Singer-songwriter Davey Craddock moves on from small-town blues to the worries of the wider world on his sophomore album, 'One Punch', that was released earlier this year.
The follow-up to his debut album 'City West', 'One Punch' is a darker offering that Davey says isn't so much political as it is derived from the political upheaval and turmoil of recent years. “I wrote it at the tail-end of 2016 and I was in America,” Davey explains.
“I started writing it in Nashville during the US presidential debate that eventually led to Donald Trump getting in [to office]. Back then the world was, it still is, but it was incredibly volatile and confusing. It was a strange and almost cartoonish time.
“It's not a particularly political album, it's more about the atmosphere of unexpected things happening and the world kind of being on tenterhooks.
“Then I also wrote songs for this album during a period in Broome during all of those North Korean missile tests. I was hanging out with friends who have young children, and having to explain what a missile test was when asked by a young kid is a bizarre thing. So it's a reaction to a general unease and how that makes me feel.”
Davey unpacks this unease on the track 'The Bomb, From Broome', singing about the duality of living in an apparent paradise while the shadow of destruction looms just beyond the periphery of our vision.
“That song is about being somewhere absolutely gorgeous, beautiful and tropical when something quite scary and violent is happening globally, and how odd that is when you're in a beach club sipping mojitos, flicking through Twitter and reading about missile tests, that strange juxtaposition.”
“Particularly in Australia we constantly have that strange disconnect where we live in an incredibly beautiful, largely peaceful place but because of the Internet we're constantly confronted by strange, anxiety-inducing things.”
Closer to home, the title track for the album has Davey contemplating the reason for one-punch (or coward-punch) attacks on the streets of Australian towns and cities. Last year, Hugh Garth was the first man convicted under New South Wales one-punch laws and was jailed for more than ten years for unlawful assault causing death, after he fatally punched Raynor Manalad outside a Rooty Hill party in Sydney's west.
“This a much more direct local song,” Davey says.
“In towns all around Australia and the world there's this spate of one-punch attacks and I was looking into what makes dudes, largely, do this to each other. I reckon it has a lot to do with our online life in that we do so much of our communication now impersonally I think we're losing intimacy. The song picks apart why after six drinks people feel the need to bash the crap out of each other.”
Davey will be on an album tour for 'One Punch' from the end of September and says he's looking forward to showing audiences a much rockier side to his musicianship.
“I'm really excited about doing this album because it's a lot rockier,” he says. “Touring the last album was great but this one's heaps rockier and that's just more fun to play.”
Davey Craddock Australia Tour 2018
Thu 27 Sep - Leadbelly (Sydney)Sat 29 Sep - Dashville Skyline (Hunter Valley)
Sun 30 Sep - Tamworth Hotel
Thu 4 Oct - 63 First Ave (Sawtell)
Fri 5 Oct - Headland Cafe (Valla Beach)
Sat 6 Oct - The Milk Factory (Brisbane)
Sun 7 Oct - The Rails (Byron Bay)
Fri 12 Oct - The Gasometer (Melbourne)
Sat 13 oct - Out On The Weekend Festival (Melbourne)
Sun 14 Oct - Major Tom's (Kyneton)
Sat 27 Oct - Four5Nine (Perth)
