Darren Middleton Is No Longer 'Darren From Powderfinger'

It took almost a year of travelling through Europe with his family before Darren Middleton's passion for music kicked back in. The guitarist had said goodbye to his bandmates in the newly broken up Powderfinger and needed to put some distance between himself and that band's musical legacy in Australia.

“What I was doing, even unconsciously, was postponing the untangling of the threads that needs to happen with a long-term anything,” Middleton says of his almost 20-year career with Powderfinger. “I didn't really anticipate or expect to find myself lost. Who am I? I had to really discover that again because I've only ever really been Darren from Powderfinger. It was a bit of a surprise. But it was good to go through it. I fell in love with music again, which I had fallen out of.”

Once Middleton's passion had been restored and a move to Melbourne had introduced him to electronica producer Simon Walbrook, songs that he had been writing and was originally inclined to overlook or move on from began to put their case forward to be completed.

“At the end of a period of frustration I looked back and thought, 'They're actually good. I just need to finish them'. It's the first time I've ever had a record where I know where it came from.”

While Middleton's new solo album Translations isn't his first foray outside of Powderfinger – he also led the band Drag – the singer-songwriter says that these songs had a more personal resonance and that was the reason he started contemplating the idea of a solo album.

“I needed the songs to have a reason to exist, or for the album to exist. At this point in my life I wanted to be singing about something that was just me, really, wherever I am in life at the moment. I was going through quite an up and down period of my life, battling a bit of depression. Searching to find myself again. So that's all great source material.

“You don't make every record like that because you can't. But having that sort of album allows you to slip back into the memory of that really easily when you're performing it.”

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