Passion Not Preach

n enduring presence in Australian music since the early '80s, seven-time ARIA award winning songwriter David Bridie has quietly courted critical acclaim throughout his career as co-founder of adventurous pop rock outfit Not Drowning, Waving and its more acoustic based offshoot My Friend The Chocolate Cake. He's a producer too, a screen composer and foremost specialist in the music of Melanesia through his work as director of not-for-profit label Wantok Musik. Though right now he is David Bridie, the solo artist who last month released his fourth record, Wake. 

“It started as being the bilge mark, the wake at the back of a boat; some action happens and the resulting fallout or feelings that come from that [is the wake]. And having just gone through a relationship breakup there's always these kind of post-feelings so there's a little bit of that [on the record],” says Bridie, continuing to define the album's multifaceted title. “Wake also as in a wake-up call, and I guess doing a solo record for me was a bit like I wanted to re-establish what it is that I value in what I do, and while I love being a film soundtrack composer and running this record label or being a producer, what's most important to me and what I started doing is writing songs – writing and recording songs. So I wanted to make something that was valued and respected for that rather than all the other areas in my working life... I really wanted to focus on my career and my songwriting, my singing, my writing, so yeah I had to be quite driven to get it done.”

Choosing to release Wake independently after being signed to the likes of Mushroom, Warner and EMI in the past three decades, without label A&R support Bridie was aware he had to keep the vision clear for his first solo record since 2008's Succumb. He'd also been around the block enough times to know when to follow his instincts.

“At the beginning I wanted to make quite a stripped back record that would work around piano and voice and then surround it with these layerings of sounds that had a bit of edge, that were sonically interesting. And I wanted to write a series of songs that were obviously strong and that had a place of their own. That was an underlying thought through the whole record but the record changed; the songs got embellished a bit more than that and I did enjoy getting a range of different guitarists who came in and added stuff because at the beginning I didn't imagine that there was gonna be that much guitar on the record. I had Ash Naylor from Even and Ian Haug from Powderfinger and John Phillips from Not Drowning Waving and Phil Wales who I worked with on so many projects – on earlier solo records, Frank Yamma and Telek. What they played really added to songs so I kind of followed my nose a little bit…” says Bridie who also invited vocal guests Rob Snarski (The Blackeyed Susans) and Kylie Auldist (The Bamboos) amongst a host of other musicians to share the recording process.

Since his Not Drowning Waving days, Bridie has had a special ability to intertwine social commentary with everyday introspection in a uniquely coherent manner, and Wake continues this songwriting triumph in the streets, relationships and policy debates of Adelaide and Afghanistan, and many places in between. Atop the stern piano and affecting strings of Treason he sings of border protection: “The brave ones fled on a pea-green boat/Set fire to them, ignore them – see if they'll float”. “There's very little heart in the way we're treating asylum seekers,” says Bridie on the hot election topic. “I get that it's not a simple issue and one of the frustrating things is that Australia is a country of only 23 million people in this massive space, and Australians are very, very privileged – we live in very wealthy circumstances. Everyone's got laptops and iPhones, and most houses have got three television sets or four, so we don't do too badly. That mantra of 'Stop the boats' or that both parties try to outdo themselves in how inhumanely they treat human beings who are fleeing wars to come here, I think it's a serious issue and I think it's an indictment on Australia the way we do it,” he explains, before referring to a Four Corners report on Manus Island detention centre's tent accommodation. “I've been to Manus Island quite a few times; it's one of the hottest places I've ever been to and it's humid – it's 100 per cent humidity and it is uncomfortably hot if you don't have shelter. Tents don't provide shelter. We treat animals in a zoo better than people are treated there. When good people stand by when bad things are happening, that's how evil happens. It's a funny thing – I think Australian's actually are quite warm-hearted people as a generalisation when they get to know somebody's circumstances, but for some reason we've been able to block these people out. So the statement in Treason is kind of like we're treating these people as if they've committed treason against our nation's state, and Delegate's gone and got a bit more bluster [about the topic], but it's a rockier song.”

Though a passionate spokesperson on human rights issues, Bridie never comes off preachy, and he's aware of the need to include themes from the other end of the spectrum, too; the playfully lazy Dr Seuss Is Painting In The Sky speaks of replacing adult blinkers with a sense of childlike wonderment.

“For songwriters, the art is the music and the words are communicating ideas and emotions, and for those songs [Treason and Delegate], that was what I was wanting to convey. The best art kicks against the pricks, the best art means something – sometimes the best art's unfashionable. But there are other songs on the record too; Flatlands is kind of some odd observations about zipping around Slovenian sunflower fields and the sweet corn and drinking schnapps in the town square in some odd little town out of the way. The songs that have venom or a cry of concern I balance out with small tales about goin' for a walk around the back streets of your neighbourhood at night.”

As Bridie prepares to tour nationally this month with his Not Drowing, Waving buddy John Phillips joining the band, he's excited to have experimental pop songwriter Eden Mulholland opening as well as lending harmonies to the songs of Wake. Bridie can't wait; Wake has brought him a great sense of accomplishment.

“I'm as happy with this record as I was with [first solo release] Act Of Free Choice or with Not Drowning, Waving's Claim or Chocolate Cake's Good Luck, and they've been the records that I've been most proud of… Hopefully it will find its place.”