Dave Graney & Clare Moore
Dave Graney isn't a musician who likes to follow rules; he likes to "smash them up".
By Kylie Stevenson
The singer-songwriter from Mt. Gambier in South Australia grew up on a diet of Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and Blue Oyster Cult, and says he’s “reclaiming” rock on his latest album Zippa Deedoo What Is/Was That/This.
“Classic rock is a boring term used by commercial radio which they have boiled down to a cannon of about six bands," he says.
"Make that four."
Graney has been making music since the 1980s, and alongside, Clare Moore has fronted numerous bands including The Moodists, Dave Graney and Coral Snakes, and The Dave Graney Show. He has released more than 30 albums, and in 1996, was named Best Male Artist at the ARIA Awards for The Soft ‘n’ Sexy Sound.
Despite the opening track on Zippa Deedoo lamenting, tongue-in-cheek, how he could have been a better pop star, Graney says he couldn’t have.
“Do you follow all the rules or smash them up? I think the latter,” he says.
“Anybody from Australian Idol is a stiff. I prefer people who know how to be bad.”
Zippa Deedoo, recorded with Moore and their band The MistLY, is eight songs done 13 ways.
“The album is presented a little like a jazz reissue album, which often come out with alternate takes of songs,” Graney says.
“Songs always change after you record them, so I guess it’s a mixture of a classic rock approach, a jazz consideration and ’90s remix stylings.”
Graney and Moore will perform an acoustic set in Darwin, minus the MistLY, spanning songs from across their career right up to Zippa Deedoo, concentrating more on the lyrical side of things.
“It can be more flexible,” he says of the shows they perform as a duo.
“We keep it a little open-ended as to how the room is, the people and the sound. I can mope around here and there across my songbook.”
Sat 1 Jun | 7pm | Railway Club | $27.50 | darwinwailclub.org
