At 61, Don Walker has nothing to prove.
As the primary songwriter in Cold Chisel, his songs ingrained themselves into our national psyche during a remarkably fruitful period in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.
Many of his best-known gems – such as “Flame Trees”, “Choir Girl” or ubiquitous last-drinks classic “Khe Sanh” – continue to earn the band new fans today. Something made clear by the cross-generational crowds attending the band’s recent reunion tour.
And artistically if not commercially, Walker’s post-Chisel career is just as impressive. There’s his place alongside Tex Perkins and Charlie Owen as one-third of the much-loved trio Tex, Don and Charlie. His own solo work has been equally well received.
His first foray into prose, Shots, was published in 2009 to rabid acclaim from critics, peers and artists he has inspired.
Representing the latter, Tim Rogers praised Walker’s keen observations in a review for The Monthly, writing: “In the absence of a tune (Walker’s) stories have greater weight, an ache that has me packing a bag, wanting to chance my arm at something a way up ahead.”
Though it’s packed to the brim with said tunes, Walker’s latest record also exhibits the emotional resonance noted by Rogers.
Titled Hully Gully, it takes the same musical path as 2006’s Cutting Back, navigating folk, blues and country-inflected rock with an easy charm. As with most of Walker’s best work, the focus is on his honest, wry storytelling and warm, familiar chord progressions.
Speaking from Sydney, he explains the album’s creation carefully, often pausing to ensure his choice of words is just right (so his quotes won’t require editing, he later admits).
“Develop your ideas outside the studio doing live work and then you go in and you perform something that is captured as an event.”“Hully Gully was recorded in sporadic days here and there,” he says. “If we went out for a tour and we found a number of new songs had accumulated, I’d go and book a studio and we’d put them down. And that’s an ongoing process. With this album, I realised last year I had accumulated the right set of songs.”
Though Walker says he couldn’t himself pick out a theme on Hully Gully, the characters are always in transit, moving through life, through relationships and trying to make sense of the world with a misty-eyed outlook that is equal parts cynicism and hope.
This loose thread runs from the title-track’s opening line, “They try to tell you dreams come true, they lie ’til you’re black and blue,” to the sentiment on the gorgeous country ballad “Lucky”: “I’m feeling lucky, gonna give this world a shot.”
“I try and record in a very old-fashioned way,” Walker says. “In the way that jazz bands still record. That is, you develop your ideas outside the studio doing live work and then you go in and you perform something that is captured as an event.”
Unsurprisingly, the record plays as it was made – with an off-the-cuff, live feel and a clear reverence for the power of playing from the gut.
Throughout Hully Gully, electric guitars stalk Walker’s vocals during the verses, unravelling spidery lines of emotion before they explode at each instrumental break. And while Walker’s dry, caustic voice never strives for perfection, it gets damned close on account of its raw honesty.
“I’ve always thought there’s a certain indescribable weight and magic about listening to an event that actually happened,” he affirms.
“That’s against listening to a fake event that was built up and manufactured over a number of weeks. There’s a number of these songs that I could name where what you’re listening to has no overdubs – it’s what we all played and sang together. There are some overdubs on some of the songs and some fix-ups, but, by and large (recording live) is the aim.”
If one were to speculate, another reason for Walker’s straightforward approach to recording is surely convenience. After all, this album was put together while he negotiated solo tours, the writing and publishing of Shots, and a rendezvous with his pals in Cold Chisel.
“In my little world here, [my songs] are just things that I wrote one day.”That string of dates in 2011-12 saw the group play to feverish, arena-sized crowds across the country. The audiences spanned multiple generations and most had pushed through the turnstiles to hear songs written years ago by Walker.
“In my little world here, they’re just things that I wrote one day,” he says, as if unfazed by his much-loved back-catalogue. “Of course, they mean a lot to me because embedded in them and encoded in them are all sorts of things in my life – things I care about.”
Indeed, while Walker has maintained a fairly low presence on the peripheries of the Australian music media, his tunes have remained omnipresent to this day. As to the questions of “how and why” this is the case, Walker is noncommittal.
“The best-known songs that I have written – not the best songs – tend to have been sung by great singers and great bands,” he argues. “So you have to give credit to that.”
More modesty soon follows: “What I am astonished about is that I have managed to somehow get an income stream out of something which is essentially done for fun.”
The reason, it would seem, is that the joy Walker gets from the process of songwriting is matched by the joy those songs give the audience.
The material on Hully Gully won’t fill an arena, but it has the same timeless qualities – in music and lyrics – that anyone who’s followed Don Walker’s career will recognise in an instant. And for that reason, it’s worth more than a few shots.
Hully Gully is out now through MGM. Read our review of the record here.
Don Walker Australian Tour 2013 Dates & Tickets
FRI 01 NOV | SHOALHAVEN ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE, SHOALHAVEN NSW
Tickets available from www.shoalhavenentertainment.com.au | 1300 788 503
SAT 02 NOV | CAMELOT LOUNGE, SYDNEY NSW
Tickets available from www.camelotlounge.com
FRI 08 NOV | SAWTELL RSL, SAWTELL NSW
Tickets available from www.sawtellrsl.com.au | 02 6653 1577
SAT 09 NOV | OLD MUSEUM, BRISBANE QLD
Tickets available from www.oldmuseum.org
FRI 29 NOV | CARAVAN MUSIC CLUB, OAKLEIGH VIC
Tickets available from www.caravanmusic.com.au | 03 9568 1432
SAT 30 NOV | FLYING SAUCER CLUB, ELSTERNWICK VIC
Tickets available from www.flyingsaucerclub.com.au | 03 9528 3600
more info at www.donwalker.com.au
