The Dingoes

Australian band The Dingoes do actually fit the meaning of the word “legendary”. Not only because they were a great band- which they were – but because in the thirty-one years since their last album they have managed to get on with their lives and let their music, all three albums, pretty much speak for themselves. Not that they have been absent from music, far from it. Broderick Smith releases great new albums regularly, Chris Stockley’s name appears in gig guides and liner notes on a frequent basis and Kerryn Tolhurst has been involved in probably over a hundred releases in the intervening years as a guitarist, songwriter or producer.

But a reunion when the band were inducted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame last year got the juices flowing and now in 2010 the Dingoes have returned with an outstanding new album entitled Tracks and a tour of Australia that is an event not to be missed. Kerryn Tolhurst took the time to answer the questions.

HHMM: The first question is the obvious one – this is the first album from The Dingoes in 31 years. Do you think you were ready?

KT: We couldn’t have done it unless we were ready I think. The opportunity presented itself out of the blue from the ARIA Awards last year, the Hall of Fame Induction which put us together in one room for the first time in 30 years. So we had to work up a couple of songs for the show and in the process it went so smoothly, we thought, hey, why stop there?

HHMM: I found it interesting to read that the idea was to try and approximate where the band would have benn had you taken every step of the journey and had arrived at this destination.

KT: It was one way of looking at it. We had to come up with some rationale for doing it and some way to approach it and that seemed as good as any. We didn’t want to just exist in the past. It wasn’t a nostalgia tour and a trip back in time. We wanted to show how we might have evolved to this point in time and that seemed like the obvious way to look at it.

HHMM: The thing I like about it most is that is doesn’t sound like you feel you have anything to prove or that you have to live up to any great mythology. It feels like you are doing it because it feels right.

KT: I think that was the approach from the beginning. We weren’t trying to prove anything, no. We tried to avoid gratuitous references to Australian place names and stuff like that and just approach it as songs and music from where we are now.

HHMM: Having said that time has been kind to this style of music. It has proven to be an almost ageless genre – when it’s done well. Is that something you’ve been aware of all the way through?

KT: I think so. What we’ve done has proven pretty resilient over the years the new waves of alternative country and the rise of the interest in roots music in general has benefited our situation now and put us into a relevant demographic that might not have existed before. But within the genre, if it’s not done well it can be pretty naff!

HHMM: The songs came from just about all the band members and yet they sound very cohesive as an album. Was it surprising to you, as the producer, to find that everyone had arrived at the same place?

KT: Well we had a lot of songs to choose from. We had thirty years of songs piled up and the hardest part was the song selection. We had to whittle it down to a short list and put it to a vote and we were trying to make it the most cohesive bunch of songs we could. It was a very democratic process though and that’s what we came up with.

HHMM: Personally over the years you’ve written a lot of songs. Has there been a lot of songs over the years that you’ve always thought would have been Dingoes songs had there been a Dingoes at the time?
KT: I think there were a couple that finally ended up on this record, being No Rain No River and Right To Your Door, which to me could have been written for the Dingoes originally. They were written when I was living in New York in the last ten years. Last year when this came up I went to those two songs first as a template for where we should go with this record.

HHMM: In the intervening 30 years everyone has been able to move on and get on with their lives and to me the album doesn’t sound at all nostalgic, but even so do you have a perspective on what the place of the Dingoes (Mark 1) was in Australian music?

KT : A little bit. I don’t let it effect my thinking to much in terms of making music. Otherwise you are just living in this legendary place in your own lunchtime and I try not to let that influence me at all.

HHMM: Did the ARIA Hall of Fame thing force you to analyse the bands place in history?

KT: It did because it came out of the blue and we hadn’t expected it because we were never a big commercial band. We hadn’t sold that many records and to be recognised by ARIA despite that, purely on a musical plane was really an honour.

HHMM: There are a lot of songs on the album that are about travel or restlessness or the journey. Does that go to the core of what The Dingoes is about or in fact is that the core of what rock and country music is about?

