Dave Graney: Rock ‘n’ Roll Chameleon
Touring the country in celebration of The Soft 'n' Sexy Sound, SA icon Dave Graney spoke with The Note about the making of the album, his upcoming tour and winning an ARIA Award.
Image Meredith O'Shea
There’s not much Dave Graney hasn’t achieved across his 45 years in the music business. The Savage Sportsman has released over 25 studio albums, won an ARIA Award and performed just about everywhere.
2025 marks the 30th anniversary of Graney and The Coral Snakes’ The Soft 'n' Sexy Sound. The follow-up to his seminal record Night of the Wolves, the album became a commercial hit and earned Graney his first and only ARIA Award for Best Male Artist.
Arriving at a pivotal time as the Australian music scene exploded in the mid-90s, the album opened Graney to a new fanbase that has continued to support his musical endeavours, be they solo albums, ensemble records or releases recorded with his musical and life partner Clare Moore.
Hitting the road with The Coral Snakes for a run of anniversary shows celebrating The Soft 'n' Sexy Sound, Graney took some time from rehearsals to answer a few questions from The Note about the making of the album, working with The Coral Snakes and his partnership with Moore.
Although it’s been 30 years since the release of The Soft 'n' Sexy Sound, the album’s legacy continues to soar. Is that the reason behind hitting the road and performing the album for fans?
We are doing the 30th anniversary tour because we enjoyed the one we did for our album Night Of The Wolverine so much in 2023. We enjoyed being together again and playing. People really came out to see us play the music again. It was the original players who made the sounds. We organised it all ourselves with our agent and sold out almost every show, playing theatres and large club rooms. We had a fantastic time.
We thought it would be great to do it for the Soft n Sexy Sound, which was our commercial peak as a band. It had a song on it called ‘Rock n Roll Is Where I Hide’, which is the song most people associate with us. It was about six minutes long, was half spoken/half sung, had no chorus and the title was never mentioned in the song. It did have an insistent groove and a blazing guitar to end it.
So in music biz terms, it was all wrong. We were a bunch of weird people from the underworld and we took our music as far into the public realm as possible, further than we should ever have gone. People really responded to it.
Nobody ever asked us to do anything we did and that includes this tour. We are doing it because we want to and are looking forward to it. Like Night Of The Wolverine, we never really played the album in its entirety ever and didn’t ever perform a lot of the songs. We will be playing a set of the album in order and then a set of songs from our albums before and after the Soft n Sexy Sound.
What are your memories of writing and recording the album?
We had put out about four albums in the three years leading up to it. The previous two had been pretty much us strolling into the studio with all the songs prepared [and] arranged, so the tapes rolled and that was it.
[For The Soft ‘n’ Sexy Sound] we wanted to use more time in production and make a record rather than a recording of our live set. Clare Moore and I listened to a lot of music with a UK sensibility. Trip hop like Tricky and Massive Attack, as well as the fantastic West Coast rap that Dr Dre, Tupac and Snoop Dogg were putting out, as well as Slick Rick and Notorious BIG from the East Coast. We also loved the Beastie Boys, the Cruel Sea and the Underground Lovers. It was a great time for music.
Producer Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, P.J. Harvey, Sarah Blasko), whom you had worked with before, helped produce The Soft 'n' Sexy Sound. How did your relationship with Victor come about, and what influence did he have on the record?
He was on our wavelength. I think he had just done the first Beth Orton album, which involved a lot of pre-production with him and the players on it. He had worked with us in the Moodists for years, and after that had done live sound for Nick Cave and Bad Seeds, the Fall and the Pogues, but wanted to leave that for studio work.
The album also features The Coral Snakes. This was the fourth record featuring them as your band. There was obviously a chemistry between you all, as they have featured on some of your best work over the years. How did the group come about and what was it like working together?
Dave Graney and The Coral Snakes started as a band in London in 1987 after the Moodists finished up. Clare Moore and myself were in the Moodists. We had to leave the UK and started playing music in Melbourne in 1989 as Dave Graney and the White Buffaloes, which is where we met Rod Hayward, who plays guitar in the Coral Snakes.
When piano player Conway Savage (RIP) was headhunted by The Bad Seeds in 1990, we started playing with Robin Casinader on keys. We always liked having piano, bass and drums. Not so much distortion in the sound, but focusing on the rhythms, grooves and arrangements. Clarity. We kind of diverged from the mainstream of indie or alt-rock early on. That was all about distortion and fuzziness.
The Soft 'n' Sexy Sound came out during what was a watershed year for Australian music. Silverchair, You Am I, The Cruel Sea and Custard were just some of the bands that released albums that year. Was it an exciting time for you as both a musician and a fan?
