Bernard Fanning's fourth solo record Brutal Dawn has come pretty hot on the heels of his third, Civil Dusk, with there being only nine months in between the two releases. This came about because of the wealth of songs he had written over the preceding couple of years. However, instead of doing a double-album release, or indeed the whole Guns N' Roses thing (releasing two separate albums at the same time) he decided to do it his own way.

"I obviously look back very fondly on my days in Powderfinger."

"It's a pretty different process putting two records out in a row," he says, "even doing more promo now, so quickly after having done a lot for the last record, is really unusual. I've never done it before. But it is a new record, and they kinda go together. It's an unusual kind of situation. About half way through making the first one, we said 'We've got heaps of material here, but we don't want to make a 20-song album.' So we did it over two. So we're presenting them together and apart," he laughs, "it's an odd feeling but I'm really happy with it."

Fanning feels that he has upped the ante on the new album. "I feel I've bettered Civil Dusk," he opines, "there's always that novelty thing, that this is the new thing, but I just feel like this one just hangs together better."

He managed to secure the rather illustrious services of one of Australia's greatest ever drummers, Midnight Oil's Rob Hirst, on one of the key tracks on the album, America (Glamour And Prestige). His regular drummer was unavailable for one of the sessions and Hirst just happened to be in Byron at the time. "He's one of the greatest drummers," he says, "and that energy and power that he brings to stuff, he really brought that song up and gave it a good kick up the arse. He just made it have a lot more zing that I thought it was going to have. When you see someone that's that good at something in action, whether it's playing drums or snooker or tennis, it's just awesome to watch."

Fanning admits that it's a little difficult to get his head around the fact that he is now four albums and well over a decade into his solo career outside his former iconic rock act Powderfinger. "Yeah, it's weird," he states, "it's weird but it's also just everyday reality. I obviously look back very fondly on my days in Powderfinger, I had a really awesome time and I'm really proud of what we did. But it's not part of my everyday reality now. I've never been one to look back too much or to worry about what's happened.

"It's more about saying 'what's next?' rather than saying 'weren't we great', and patting ourselves on the back. I certainly appreciate those days, I just don't want to talk about it all fuckin' day!"