KT: I guess its pretty much the core of that genre, but for us I think the journey also signifies the passage of time and not just miles. For a musician you have to keep moving or you die. Speaking for myself, I have lived in a lot of different places and moved around a lot and you are always searching for something out there. I think Right To Your Door, the first song on the album talks about that and it’s a reflection on those travels and restlessness.

HHMM: I know that you’ve lived in places like New York and Savannah GA and Tuscon AR. What perspective does that give you on the “Australianness” of The Dingoes?

KT: I do get to see it from an outside perspective, that’s for sure. When I was here back in the seventies when we started the band it was far more subjective. We were subject to the political climate of the team and to the whole atmosphere of the music scene in Melbourne at the time. Now that I’ve been away for such a long time I can see it a little more subjectively.

HHMM: What have some of the towns you’ve lived in bought to your songwriting?

KT: Each town gives you a different perspective I think. I lived in New York and that’s a unique experience. It’s a huge town where you are anonymous and you have to plug away at what you are doing to stay alive. It makes you realise the level of professionalism that you have tom operate at. Then you move to somewhere more laid back like Tuscon and it gives you another perspective altogether. But I don’t know how it affects my songwriting. I wrote songs in all different places that I wouldn’t imagine that a song like that would come from. I don’t think there is a direct connection between the landscape and the song. It’s a bit more abstract.

HHMM: Three songs – Try Anyway, Ribs of The Land and Damascus Road – to me they are the most threatening sounding or intense songs on the album. Was it important to include some songs like that which were not too comfortable to either perform or listen to?

KT: Yeah, I think so. I think we wanted to extend ourselves a bit rather than just have the cruisey, roll along songs we had in the past, I think we wanted to give it a bit of edge and a bit of darkness and a bit of drama. I think those songs worked out really well in the context. Ribs Of The Land was a song that Broderick had written with matt walker and it suited the album really well. It gave it this kinda dark cinematic sense of place that I thought was really important on the album.

HHMM: It’s interesting the way you recorded the album. Just about everything was recorded in Tuscon, except the drums which were recorded in Adelaide!

KT: I’ve done a number of albums that way, drummers love it! They get to actually play to the whole song once its recorded and usually they are the first ones in playing to the bare bones of the song. When they can play to a fully recorded song they love it.

HHMM: With the up coming live shows I assume you’ll be running the full gamut from old to new.

KT: We don’t want to just be pushing the new album. We want to give people what we came to hear which is obviously a bit of what we did in the past. But I imagine those songs will sound a bit different now with the passage of time and the fact that we are a bunch of more mature aged musicians.

HHMM: Do you find that 30 years makes you a better player?

KT: Absolutely, without question. Everybody plays much better now. As a producer it makes things a lot easier that’s for sure. Everybody made their contributions and everybody had a more sophisticated way of looking at it.. We didn’t just go in there hell for leather and see who wins. It was a much more complementary, sympathetic approach to making music.

Sunday 01 Aug 2010 – The Republic Bar, Hobart, Tasmania

Tuesday 03 Aug 2010 – The Hallam Hotel, Hallam, Victoria

Wednesday 04 Aug 2010 – The Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh, Victoria

Thursday 05 Aug 2010 – The Theatre Royal, Castlemaine, Victoria

Friday 06 Aug 2010 – The Corner Hotel, Richmond, Victoria

Saturday 07 Aug 2010 – Meeniyan Hall, Meeniyan, Victoria

Sunday 08 Aug 2010 – Williamstown RSL, Williamstown, Victoria

Thursday 12 Aug 2010 – Lizotte’s, Newcastle, NSW

Friday 13 Aug 2010 – The Basement, Sydney, NSW

Saturday 14 Aug 2010 – Katoomba RSL, Katoomba, NSW

Sunday 15 Aug 2010 – Lizotte’s, Kincumber, NSW

Thursday 19 Aug 2010 – The Clarendon, Adelaide, SA

Friday 20 Aug 2010 – The Norwood Hotel, Norwood, SA

Saturday 21 Aug 2010 – The Charles Hotel, Perth, WA

Sunday 22 Aug 2010 – The Fly By Night Club, Perth, WA