It was a great time for music because there were a lot of competing streams of energy and ambition. I don’t mean just the bands. I mean triple j going national, Recovery being on ABC TV with three hours to fill every Saturday morning, the immense influence of the Big Day Out as a national tour and fantastic local events like the Livid Festival in Brisbane.
We were never on commercial radio, but we got in front of people by performing live on many television variety shows like Club Buggery, the Andrew Denton Friday night shows, Elle McFeast, Jimeoin, Hey Hey It’s Saturday, Steve Vizard and a few others.
As far as being a fan, I was totally consumed with what we were doing but loved Kim Salmon and The Surrealists. The Apartments. Robert Forster’s return to Australia and solo shows. Custard, The Underground Lovers and many others. I didn’t enjoy much grunge music but loved The Beastie Boys, The Divine Comedy and Pulp. I also loved people like Robyn Hitchcock and Paul Westerberg who had been making music well before the ‘90s.
The Aussie scene has evolved and changed since then, for better and worse. Do you think it’s in a healthy place, and what more needs to be done to keep the scene thriving?
I have no idea. Kill Spotify? Only Australian music on Australian radio? Live variety shows on free-to-air television couldn’t hurt. Universal basic income for the world.
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You won an ARIA Award for Best Male Artist in 1996. While you don’t make music for acclaim, it must have been rewarding to take home the gong and receive recognition for a career that was already 15 years deep.
Before I was given that award, it had been shared by John Farnham, Jimmy Barnes and Diesel. So I was an outrider. When I walked up to accept it, the presenters – Shirley from Garbage and Chrissie Amphlett – shrank back as if I were a serial pest stage invader.
The day after, the head of ARIA said they were getting rid of the award if “people like him were winning it…”. We stayed in the Sebel Townhouse (RIP) and flew to the UK the very next day to mix our follow-up masterpiece, The Devil Drives, with some UK people we had sought out for having links to the trip hop, drum and bass scene. So I was quite happy with the way things were going.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Soft ‘n’ Sexy Sound, you’re hitting the road with The Coral Snakes. It must be a thrill to not only get to perform the album live but do so with the band that helped create it.
Yes, it is going to be excellent. Robin Casinader is insisting we do the album in sequence, so that’s what we are doing.
You’re performing at a wide range of venues in both capital cities and regional areas. How important is it for you to play shows in smaller towns and country areas?
We always like to play in interesting venues. They aren’t always in capital cities. Melbourne and Sydney are expensive to live in and a lot of people have moved out to regional areas and they want to see music too.
While this tour is all about The Soft ‘n’ Sexy Sound, your discography is more than 20 albums deep. Are there other releases you would like to perform in their entirety, or is there an album you’re particularly proud of that didn’t get the kudos you think it deserved?
I think this [will] be it. It would be great to do The Devil Drives, perhaps. Or We Wuz Curious. When Clare and I do shows with our contemporary band, we mainly play songs from In A MistLY. But I think The Soft ‘n’ Sexy Sound 30th anniversary tour is a celebration of our moment and the moments of all the people who tuned into it. I am personally very happy to have had a moment like that.
As an artist, you’ve been writing music and touring for more than 40 years. What drives and inspires you to keep making music?
After Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes finished in late 1997, I started to perform more, playing my songs on guitar and singing. I wanted to be a performing singer-songwriter and that’s what I’ve been doing. I always wanted to be like Lou Reed or Tim Buckley. A songwriter with an electric band. That’s been my idea of what I’ve been doing. With Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes, I write songs on guitar, but never performed with one.
Your last few releases have been collaborations with your partner, Clare Moore, who has been at your side for more than 40 years and has been heavily involved in your music. How important has she been on your journey, both as an artist and a human being?
Well, it’s just recognising that we have been collaborating all the way through. In the Moodists, we were equals in a collective and then when I started to be a songwriter, writing more complete songs, it became more focused on me. But we always worked very closely with albums like The Soft n Sexy Sound and The Devil Drives. Every album that followed, we were both involved in all the production aesthetics.
How do the two of you approach songwriting together, and how does Clare get the best out of you and vice versa?
Clare is a great arranger and editor and also perfect with grooves and harmonies. I am impulsive and fly straight in and get things done.
Finally, what’s on the cards for the rest of 2025 and beyond? Can we expect a new album soon?
Clare Moore and myself put out two albums in 2024 – (strangely)(emotional) and I Passed Through Minor Chord In A Morning. We have a new album almost finished. It’s a great rock album. We might put out a lead track this year and the whole thing in 2026.
Catch Dave Graney ‘n’ The Coral Snakes at The Gov on Friday 21 November. Tickets on sale now via davegraney.com.
