GYMPIE-born troubadour Darren Hanlon doesn’t have an issue in going back to his beginnings, revisiting songs from his much-loved old Lismore university band The Simpletons.
Songs like These Days, 2480, F and Buzz Aldrin often end up on the set list.
One of the fan favourites The Pipes stirred up some emotions on his last tour.
“I started doing that one again, just recently on tour. I just decided to pull it out on the last show. It was up around Lismore where we played and people were crying when I sang that song. I just thought oh wow, it’s such a beautiful, simple, but powerful song and it’s really fun to sing,” Hanlon said.
“Playing The Simpletons songs kind of grounds me, especially when I’m feeling nervous. That’s why I always do them. It somehow just brings me back down if I’m really struggling with nerves. So that’s why These Days comes out. I find it a really comforting song.”
Hanlon recently moved back to his hometown of Gympie with his partner, US folk singer Shelley Short where they have raised their son Rocky and welcomed the new addition to the family, their 11-week-old boy.
They had spent years living in between Portland in the US state of Oregon and Melbourne.
“It’s pretty rare that I spend this much time [in Gympie]. I haven’t spent this much time here since I moved out when I was 18.
“It’s a bit challenging being back here. I do miss Melbourne and we’re going to be going back to America next year. But it’s quite psychologically challenging returning to your childhood hometown and to live you know.
“The weird thing is, I feel like my own memories are being erased. I’d always come back to Gympie with a sense of nostalgia but I’ve lost that now because I’m here all the time. It’s now become this place where I see it through my kids’ eyes.
“I started, just out of the monotony of pushing a pram around the same streets within a 2km radius, I started coming up with this concept of a very claustrophobic album just about whatever we see on our walks in the morning.
“So maybe now that we’ve got a new baby, I'll continue that and explore this theme of mind-numbing suburbia through my kids eyes.
“But I’ve got some pretty good songs out of it.”
Besides his family growing, since moving to Gympie there’s been Covid, a major flood and amongst all of that, his sixth studio album Life Tax.
Life Tax is his most pared down and gentle album to date. It features longtime live favourites Lapsed Catholic and Freight Train From Kyogle.
“Life Tax was pretty much done. It was meant to be a much more orchestrated album but because we all scurried home when Covid hit I didn’t get to put any of the other instrumentation on it, so it’s quite a sparse record.
“I tried doing it from Gympie over email and all that kind of stuff, but it just was a real struggle because someone would go into the studio and I’m not there and you want to change something, it was a rigmarole so I just gave up, put it out, pretty stripped back.
“Since then, well Covid happened, but last year I ended up inadvertently having the busiest traveling year I’ve ever had in my whole career.
“But I managed to drag the family around for a lot of it. There were two European tours and three Australian tours.”
The change in his lifestyle hasn’t affected his creativity, although Hanlon says finding the time to work on new material is a bit more difficult.
“Up until I was 47 I had all this disposable time. Being a parent is like running a cafe and having an amateur theatre sports troupe so I’m constantly trying to make up songs.
“There’s one element of repetition but then there’s another where the audience just want new material all the time. So I’ve got to keep coming up with new stuff.”
The Simpletons
One milestone for his career in the New Year will be a one-off show of hits and favourites with his old drummer Bree van Reyk and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra in Hobart as part of the Mona Foma festival.
The show came about through Violent Femmes bass player Brian Ritchie, who is the artistic director of Mona Foma.
“I can’t even believe that it’s happening,” Hanlon said.
“Brian Richie, he’s been a real champion of mine. I met him when we did two separate tours with the Violent Femmes years ago. So we got to know each other pretty well.
“They play massive shows in America and he always gets me up to sing a song with them and the crowd is like ‘who’s that weird Australian guy?’
“He’s always trying to promote me and I’m really grateful for it. So he just said, ‘One day you should be playing with the Tasmanian Symphony’ and I just said ‘Are you serious?’
“He said that to me first maybe five years ago and it has taken this long for it to actually happen.”
Until then the tradition of the Darren Hanlon Christmas show comes to Brisbane on December 22 – his 18th Christmas Show tour.
“I never have a setlist so I can never really say what to expect, but Christmas is usually time for a greatest hits kind of vibe. They don’t want to hear too much new stuff. There’ll be a good cross section.”
Darren Hanlon’s Christmas Show will be at the Judith Wright Arts Centre on December 22, with support Emily Joy Simms.
