Don Walker

I guess the previous two tracks, Skyhooks and Cold Chisel, featured a new style of songwriting, really, for Australian songwriters.

And Greg McKean and Don Walker were at the forefront of songwriters writing gritty, realist lyrics and quite confrontational and just telling important stories.

And they remain iconic songwriters here in Australia.

And those two tracks we heard were You'd Just Like Me Because I'm Good in Bed by Skyhooks from their debut album Living in the 70s and K-San by Cold Chisel from their debut album self-titled Cold Chisel.

And that's Let's All Get Together by Don Walker off his recent release, Love Songs, a new album that came out in August.

I'm delighted to introduce the man himself, Don Walker.

Hello, Don.

Hello, Neil.

Yes, that's correct, yeah, up near Bowen.

Yeah, nice part of the world.

But I guess if someone said where did Don Walker grow up, they'd probably associate that with Grafton, I guess, is the one that you're most associated with.

Yes, our family moved south when I was four years old, not to a farm near Grafton, so west of Grafton.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've been I made some progress and then I haven't played a ton of it because I was very stuck on the blood of Don Walker.

Don walking.

Yeah.

If you're a casual consumer of music then bands like Beasts of Bourbon or The Cruel Sea would come to mind upon mention of his name.

If you're a bit more of a diehard then I could start mentioning the likes of his solo work, The Dark Horses, The Fat Rubber Band, The Tennessee Four, The Band of Gold, The Butcher Shop, The Ape, The Bush Oysters, The James Baker Experience, Minced Meat, Salamander Jim, The Dum Dums, Thug and collaborations like TNT with Tim Rogers and the wonderful Tex, Don and Charlie with Don Walker and Charlie Owen.

Good gravy, I think I'm going cross-eyed just mentioning them all.

And you know what? That's not even all of them.

It's definitely a jazz song.

In sets I've heard you do with the band, you've pulled out Johnny's Gone from the Catfish second album, Ruby.

Have you ever done any other Catfish songs over the years with the Suave Fucks? Is there anything from those albums that you think would work in that particular band's realm, in that arrangement?

We have a few times done See You Again-

Okay

... which finishes off the second Catfish album.

That's the only one I can think of.

That one's a good one if we've got Dave Bligh available playing harmonica.

can I tell you, you kept me company on that long trip out there to sail with the H-Files.

Fantastic chat with Don Walker, who I was surprised you had never interviewed before.

No, no.

I thought about it not until after I'd done it.

But most of the time when I travel, a game I want to play comes out.

And so Don Walker just came out and I really want to play it.

It's an RPG.

You know, those things take forever.

I'm so pleased.

So more of that.

And then when I get back, I think the plan is I'm going to jump into Don Walker and play a bunch of that and try to do as much as I can.

My girl Anka is waiting for me.

Two very, very talented men joined me for this episode.

First up, Don Walker.

Now, if I have to go through... and tell you who he is, then we have a problem, Houston.

Flame Trees, Cheap Wine, Choir Girl, K-Sun.

But also, Don does, you know, incredible solo work and his latest is an album called Love Songs.

I can talk to him about the tracks on that, how they came about, what he's up to and...

What's coming up in the future? Terrific chat with Don Walker, who I must admit, in my 50-plus years of being in this silly business that I work in, I've never interviewed Don before, so it was a first for me.

I've also never interviewed Phil Jameson before, and I'm glad I have now, because he's a really talented bloke, and Grinspoon, of course, the band that we know him from, but he's done a solo album too.