not intellectual, but we’re trying to get the best out of ourselves.
“Marcel is very prepared, very methodical and very diligent and I like that about him. He takes it very seriously. Maybe because we’re both of German descent, we both have that methodical mind.
“He’s very mild-mannered, but he’s like a silent control freak. You know he’s going to get his own way eventually.”
Warner wrote the album’s first single and opening track, ‘Every Moon Is Blue’, with Borrack. “That was one of the first co-writes. I sent it to Marcel and he wrote the music. It’s rootsy, bluesy, jazzy, a bit Cold Chisel, a bit Dingoes, a bit Little Feat and Warren Zevon …
“That song announces that we’re going somewhere. It’s not jazz, not blues, not rock, but it’s got all of those elements.
“It’s a really good indication of the rest of the record.”
Another Borrack co-write, ‘All Souls’ Day’, features a stunning sax solo by Adam Simmons. “I can’t believe it’s on one of my records,” Warner smiles. “And he did it in one take!
“I imagined a guitar solo, but Marcel turned it into this great gig in the sky.”
The album’s second single, ‘Summer Out Of Reach’, was inspired by Warner’s childhood in Perth.
“It feels like a completely different era,” he reflects. “It was so idyllic growing up, so it’s a bit of a lament in some ways … that summer I can’t ever get back.
“The northern beaches of Perth weren’t very developed, they were like holiday spots: stunning beaches, sparsely populated, fish ’n’ chips on the foreshore, a couple of pubs, milk bars and not much else. It was like a Tim Winton novel.
“It’s funny when you move a lot as a kid, which we did – my father was a journalist – you do tend to mythologise the past a bit, so your own past does become like something from a novel and you wonder, did I imagine that?”
Maybe, then… – Warner’s first vinyl release – shows that the artist is no longer stuck in Melbourne.
‘The Lady On The Water’ was inspired by his years living in New York, while ‘Flowering Gum’ is a song for his younger brother Josh, who lives in Seattle.
“He liked it, too,” Warner says of the song, “and he normally hates my stuff.”
Football is a religion in Melbourne and unlike the rest of Warner’s family who are staunch Collingwood supporters, Josh opted to barrack for their arch-rivals – Carlton. “He wanted to be different to his brothers, so he thought, ‘What can I do to really piss them off?’ And it really has pissed us off over the years.”
But Josh also plays his part in Warner’s career. “He’s always sending me stuff from America, Americana stuff like Susto.”
Warner’s favourite band is Bellwether, the Minneapolis outfit featuring songwriter and guitarist Jimmy Peterson.
“I like the fact they’re old campaigners like me, but they keep renewing themselves. When I hear these guys making such great music, it’s really inspiring.”
“The main thing is to keep writing,” Warner believes. “I’m a career musician, I can’t stop. If I stop, I’ll go mad.”
Warner has had a storied career. He wrote one of the great Australian protest songs, ‘Anthem’, with Tiddas’ Sally Dastey putting his words to music. Tiddas did the song on their second album, in 1996.
Another Warner co-write, ‘My Back Room’, was recorded by the late great Renée Geyer.
Warner also wrote a song about Donald Trump, which didn’t make the new album.
Maybe, then… – which appeared on several critics’ 2022 best-of lists, including Rhythms editor Brian Wise and radio legend Billy Pinnell – starts and ends on the highway.
In between is an unforgettable road trip.
“I wanted the record to be a listening experience, something that made sense as a work,” Warner explains.
“It opens on the highway [in ‘Every Moon Is Blue’] and that guy is kind of troubled. The record ends back on the highway [‘One Highway Away’] and it feels like summer and the ’70s. You could fill it up with big Eagles vocals if you wanted to.
“I can just see us playing that song at the end of a gig. It even references ‘Stuck In Melbourne’ and Stewy’s Ford Capri.”
Dan Warner & The Night Parrots launch Maybe, then… at the Memo Music Hall in St Kilda on March 4.