With his solo career tipping the ten-year mark, Bernard Fanning has cemented his position as one of Australia’s finest songwriters and lyricists.
Returning from Spain back to the sweet shores of Byron Bay, Bernard opened La Cueva Studios with his life-long friend, colleague and producer Nick DiDia, to write and record the first of a two-part album series, 'Civil Dusk'. His third solo album is a stunning collection of songs characterised by a sense of space and simplicity.
The album takes us on a magical journey of the “golden hour”: the hour of the day where the sun has set, yet there is still enough light to see. “There is a photography term, civil twilight, which is known as the golden hour.
“Civil twilight is determined by the degree at which the sun sits on the horizon. Civil twilight is where the sun is gone but there is still enough light to see what is around. And I liked that idea of that kind of murkiness. That kind of indefinite nature, where your eyes can play tricks on you.”
The album takes both a new and old direction, featuring stripped-back sounds of light and shade, love and sorrow. “Yeah I think it’s a new and old direction. I kind of returned to writing on an acoustic guitar again, which I haven’t done for a while and [writing on] piano.
“That was the only thing that I had organised in my mind when I began, I was thinking that I want to be able to sit and play this record from front to back by myself if I needed, which in the end I couldn’t [laughs]. I can do it but it just wouldn’t sound very good.
“There’s definitely new approaches in how song structures go and the way versus are placed against chorus and bridges and things like that. We put a lot of effort into that and also in the sequence of the record and how it works and how the songs fit together, and that was all kind of carefully thought through.”
Bernard is planning an extension of his new studio, but his real focus is on the songs. If the songwriting and recording process for 2013’s 'Departures' was to deliberately challenge what had come before, the approach for album number three was about stripping back and reclaiming simplicity. “Here in Byron, Nick DiDia – who is the producer – and I have opened a studio called La Cueva and so we did ['Civil Dusk'] there.
“It was actually at the house that I was living at in a little house next to me. I was living there at the time that I made 'Civil Dusk', so it was incredible to have that opportunity to be there all the time and I could go there any time of day or night and be working.
“We are actually about to do a big extension on it and make it into a more conventional music studio; the way that it's set-up is like a one roomer basically. It was a different sort of approach. Of course we worked hard on the audio to make it sound great, but the real focus was on the songs.”
Performing most of the instrumentation featured on 'Civil Dusk' himself, fans of Bernard can expect to be delighted with the sounds of special guests including Ian Haug (Powderfinger, The Church), Hamish Rosser (The Vines, Wolfmother) also on drums, and a special, guest-vocal appearance by long-time buddy Kasey Chambers. “Haugy [Ian Haug] played guitar on a little bit of it and that was just a matter of him just being around as well; he was the right man for the job.
“We got lots of different people to play different parts because we very much pieced the record together and didn’t do it in the conventional way of getting the band in when you all play the songs together, then the song is done. We did little bits at the time and whoever was kind of driving by we just made them turn left and come into the studio.
“It was a very fun way of doing it, just having all these different faces popping up you know, and Kasey Chambers sings on 'Sooner Or Later' and there were parts there on the song where Nick and I just said it should be Kasey', so we rung her and said 'you’ve got to play on this', and she obeyed.”
At this stage of the interview I felt comfortable enough with Bernard to share a story from my 14-year-old self and my first live show I attended, and how I watched Powderfinger close that set at a local festival with David Bowie’s 'Sorrow': my first and favourite music memory. I know that Bowie is a strong influence on Bernard’s music and ask if the death of Bowie had influenced his new music. “Bowie will always be an influence on the way I write, just because he is such a master.
“In terms of Bowie dying this year, not in particular. [A] weird thing happened; the day that he died there were some friends in the studio and we were loading some gear from [my friend's] car into the studio and there was a David Bowie piano book there. And she said: ‘Should we bring this in?’ and I said: ‘Yes, of course, bring it in’, and so she sat there at the piano and I stood there leaning on the piano Frank Sinatra-style, and she was playing the parts and we played 'Oh You Pretty Thing' and 'Life On Mars' and couple of those songs.
“And about 15 minutes later we saw on the internet that he had died. This was really weird and it was just a weird thing to have happened. But yeah, I mean his music will always be a really big influence on me. But also, I listened a lot to Jackson Brown and Little Feet and stuff like that this time [recording].
“There’s a Jackson Brown record called ‘Late To The Sky’, which I listened to kind of obsessively at the time that I was getting the ideas together that had a pretty big influence I guess on the way [Jackson] was able to communicate ideas that may be about a relationship, that it’s actually about a wider idea. It could be read just as a boy vs girl scenario, but it actually has kind of societal connotations and things like that and I really like the idea of being able to write things that have a lot of layers.”
And while we were on the subject of sharing our musical inspirations, Bernard shared a musical moment from when he was 14 that influenced his career. Cue full circle moment with Bernard Fanning. “Well, I saw Bowie at Lang Park in 1983 I think it was. That was pretty incredible seeing something like that, I had only been to 1 or 2 concerts before that. I think I was 14.” I interject at this point with: “Just like I was 14 when I saw you!” [Spontaneous shared laughter]
“Well same as you actually,” Bernard says wrestling the interview back. “That’s a pretty important time of your life when you are just starting to become an adult and you are starting to see yourself as one, you know. So those memories are really important, so that was pretty amazing [seeing Bowie]. I also saw Ray Charles at the [Brisbane] Convention Centre, probably about 15 years after that. That was pretty awesome.
“That was like a 78-year-old guy that sang better than anyone who I had ever seen then or since. I actually had the incredible fortune of seeing Prince in Sydney. Well I saw the shows that he just did in Australia this year. I saw the piano one, which was just phenomenal, especially given the context of how I had been writing and how I wanted that idea of how I wanted to present stuff simply. So seeing that was incredible; he was just on a completely other level.”
To celebrate the release of 'Civil Dusk', Bernard can’t wait to tour with a national itinerary planned that will see him play in some of the most stunning theatre spaces in Australia. “We are going everywhere and playing a lot of the new record, maybe all of it. We are playing a lot of old stuff too.
“I’ve started playing a lot of Powderfinger songs myself. I kind of present them in a way that I presented [them] to [the] Powderfinger [guys] when I had written them. So if I wrote a song at home and took it to the band, I would just sit there and play it on an acoustic guitar or piano and that’s kind of how I play it to the audience now.”
'Civil Dusk' is released 5 August.
Bernard Fanning Tour Dates
Tue 18 Oct - The Arts Centre Gold CoastFri 21 Oct - Civic Theatre (Newcastle)
Sat 22 Oct - State Theatre (Sydney)
Wed 26 Oct - Norwood Concert Hall (Adelaide)
Fri 28 Oct - Queens Park Theatre (Geraldton)
Sat 29 Oct - Fremantle Arts Centre
Mon 31 Oct - Palais Theatre (Melbourne)
Thu 3 Nov - Tank Arts Centre (Cairns)
Fri 4 Nov - Entertainment Centre (Darwin)
Thu 10 Nov - The Tivoli Theatre (Brisbane)
Fri 11 Nov - The Tivoli Theatre (Brisbane)
Sat 12 Nov - The Northern (Byron Bay)
