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Darren Hanlon.
"I had to send a photo of my breasts and they were impressed!" That's a bona fide quote from Darren Hanlon, although it's perhaps helpful to put it some sort of context. You see, Hanlon's desire to tour regional Australia resulted in him playing a gig in a topless bar in the outback NT town of Gove.
He happily joked around about this unique gig, but also explained that Gove "...only has two pubs in town, one a topless bar and the other the surf life saving club and it was the topless one that said they'd have us come and play. We were actually advertised on the same page as the new topless waitress that had just moved into town. I tell you, it's a different world up there: quite an experience."
Apart from regular random oddities as described in his songs, the life of Darren Hanlon can also be thought of as somewhat of a whirlwind. He only arrived back in Australia two days ago from playing at the equivalent of the Sydney Opera House as part of the Singapore Fringe Festival and is now gearing up for a brief Australian tour with sideman Corey Gray, from Desert City Soundtrack.
"As soon as the tour finishes we'll be coming back up to Queensland to do the album. I just wanted to try some more of the new songs out live. I've got a guy coming out from America to play on the album. Corey was someone I was introduced to last year when I was recording in the US and I really liked his style on the piano, and since he hasn't ever been out to Australia before, I thought it'd be good for him to tour while he's here. I thought if we toured together it would be a great way for him to get to know the songs better. Then in July, August and September Bree [Van Reyke, drummer] and I will be touring overseas and then we'll return later in the year to do an extensive Australian tour with a full band."
So where does Darren Hanlon go when he does an overseas tour? "Everywhere!" he laughs. "England, Estonia, Sweden, Latvia, and all sorts of places in Europe and America."
If you check the message board on his website you will find that he has already toured Estonia once before and has developed a healthy fan base there. "Estonia was a great experience, the people were really into it. I've got this one song and they play it at discos over there, it's actually a b-side from the 'Hiccups' EP called And The Days Are Just Packed. I didn't know 'til I got there and we heard it played in an indie nightclub and then I got why people were requesting it all the time at our shows."
Appropriately, one of Hanlon's new songs is titled My Life
Is A Blur. "That's about what my life would be like if I
turned 95 and my life was still going along like it is now.
It's good to travel and it's good living in different places,
but I think eventually I won't be able to keep this pace up.
Bree and I are planning on living in the US next year, we still
have our visas from when we toured last and they expire at the
end of next year, so we thought we'd go there while we can and
do as much touring as we can. I guess when people stop coming
to see us I guess then I'll move back into the furniture sales
business."
Another new song that he'll be testing out on the tour and can
be found on the latest Candle records sampler is Happiness
Is A Chemical, but don't fear; Hanlon's not about to lose
his nice guy image and start pushing narcotics.
"That song came about in a weird way; it just came together in a few hours. I was wandering about the shops in Oxford and I just had the phrase 'happiness is a chemical' written in a notebook and suddenly this whole song just popped out. So I don't even really know what it's about, it just flowed out. I've actually done a full band version while I was in Portland, it's very Portland pop, it has that kind of sunshine sound happening: it even has the drummer from The Shins playing on it too!"
Scott Berry
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Darren Hanlon plays at the Jade Monkey on Fri 24 March with Grand Salvo.
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