#1 Dads ProfileThe solo project of Tom Iansek (Big Scary, No Mono) since 2011, #1 Dads was so named before he became an actual dad (he’s now the father of two).
“We had this whole bit – when we used to tour years ago – about how none of us were actually dads,” Iansek recalls, laughing. “I mean, it's such a silly name, but I'm stuck with it now.
“I put a bunch of names to vote for on Big Scary's Facebook page – back when Facebook was the main thing – you know, ‘What to call Tom's side project?’ and people voted ‘Dads’ as the best name. So it was Dads. And then there was an American band called Dads.
“And it was never really a serious project – it's still not that serious, to a large degree – but I just thought, ‘Well, we can't have two Dads, you know? I better be number one!’ So that's where #1 Dads came from. And there was never a thought about our status as parents or non-parents. But it was ironic that, yes, it was #1 Dads before I was a dad. And all of those original members – the guys [Gus Rigby and Christopher Port] – are now dads.”
We’re tipping #1 Dads merch goes off, too. “Yeah, there's always a few Father's Day orders that come through,” he confirms with a chuckle.
At the time of our Zoom, Iansek is in London. He relocated there in mid-2023 with his partner of many years, about whom he wrote a moving tribute song (Already Something), which appears on this very album.
They’re currently based in north-east London – “up near Walthamstow”, which Iansek describes as “the place where all the young professional couples that live in the really trendy parts of town move to when they realise they can't afford to stay where they are when they wanna have kids”.
“I've never experienced anything like it; it's a real concentration of young families, basically. It has a real sort of village-y feel to it.
“My partner was actually put in touch with some other Aussie friends of a friend, and they were surprised that we had mostly British friends, ‘cause they all just hung out with other Aussies. So I guess the benefit of having kids is that you kind of get that ‘in’ with a community that we probably wouldn't have met these people without, you know? So it's been great.”
“A Piano Renaissance” Sparks Every Little Fire
Some of Every Little Fire’s songs originated during Covid. When told the C-word still gives me the heebie-geebies, Iansek acknowledges, “That was part of the vocab, wasn't it? You just couldn't go [through] a sentence without hearing it, and then suddenly it was finished. It just seems like such another life, you know what I mean? It was a strange time, but it certainly left its mark, didn't it?
“I mean, it definitely had a part to play in this record, because I spent so much time at home playing piano, basically. So, yeah, it was part of a piano renaissance for me. I really got into this pianist called Chilly Gonzalez and I was just playing lots every day.
“And our first child was one then; we had a sleeping kid in the house, so I was also playing quietly, you know? So these quiet, gentle piano songs came out of that time, which then became a lot of the songs on this record.”
#1 Dads: “A Calming Thing”
When told that listening to Every Little Fire has a welcome calming effect – I swear it even helped to regulate my nervous system – Iansek responds, “It's interesting that you mention that. I mean, I have actually started a project called Relax AF [Relax As Foundation], which is just sort of meditation music, basically. But I've always been curious about that.
“My previous #1 Dads record [2020's Golden Repair] – there was a time when our child, who I was just talking about, was really struggling to sleep. We were just at our wit's end one night, and we could hear him sort of screaming in the next room.
“And I remember one night, I just thought – ‘cause you know how you can remotely control Spotify on your phone, for example? He had the white noise in with him, and so I just put on my previous record. And I can still remember he just immediately stopped crying, and we heard the gentle thud of him laying down and going to sleep immediately. And that was all he would listen to, that record. We would just loop it around and around and around for about 18 months, and it would always calm him. I mean, it drove us nuts [laughs].
“But I was always curious, you know? How much of it – the calmness – was in the music itself versus him just having absorbed those sounds when he was really small.”
From the womb, perhaps? “Yeah, definitely. And since then I've always been very curious about [#1 Dads’ music] as a calming thing.
