The Circus Where The Dirt Meets The Sky

The Danny Walsh Banned has grown since their first album, but that doesn't mean they've had to grow up. The sound might have matured but they still like to have a good time.

"Rather than having an album launch we're having a rock 'n 'roll circus," says ring leader Danny Walsh, "I guess [we've] adopted The Rolling Stone's rock 'n' roll circus from 1968 where they brought in circus and vaudeville acts with the rock 'n' roll to create a surreal event in the Big Top, so our Big Top is The Toff In Town.

"Roll up, roll up. That's the circus."

"[We've] adopted The Rolling Stone's rock 'n' roll circus from 1968 where they brought in circus and vaudeville acts."

Walsh could be talking about recording — a blast of energy where some very talented mates 'roll up' to do what feels right and sounds good. "We went into Soundpark [Studios] for one day with Nao [Anzai], who's a bit of a legend around town, recording and mixing engineer," says Walsh. "He did our first one and we basically did the same thing, tracked it all in one day," he continues. "We did each song, went through each song twice ('Two takes — bang!') and ended up taking the second song each time. That was the one. I guess they got a raw, I shouldn't say raw, a live feel from the moment and I guess that's a good way of trying to capture what we do, trying to capture our live performance on a record.

"We tracked 12 songs and basically spent then the next year overdubbing, mixing, adding bits and pieces, sound bites, new instruments."

Some of those 'bits and pieces' include Ian Collard on harp, Talei Wolfgramm bringing "some serious singing to the fore", Chris Altmann on steel from Canada and Craig-Lee Smith playing his lagerphone — "even Mohair Slim plays maracas on one of the tracks".

"Cayn [Borthwick] from No Zu brought in some sax," adds Walsh. "I think that's the beauty of an ongoing process. We thought 'eh, maybe we can have some sax on the piano song' so Nao calls up Cayn and eventually we have sax.

"I think you get the benefit of trying to get your live feel on a record and then the benefit of fun stuff you can do in the studios."

The long/short, manic/playful, earth/wind approach is integral to the record. Pick up The Dirt & The Sky and you'll find the tracks literally split.

"The Dirt & The Sky comes from one of the lyrics in the song Hindsight Glasses and we figured that was just a nice way of, I guess creating some kind of space and separation between the two sides. When you're pressing something on vinyl you've got to have two sides," he deadpans. "I like those records, like Stephen Stills' Manassas, has two distinct sides. Taj Mahal has a record that has distinct themes on each side. So I guess we were following down that path. I think JVG [Jonnie Von Goes], we were on his show last week, and he mentioned he preferred the sky better. It's more mellow, that's one description."

"One side's more dirty and one side's more… sky-ey," grins Walsh.