Why Paul Dempsey Doesn't Give A Fuck If You Don't Like His Music

We head to EMI Music in Woolloomooloo on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, a few days after the release of Paul Dempsey's second solo album Strange Loop. Seated across the table from The Music, Dempsey is dressed in a blue-green, spotted button-up and black jeans. He runs a hand through his dark hair absent-mindedly when he's thinking, chuckles easily, and uses his hands to explain ideas.

In the 20 years Dempsey has been performing both solo and as frontman as Something For Kate, he has been described as "earnest" and "morose", but Dempsey maintains that his lyrics are often funny - the humour must go undetected, and that's ok. He admits that when he started out, literally as a teenager, he was still figuring out how to express himself, so his early records probably do sound earnest: "But you live and learn and you evolve. Occasionally I feel people are still judging me on the person I was 20 years ago, and I think that's a little unfair, but fuck it. What are you going to do? I don't need everybody to like me, and I'm not going to spend my time trying to convince people 'Please listen to me again, give me another chance.' I don't give a fuck. I just think it's funny that 'Really, you're still basing your opinion on something you heard 20 years ago?'"

"Occasionally I feel people are still judging me on the person I was 20 years ago, and I think that's a little unfair, but fuck it."

The title Strange Loop came from I Am A Strange Loop by physicist and mathematician Douglas R Hofstadter. Dempsey tells us that he loves reading about black holes and galaxy formation, and about particle physics and the behaviour of subatomic particles. But he says the perception that he is an "accomplished science mind" has been "overstated in some quarters". He just reads "stuff written for the general reader": "I can understand the concepts and ideas, even if I have to glaze over the equations.

"My great interest outside of music is just science history especially, just reading about the people who developed quantum theory, and how our knowledge of the evolution of the universe came about, and the people who made those discoveries, the road to where we are now. I guess it's the history of knowledge in all kinds, from philosophy, Ancient philosophy, through to the present day. I'm interested in how we got to where we are now, and how we understand the world we're in. I guess I am always looking for better explanations.

"For me the best explanations that are presently available that help me understand why I exist are coming from the scientific realm and not the religious or spiritual realm. I'm more interested in the fact that we're all made of atoms, and how do those things interact and behave to produce this and your mind and your memories and your thoughts, how does this all come out of what is essentially inanimate matter.

"Every atom in your body was formed in the birth of the universe. No new atoms are created or lost - it's the same atoms that have always been and they're just in different configurations. Some of what's in you right now could have been in a dinosaur or a star or in an asteroid. Everything is made of the same stuff that it ever was."

"Every atom in your body was formed in the birth of the universe. No new atoms are created or lost - it's the same atoms that have always been and they're just in different configurations."

In a track-by-track with The Music, Dempsey explained that album closer Nobody's Trying To Tell Me Something grappled with the idea of mortality and making the most of life: "You're gonna die, and there's not going to be anything after this, so just try and enjoy yourself and try to be good, try to have fun, try not to worry."

We ask if trying to be good, have fun, not worry is a kind of philosophy for Dempsey. "If I do [have a philosophy I live my life by], it's not to have one," he begins. "When I say to try not to worry and stuff like that, I guess what I really mean is to not worry about worrying. I do worry, of course I worry, everyone worries, but I don't worry about the fact that I'm worrying. I think it's ok to worry, it's normal to worry, and it's normal to be anxious. It's normal to feel insecure sometimes. It's normal to not know why you're happy, or to not know why you're unhappy.

"I guess I just don't think there are answers. I don't think that we're going to find the meaning of life. I think there's just the best available explanations at the time, but it's a constant - for me, it's just always about moving forward, always trying to find a better explanation as opposed to an answer. I don't think there are any. I don't think there are necessarily any absolutes or whatever. I embrace my foibles and flaws and try to improve and stuff like that, but not on some kind of... I don't know, it's hard to explain. I guess if I eschew anything, it's this kind of new age claptrap of — I just feel like there's all these things coming at you that are telling you to be mindful, telling you to be in the moment, telling you to live in the now, but all of that fucking noise is the only thing stopping me. I just think there's, even if all that stuff means well, it is a distraction from the actual doing of it."

He concludes, "No, I don't have any philosophy to live by... I feel aware of the scale of things, I feel aware that I'm made of atoms and stuff, and at the same time I also feel aware that we're on this speck in an obscure part of a cluster of galaxies. It's a perspective, and I just feel constantly aware of how brief life is - in a wonderful way and that sort of informs my everyday life."

That understanding of just how brief life is, and of his own mortality, is something Dempsey says he's always thought about. He thinks that probably stems from "that constant experience of losing a parent, and growing up with everyone constantly talking about this deceased family member and talking about heaven" after the sudden death of his father in a car accident when he was only two years old: "It's pretty hard not to grow up feeling aware that sudden tragic death can happen to anyone.

"I've always sort of been aware of the fragility of our existence. That's not dark, it's not supposed to sound dark, I hope it doesn't sound dark. I think it's in many ways been a huge benefit to me because I feel like I've done my damnedest to enjoy my life and to pursue things. Maybe I wouldn't have chosen such a risky, unstable career path. Maybe I wouldn't have pursued my wildest dreams as eagerly as I did if everything had been stable and whatever. I think my attitude has in a lot of ways allowed me to just go for it."