After flirting with success and widespread appeal for over a decade, Australian rock singer and guitarist Dan Sultan has arrived.
His latest album, ‘Blackbird’, is slickly produced yet energetic, sexy and fun with the execution seemingly effortless. This record screams accessibility while still remaining deeply credible and creative.
To a casual observer this may seem obvious when you combine Sultan’s movie-star good-looks, James Dean like swagger and blues drenched rock & roll vocals. However, belying this strut is over 14 years of hard-gigging that began proper in 2000 at an open mic night in Melbourne suburb Williamstown, a performance that led to a friendship with fellow guitarist and songwriter Scott Wilson – a union that lead to Sultan’s debut album, ‘Homemade Biscuits’, in 2006.
Sultan’s third album, ‘Blackbird’, is a tantalising, energetic and fun release, with three songs from the album seemingly representing the aforementioned adjectives: ‘The Same Man’, ‘Under Your Skin’ and ‘Waiting On The End Of The Phone’.
Sultan opens our conversation by addressing the key textures of his new album. “I think fun is the big one, energetic as well. Feels like the most energetic record that I have made. Every record that you have made feels like practice for the one you are about to make or the one that you are making at the time – you’re always wanting to go further with stuff.”
The debut single from the album is ‘The Same Man’, a rollicking and rolling tune that pairs confessional lyrics with the inexorable bravado of the music. A particularly memorable aspect of the song is a hummed pre-chorus that may remind some of a Navaho Indian chant. “When I first started the song it was just the chant and it was a lot slower, and sounded a bit Chinese. I was in a writing session and I decided to speed it up a bit and the song took shape from there.
“The song’s meaning is that ‘this relationship is finished because you’ve changed’; I [the protagonist] haven’t changed but maybe that’s the problem. Maybe ‘he’ needed to pull his head in,” explains Sultan.
So is this ‘he’, the protagonist, Sultan? “From time to time,” is Sultan’s casual and slightly comedic dismissal. “But with the banjo and the chanting it’s pretty fun on the ears, but it has heavy content.”
As established above, ‘Blackbird’ is a sassy release and a very different creature from Sultan’s album of 2010, the double ARIA winning ‘Get Out While You Can’. This album also won Male Artist of the Year and Best Single Release of the Year for Letter at the Deadly Awards – an annual awards ceremony that celebrates musicians of an Aboriginal heritage.
Sultan’s mother was Aboriginal and his father Irish, and Sultan has always embraced his ethnicity. During this interview, however, he takes issue with his Aboriginality being brought up.
“Over the last few years I have been wanting to avoid this. Just because I find... I’ll tell you why, I won’t just say ‘no’, I don’t want to be a dickhead about it. Archie Roach said it best in an interview a few years ago when he said, ‘No one asks Paul Kelly about where he’s from’... I know it’s coming from a place that is genuine but at the same time, as Aboriginal artists we find it hard to just be allowed to be artists.”
‘Blackbird’ is released this Friday April 4.
