Project Description
Interview with
DANE OVERTON
from
Dane Overton and the Joy Williams Band
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Dane Overton and the Joy Williams band are blues rock musicians from the south coast of New South Wales. They play foot stomping, dirty, blues rock music all over Australia.
I caught up with Dane recently for a chat.
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How did you first get into music? How did your career first begin? What kind of music did you grow up on?
I first got into music when my parents made me play an instrument when I was about 10, I wanted to play drums but they said it would be too loud for the house, I went with guitar and never really looked back. From about 15 I started joining bands in high school, most notably ‘The Butchers’ which was so much fun I knew I just wanted to keep doing it as I got older. Now it’s something that I absolutely can’t imagine myself not doing. I eventually started doing solo shows once all my teenage bands eventually broke down. Now its something I can’t imagine myself not doing!
I was very lucky with my taste of music also, My parents are massive Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and Deep Purple fans, so as a kid this music was crammed into my subconscious and played all the time around the house…. I didn’t really realise my parents taste in music was so good until about the age of 18, whenever somebody showed me a Rolling Stones song I would always be like “oh, I know this from when I was a kid!”
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How do you find the balance between your everyday life and your musical one?
Long hours at night and being savvy and succinct with emails! haha. By day I am a school teacher so I basically am in the routine of working roughly 8-4 during the day and doing music admin or band prac until about 10 at night, sometimes longer but not often. I finish all my school work at school and dedicate the afternoons and evening to music. School holidays and weekends are for touring and pretty much all music related things. It’s can be pretty full on, but it’s a decent balance.
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You’ve just released your new video “Bones”. Always feels good to get the job completed, doesn’t it? Can you describe its origins and evolution?
It’s the best feeling to have a track out after so many hours of work put into it! We recorded this and did a film clip once before but we weren’t happy with the quality overall so we made the hard decision to scrap it and start again!
The song came about from one of our initial jams with the Joy Williams band, We had the slow droning ‘E’ bass line, the guitar riff and we new it could be something awesome. When we Jam, we record most of the things that we play, from this we could piece together sections of a jam that worked for a chorus and we thought it sounded pretty good! When we were working on the Lyrics, Darcy (bass player) showed me a really cool vocal line and rhythm, he had recorded from one of our jams. From this we knew we had a structure. Classic, slow build up.
Lyrically, we don’t want to write simple things and we don’t want to write standard things, I’ve always like the juxtaposition of songs in a major key about something terrible, I just think its funny. We had this idea about a guy describing how much he disliked someone that wronged him…. From looking at the lyrics we found that ‘break all YOUR bones, kick out YOUR teeth’ ect was way too intense. All I did was change the tenses to “Break all MY bones, kick out MY teeth’ and for some reason it seemed less harsh and became more of an internal song about a guy losing his mind.
After we had lyrics and chorus, we took the song to Syd Green in at Mononest Studios in Nowra who put the final touches on the song; down tuned, a few breaks and layering. We knew we wanted the clip to represent the video so we tried to make it pretty similar to a man losing his mind. We took the clip to director William Jordan who perfectly captured our idea’s and image for the clip. We couldn’t be happier with how it has turned out.
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When did you and the band get together? How do you see your sound progressing in the future? Where do you envision yourself to be in the next 3-5 years?
I have always wanted to have a band playing behind me, you can be so much more dynamic and those 10 hour car trips are less gruelling too! I always said I wanted to play with sick muso’s but never really acted upon it until Darcy hit me up in early 2017, he basically said ‘ i’m a bass player, I’ll play bass for you, lets find a drummer’.
Which is pretty much how we started. We asked Jak to join and he was keen to jump on board too! 20 year old, self taught machine and one of the most talented drummers I have ever met. Darcy, also self taught, is also has an awesome natural groove which can’t be beaten! Both Jak and Darcy come from rock backgrounds which gives us a pretty heavy sound for a blues and roots! I would guess and say our sound will eventually become heavier in the future. In 3-5 years Ideally we would be on the festival circuit, playing around Australia with a couple of albums under our belt.
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Who are and have been your inspirations?
Hard one. For me my inspirations would definitely have been my music teacher growing up, he gave me the confidence to pursue music as a career, go to uni and continue performing.
For lifestyle I would probably say either Kane or Syd from the band 19Twenty. Both of them have wives, children and houses but still manage to play in a band full time. Two people who definitely seem to have the work/life balance sorted!
Musically probably, Daniel Johns or Tom Waits. Two people who have never been bound by a genre so to speak. Someone thats not afraid to branch out and try something different.
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If someone had never listened to Dane Overton and the Joy Williams Band before, what song of yours would you recommend them?
All of them of course!
The songs that probably best define us would be ‘Bones’ the new single. ‘Darlin’ and ‘Patricia’, simple, heavy blues rock songs that both tell a story and engage a rowdy audience.
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You have the “Single Tour” coming up. Looking forward to those shows? What can the fans expect? Any other tours on the cards?
Fans coming to our shows can basically expect an alcohol fuelled night full of rowdiness and fun. We love being on stage and we love playing live, hanging out and talking to locals. Always tours on the cards. Looking to go on another one for October and throughout summer. All over the east coast of Aus currently.
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Do you have any plans for an album?
We definitely do but we first are working on getting out an EP or two first. Just to break in the music scene as a band and to really get our sound sorted.
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If you could pick absolutely anyone to bring on tour with you, whom would you pick? (Dead or Alive).
Probably Keith Richards for me. Seems like he knows how to do it! Somebody that’s been doing it for so long must know the secret to it. Also, he’s somewhere between dead and alive so we kinda get the best of both worlds.
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Are there any venues or locations you aspire to play in the future? What are your major goals or milestones for the future?
Within the next EP one of my milestones is definitely to obtain airplay on roots an all on triple J. I feel like we are good enough now and the songs are good enough to get us on there. It’s all just a matter of time! Venue wise i’m not really fussed about but the Junkyard in Maitland seems like a must. Locations i’m always keen to get to. I love travelling and playing so if music can take me to some weird city of some weird country I’ll definitely go! In Australia I would love to make it over to WA for their festival circuit over there. ‘Blues and Bridgetown is renowned by almost all musicians as one of the best in Australia, so I would have to put a WA trip on the list too!
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Finally, this is a paragraph dedicated to some quick discovery. May sound corny, but for the fans, can you tell me your favorite album, artist, movie, place, drink, meal and person (living or dead) and some brief reasons why? Answer some or all please?
Favorite album: Rolling Stones ‘Sticky Fingers’. Probably the best mix of songs by the Stones. from Sway to Wild Horses and finishing with a banger like Moonlight Mile. The whole album flows really really well. artist. Hard one indeed. For overall musician and writers it would have to be Daniel Johns, as a band i’m really listening to Buddy Guy and The Devil makes three currently. Like many though, I went through a pretty heavy Nirvana phase too.
Movie: Shawshank Redemption or The Green Mile. No. Explanations. Needed.
Place: Kosice, Slovakia. I have been here 3 or four times. and played here as a solo artist and with a band. It is the second biggest city of Slovakia and has a great nightlife.
Drink: VB TINNY MATE
Meal: Ham and Pineapple pizza is pretty good.
Person: (living or dead) Norm Macdonald, comedian, I’m not sure why, he is just hilarious.
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Upcoming shows
July 14th – Port Kembla NSW
July 27th – Newtown NSW
July 28th – Mayfield NSW
Aug 11th – Canberra ACT
Aug 18th – Trafalgar East VIC
Sep 1st – Dubbo NSW
More info here
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Follow Dane Overton and the Joy Williams Band
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