Questions and answers for Australian Bookseller Magazine.

An edited version of this article is in the current edition, along with a review.The writer notes that "some have said" my music is more style than content. Nobody has ever said that. The book is about the style and the content and the tone.


1. How did 1001 Australian Nights came about? Was it something you’d been working on for some time—or were you made an offer you couldn’t refuse that got you writing?



It was an idea that seemed to make sense one day and I started on it, handwriting in a big old blank hardcover book and then I typed it into a computer later on, after I got the feel and shape of it.

I wanted to write the story of my life as a musician and include the flow of the lyrical side of it that I'd been putting out on all my albums. It was a story I'd been writing within my songs and I thought I'd earth it and make a longer piece of it. Only my adult life a s a musician though.



2. Could you talk us through your writing process? You drew on tour diaries for parts of it (specifically the tours with Nick Cave and Henry Wagons). How else did you go about collating or accessing your memories?



Well I like to read books by musicians. Not really by people writing about music so much, very few have any empathy for the players. Miles davis autobiography is great, Charles Mingus, Wreckless Eric, Louis Armstrongs dope dealer ,(also a player) Mezz Mezzrow wrote a really good one. Julian Cope, Zodiac Mindwarp.

I don't like nostalgic things much and its disappointing how much of modern music is driven by it. I'm not really that much of a household name that I think the minuteae of my personal life is worth putting under peoples noses and , in a way, all stories of bands and players are the same. Archetypal stuff. So I tried t write my story in a mythological way at the beginning. the times when I launched into a life of music. I don't come from a rich background nor did I have any higher education. In the world of music this is a bit of an oddity as they're all silver spoon types so I thought it might be interesting to trace where I got the bright idea to be a player. I don't mention many peoples names and tried to keep it interior and mythic. people feeling around in the dark. I wasn't being demeaning or disrespectful to any of my comrades.I hope.
The book is in two parts.One reflective in a long shot style and the other more sharply focussed,recent events.What I thought I was doing and what I think I'm doing.



3. Your love of literature is evident in this memoir. It has a Kerouac-like road trip feel; noir stylings of a hard-boiled novel; and you make wonderful use of the run-on sentence in the section headed I Who Know the Others. Are there any particular writers that inspired your memoir? And would you consider turning to fiction—perhaps a crime novel?



A lot of the book is about where I copped my tone. Tone is everything in music and writing. I love Guillaume Apollinaire and Arthur Rimbaud for their fearless, heroic bravado I love the pulp writers from the 30s to the 80s! I really love the australian poet Robert Gray and his recent book, "the country I came through last" was a great inspiration. Those of us who loved his work would have really tuned into it and, in a way got a bit disappointed when he finally earthed his poems with the real events of his life. He brought it all down for us. Its great. i also love david Foster, especially his recent "sons of the rumour".



4. Sartorial ensembles feature almost as characters in their own right in this memoir. You’re obviously a stylish dude. If ‘clothes maketh the man, what clothes maketh Dave Graney?



I dont talk about this shit.



5. I understand there will be a ‘greatest hits’ album released to coincide with the memoir’s publication and numerous live shows across the country. What else will you be doing to publicise this memoir?



I've recorded an album for Liberation of all my favourite songs (of mine) from the 90s. Its called "rock'n'roll is where I hide. Its kind of a greatest hits but a also a re recording. Its a real rock'n'roll album with my band "the Lurid yellow Mist". its not a sad, acoustic set. All musicians who out records find that they are playing the songs so much better a year later. This will be about fifteen years later for the most part. We know the shit inside out, above and below. Its my third debut album. Its got flow and bounce and thats what I like.



6. Finally, what was the last book you read and loved?



I have discovered a 1920s british writer called AE Coppard. I have read one called "adam and eve and pinch me" and 'clorinda walks in heaven". I find his writing pretty astounding. He has sentences that other people labour over through whole books to express.