THE OTHER SIDE OF DAVE FAULKNER

 

KINKY: This Album, unlike the last, was virtually all written before you went into the studio.

DAVE: That's the big difference. I'd written two of the songs on Kinky around about the time of the last album - Castles In The Air and another song that didn't make it onto the record. So Castles was about two years old and the others were just a few months old. They were demoed and then I had a few months off before we started recording.

KINKY: Did you make a conscious decision to have the songs written before you went into the studio?

DAVE: Yes it was conscious because even though writing in the studio was an interesting experiment for Magnum there are things about it that I regret. I didn't have time to live with the songs, to sing them, and to take the vocals to where I was comfortable with them. One or two of the songs could have been better if I'd played them live before recording. That familiarity and being able to bend the melodies around a bit is important. Variations. And a couple of the best songs on Magnum ended up as B sides (laughs).

KINKY: What's the working relationship with in the Gurus like now?

DAVE: The songwriting, as always, gets done by whoever's doing it and the band kick the songs around. The structure on the song doesn't really change when we learn them but a song will stand or fall on whether the parts work out to make it sound good. Once a song's written the most important thing is getting the drums right. If you've got a melodic structure there from the songwriting point of view, then you've got to the beat there from the musical point of view.

KINKY: Do you think sometimes that a lot of people miss the humour in Gurus songs - like Brainscan on this album for instance?

DAVE: Probably, because I had someone ask me after they'd heard it, 'Do you really hate each other?" (laughs), and I thought ' Oh God, how do you think we sang in the studio together - trading blows instead of riffs?', but then again we're the group that's forever condemned for having supposedly written a song about a dog because of a video that was tongue-in-cheek. (My Girl).

KINKY: Is songwriting getting easier or harder for you?

DAVE: It's just the same. You always hope that the songs get better, but they don't get easier to write. I'm pretty fussy about things, even though the songs sound simple and uncomplicated, and maybe not profound, for me they're laboured over and I don't put things in there just for the hell of it.

KINKY: Do you throw many songs, or ideas out?

DAVE: Oh yeah, sure. Sometimes complete sets of lyrics get discarded and I change the whole subject of the song and the title. Poison Pen from the second album was like that. That was one I had completely different lyrics for and I just threw it away because it didn't make sense for me in terms of the music. So even though the lyrics read ok on p aper, they didn't' seem to fit the mood of the song.

KINKY: On a totally different subject, t he Gurus are becoming well known for their enthusiasm for a variety of sports and sporting teams. Can you elaborate?

DAVE: That's our escape valve. You wear yourself out if you live just for the music all the time. So we play cards and we've developed this interest in following sports in the various places we visit. We started with baseball. Originally it was a rugby league in Sydney. I support Cronulla, The Sharks. The rest of the band kind of like them now because they've met the guys. I've always loved baseball so we started a baseball pool to pass the time while we're on tour. I support The Mets. On the first album tour I got into American football because the baseball season was over. Now I'm getting to like horse racing. I've been to a few race meetings but I don't know if I'll ever follow form guides seriously. I just do it for the fun of it. I probably would follow soccer if we were in England during the season.

KINKY: the Gurus seem a lot less fragile than they did in the early days. Is that the way you see it?

DAVE: I've never thought it was fragile. It's always fragile in the sense that none of us have a contract for life and in the fact we'd all run away if we thought it was going to be a long term thing because we all want to do different things. But it's as fragile or as robust as it's ever been because as long as there's still a feeling of something to be gained out of it, and I don't just mean financially, but emotionally, spiritually, whatever, it's going to stay around. When that dried up we'll be gone.

KINKY: Tell us about the derivation of the album title.

DAVE: For us it was a joke but unfortunately people are going to assume it's a sexual innuendo. My idea of Kinky was that swinging Sixties thing, and Carnaby Street where they'd say that something was Kinky, and they didn't mean that it was leather and whips, but that it was groovy.