“And also, I remember when I first started playing guitar I used to get so relaxed by it I would often doze off,” he confesses with a laugh. “I'd just be playing, and I'd often play to other friends, and it’d always be a relaxing thing. And I just remember I would often play a lot – so maybe into the evening – and I'd relax myself so much I would just sort of nod off.”
#1 Whistler
Iansek is legit one of the best whistlers I’ve ever heard (see: Every Time and Excuses on this latest set) – right up there with Bryan Ferry in Roxy Music’s Jealous Guy cover! On how and when he unearthed this particular talent, Iansek reflects, “Well, I feel like I've whistled at every #1 Dads show I've ever done and I can't really remember much of it before then.
“So, yeah, I definitely remember at some point quite a long time ago thinking, ‘Well, why don't I just try to whistle some musical scales?’ And I did that for a while and suddenly I could sorta hold a tune, and I've just done it more and more since then, ‘cause it's a very easy thing to spontaneously do.
“Maybe the musician in me’s like, ‘Well, if I'm doing it, I may as well try to do it in tune,’ or something. It's like when I sing to my kids at night – which I do most nights – I try to sing in tune, or I'll try and do it like a vocal exercise or something, and it actually does help me keep some kind of form, vocally. So, yeah, I guess I have a similar approach with the whistling.”
Channelling Ennio Morricone
“I just think that whistling is an amazing texture in amongst all these other amazing textures. I'm obsessed with Ennio Morricone, and so that – sonically – is probably an influence for some of the songs on this record, too.
The “souped-up drama” of Morricone’s “Western scores” (eg. 1964’s A Fistful Of Dollars and 1966’s The Good, The Bad And The Ugly) ignited Iansek’s obsession with the Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, trumpeter and pianist. “You can picture Clint Eastwood, you know?... I just love those arrangements and the strings, and how it's pieced together – often quite minimally.
“So a song like Already Something [from Every Little Fire], I feel like I probably leant on that sort of vibe a bit, with the string section. So, yeah, I do love that world.”
Surrendering To Demo-itis
Iansek followed his instincts more on this latest #1 Dads album, returning to demo parts that captured a certain magic to use in the final versions. “It was funny,” he observes. “Normally I'm an advocate for the other way: I went to the point where I would try and make bad demos, because with a bad demo you're forced to redo it.
“Like, I would very rarely record a real piano in a demo, because I knew that I might fall in love with that sound. Whereas if it's just a keyboard, I know I'll have to redo it, you know?
“There's one song, Nothing Less – that was done on a Juno synth in the demo and sounds amazing. So I couldn't actually remove that from my head, you know? And in the end I did end up using that in the final song. But the others I made more of a point of deconstructing and redoing.”
A melancholy-sounding guitar hook in Tonight Alive – #1 Dads’ self-described “strange banger” – caught my ear. What kind of guitar is that? Iansek hums the melody. “The fast one, the main one?” Affirmative. “That was from the demo, actually – that's a good pick! But that’s actually just a weird sample of – I can't even remember; that probably is a guitar, actually.
“So that's quite an unusual one. That is a bit of demo-itis with that song. I think, again, I just went for something weird and I would’ve tried to recreate it – like playing an actual guitar – but I just couldn't do it and so that stuck, you know? And it just added to this sort of unusual texture.”
Overthinkers Anonymous
In the album presser, Iansek reveals Excuses – where elongated strings underscore classy whistling refrains – is about “the perpetual mindfuck of constantly playing out how things could be in your head.” Is he an overthinker?
“Definitely, yeah. I mean, I've pared it back over the years, but I think it's a very natural thing for most people – that I know – to do; at least inwardly, you know? I think people show it outwardly to varying degrees. My partner is much more outward than I am; I've got a much better poker face, but I certainly have overthought a lot of things… We play over what could’ve been. To what benefit? Practically none, you know.
“Even though these things don't make sense when you look at them objectively or whatever, it doesn't mean that we don't do them, do you know what I mean? We still do these things, even though they don't make actual sense when you think about them. And that's the funny and very human element of them.”
