Aussie maverick singer/songwriter Dan Webb is no stranger to doing things differently. Stepping away from rock music that “has traditionally been about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll”, Webb has been smashing live shows with a six piece band without the use of guitars and courting attention with his intriguing demo series ’12 songs – 12 months’.
Following a successful crowd funding campaign in which he raised over $8000 to finance the release, Webb teamed up with revered engineer Colin Leadbetter (Whitley, Gossling) along with some of Australia’s finest musicians Bobby Flynn, Kylie Auldist (The Bamboos) and Asleigh Cummings (Puberty Blues).
We’ve got an exclusive stream ahead of the release tomorrow and got Dan to take us through track by track behind how the songs came to be and what they mean to him.
Sandstorm is out tomorrow (May 9th) via Misdemeanor Records.
Broken
“One of the very first sounds you’ll hear is a guitar wailing. Up until now all of my music has been guitar free and even now, on this album it doesn’t feature very heavily, but I’m glad I chose to kick my debut album off with this track given it does feature guitar. It represents a departure from my previous work. This track is pretty sinister, but my cheeky side is also on display – there’s deliberately no lyrics in the chorus, mainly as an experiment to see what I can get away with!”
Coming Up Roses
“This one has quite a retro feel to it. I think owing to the instrumentation. Col Leadbetter (mix engineer) and I decided to distort the drums and approach this track in a slightly different way to the others. It came out sounding really strong.”
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Sandstorm
“I came up with the main bits of this song back in 2010, although it took ages to find a vocal melody that would suit it. I was really into playing around with odd time signatures back then, perhaps encouraged by my then-drummer Josiah Bradshaw…he’s a big Dream Theater fan. I originally wanted several layers of drum loops, we even played a few shows where I was running stuff off my iPad. My thinking back then was probably a bit of a precursor to Lonely Pony.”
Shadows Of A Maniac
“I’m not too sure what to say about this track. It’s got a few sections to it, a little disjointed but somehow managing to flow together seamlessly at the same time. [I’m] pretty sure I wrote it in a single day. I think it’s cool that you hear horns and Kylie (as backing vocalist) for the first time on this track as an introduction before the next song, where both horns and Kylie feature heavily…”
Departure Feat. Kylie Auldist
“I was listening back to Departure the other day and it struck me how dark the lyrics actually are. The second verse in particular, there’s talk of cutting yourself with glass and walking in front of cars. I was obviously feeling very bitter at the time. But it’s got a really funky, upbeat instrumental arrangement, which descends into something pretty psychedelic.”
Riot
“Riot is stripped right back to the bare essential instruments – vocals, my late 60s Wurlitzer keyboard, drums and bass. I honestly can’t remember what inspired the piano coda at the end, but to me it’s always been part of the same song. It marks the end of what would be the first side of this album were it pressed to vinyl (maybe one day!), and is in stark contrast in style, arrangement and approach to…”
Lonely Pony Feat. Bobby Flynn
“Lonely Pony is completely different to anything else I’ve done to date. I was aware I’d spent several years working on some of the other songs and I wanted to force myself to commit to ideas. I drew some notes into Ableton Live one day and paired them up with the very first lyrics that came to mind – and that’s essentially what you’re hearing in the final mix. I didn’t sing or play a single note on this track in the end. I didn’t feel I needed to. It was a lot of fun producing something so completely different, in a completely different way to how I would normally.”
Sleep Feat. Ashleigh Cummings
“This is the first single off the album. I don’t really like explaining what my songs are about cos I’d like people to bring their own meaning to my at times, incredibly cryptic lyrics, but there’s no denying this song was inspired by insomnia. It’s pretty damn obvious. Ashleigh did an amazing job. First time she’d been in a studio… she nailed it!”
Nobody Gets It
“This one’s for anyone who might be feeling frustrated with the world right now.”
Reflections
“I remember this song kicking around before my 2012 New Zealand tour but I very much associate it with the sights and sounds of that experience. Did I somehow travel back in time to write it?”
Tiple Sec
“I wrote Triple Sec, start to finish, after I got home from a party late one night. Only took a couple of hours. I actually came up with the song title first. I think the words ‘triple sec’ just sound cool. We added the end guitar riff very late in the process; it’s an appropriately badass riff for a badass sounding drink/song title. During mixing, I remember asking Col to push the reverse piano up louder in the mix. He was pretty hesitant but Lawrence Greenwood (Whitley) happened to be in the studio that day and together we managed to win Col over.”
Point Of View
“I think this is the very last song we worked on in the studio, I remember singing it hunched over the mic in a very odd position, trying desperately to get into the right melancholy headspace. The keyboard bit at the end was one of about three takes we did, I always planned for it to run off the rails a little, but not quite to the extent that you hear on the finished product – it was just one of those magic moments in the studio where I looked at Andy (Crosbie), the engineer, as I was playing and we both exchanged a look of ‘yep, this is it…don’t fucking hit that red button.'”
