Taste Test: Dean McGrath

THE FIRST ALBUM I BOUGHT
WITH MY OWN MONEY
I think it was the Alanis Morissette album, her first record. I would have been like ten or 11 or something. It's not a particularly cool record to have bought, but I'm pretty sure that was the one. I don't think I even was [that into her], it was just everywhere. It was just being played so much; that single was just so huge that I was like, 'oh, I'll get this'. I remember selling it a few years later. I think the second one I got after that was Spiderbait or something like that so I started redeeming myself soon enough!

THE ALBUM I'M LOVING RIGHT NOW
I'm really loving Swing Lo Magellan, the new Dirty Projectors record. I think it's incredible, been listening to it a lot. The album immediately before it, Bitte Orca, I thought was amazing and I thought they're not gonna be able to top it; and then they did, so I was very impressed with the new one.

MY FAVOURITE PARTY ALBUM
In recent years the album that's put me in an instant good mood is Unknown Mortal Orchestra's album, their first album. It's a pretty damn good party record. Good vibes on that one so it quite often goes on at my place if there's people around, I'll just chuck that on. It's a record I've been listening to fairly regularly since it came out, which is a while now, so it's holding on.

MY FAVOURITE COMEDOWN ALBUM
I really like Daniel Rossen's EP that he did. I think that's nice, sort of chill/unwind sort of music, except it's not long enough, it's only five songs or four songs or something. So yeah, it's pretty good for the day after when you just want to zone out.

THE FIRST GIG I EVER ATTENDED
The first gig I ever went to was Homebake, when they still had it at the Gold Coast. It was insane. I was 14 years old and it was just like every huge Australian band at the time was playing – I think Silverchair and Powderfinger headlined it. The whole list was just bands of that sort of era, all the big names. It was incredible that they could pull such an amazing line-up of just local stuff together. It was pretty mind blowing. I just went with a friend of mine and we would've been a couple of the youngest people there. We were in awe the whole time. It was the first experience [where] I fell in love with going to see live music and [I] never stopped going since then.

THE WEIRDEST GIG
EXPERIENCE I'VE HAD
Weirdest gig experience... I just can't even think at the moment. Can we come back to that one? I need to think about it! [Later] Oh god, it's still eluding me. I know that there's stuff there, I just can't think of anything specific, my brain's not working!

MY BIGGEST NON-MUSICAL INFLUENCES
Well I take a really keen interest in the artworks and everything that goes on with our band. Before we started getting really busy I was a full-time graphic designer so that's my other passion I guess. I'm a very visual person, I like illustration and cool visual stuff, and I'm a real typography nerd.

THE COOLEST PERSON I'VE MET
We met Shaun Micallef really briefly at Melbourne Airport. I think he's pretty cool. We'd only sort of sheepishly said hello to him and that was about it. But he rocked up at Splendour the year we played and it was funny because there were all these whispers about Jay-Z being there and Kate Moss was there with the guys from The Kills, all these bigger celebrity types, and we were hanging out at the artist bar and Shaun Micallef came back there and everyone was freaking out. Everyone was just like, 'Oh my god, it's Shaun Micallef!' He was the biggest celebrity drawcard at Splendour that year.

THE BIGGEST CELEBRITY
CRUSH I'VE HAD
I'm absolutely enamoured with Annie Clarke; she calls herself St Vincent. She's a goddess, she can shred on guitar and I just think she's amazing.

THE MOST SURPRISING RECORD
IN MY COLLECTION
I've got a few sort of dance records. I don't think anyone would pick me as a dance-music fan but I've got a fair bit of like old Daft Punk records and all the LCD Soundsystem stuff, and I don't think that's what people would immediately assume I'm into but I love it. I've got a Rodney Rude vinyl, from my dad. Actually that's probably the most surprising thing in my collection – just like all this music and then there's just terrible comedy records that I got among a bunch of old original pressings that my parents had from way back in the day, in [a] stack that I pinched off them.

IF I COULD HANG OUT IN ANY
TIME AND PLACE IN HISTORY
I think like Berlin in the '60s, when The Beatles were doing Berlin and stuff. Berlin's such a crazy, amazing city. We were there really recently and I loved it. And I guess at that time there was just so much going on, it was one of the cultural hubs of the whole pop-music thing.

IF I WASN'T MAKING MUSIC
I'd probably still be working as a full-time graphic designer, I still do a little bit of freelance here and there. I was working full-time and had to leave because we were just touring too much, and had we not been touring I probably would have stayed and would still be doing it.