Owing “A Lot To” Georgia James Potter
“I was struggling with [On A Winter’s Day] and I wasn't gonna put it on the record,” Iansek explains of this meditative album highlight.
“And I was even wondering about getting the kids’ choir at our son's school to try it – I dunno where that idea came from; I think maybe The Sleepy Jackson song that had [a child] singing [Morning Bird], which I always thought was so beautiful and broken, and so I was maybe thinking of that.
“Then Georgia [James Potter] was in town – we were working on her record [Iansek produced her 2022 single, Glass] – and she set aside some time to sing on my songs, ‘cause she has been in my live band in Australia for #1 Dads, previously. And, yeah, she just sang it and suddenly the song seemed to work as this sort of duet or something. I don't know why, she kind of made it come together just singing the melody. So, yeah, it owes a lot to her.”
Opening For #1 Dads
“It's quite a long tour,” Iansek points out of #1 Dads’ upcoming Australian tour, which kicks off on 21 October.
“Ruby Gill is one of the major supports, which I'm thrilled about. And I actually produced her latest record [Fishing is not about fishing, released on 15 October] here in London a few months ago. So we've had lots of time hanging out.”
Ruby passed the tourmate vibe check, then? “Yeah, pre-roadtested. Exactly,” he confirms. “Ruby's doing quite a lot of [the support slots], I think most of the northern New South Wales ones and the Victorian shows. Then Harrison Hughs and GIMMY, and I'm forgetting a few. But really awesome local artists for a lot of the venues as well, which I'm pumped for.”
More Australian openers for #1 Dads: Rohin Jones, Banff, Lily Morris, Silver Threads, Oscar O’Shea, Abby Wallace, My Cherie, and Anna Schneider.
#1 Dads’ Every Little Fire is out now via Pieater. Tickets to his Australian tour dates are on sale now.
#1 Dads Australian Tour – Solo Dad Mode
Wednesday, October 21st – Mapleton Pub, Sunshine Coast, QLD (Sold Out)
Thursday, October 22nd – Mapleton Pub, Sunshine Coast, QLD (Sold Out)
Friday, October 23rd – Junk Bar, Brisbane, QLD (Sold Out)
Saturday, October 24th – The Citadel, Murwillumbah, NSW (Sold Out)
Sunday, October 25th – Elm House, Mt Glorious, QLD (Sold Out)
Wednesday, October 28th – Season Three, Brisbane, QLD
Thursday, October 29th – The Eltham, Eltham, NSW (Sold Out)
Friday, October 30th – Bellingen Golf Club, Bellingen, NSW
Saturday, October 31st – Lela’s, Yamba, NSW
Sunday, November 1st – Flow Bar, Old Bar, NSW
Wednesday, November 4th – Lansdowne Hotel, Sydney, NSW
Thursday, November 5th – Lansdowne Hotel, Sydney, NSW (Sold Out)
Friday, November 6th – Grand Junction Hotel, Maitland, NSW
Saturday, November 7th – The Servo, Port Kembla, NSW (Sold Out)
Thursday, November 12th – Altar, Hobart, TAS
Friday, November 13th – Church, Geelong, VIC
Saturday, November 14th – Old Stone Hall, Beechworth, VIC (Sold Out)
Sunday, November 15th – Young St Tavern, Frankston, VIC
Thursday, November 19th – Brunswick Ballroom, Melbourne, VIC
Saturday, November 21st – Brunswick Ballroom, Melbourne, VIC (Sold Out)
Thursday, November 26th – Gang Gang, Canberra, ACT (Sold Out)
Friday, November 27th – Grace Emily (6pm), Adelaide, SA
Friday, November 27th – Grace Emily (9pm), Adelaide, SA (Sold Out)
Saturday, November 28th – Mojos, Fremantle, WA (Sold Out)
Sunday, November 29th – Mojos, Fremantle, WA
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
