Whether it’s his piercing blue eyes, the smoldering looks or the sheer lyrical guts of his soul meets rock music, one thing is for certain: Dan Sultan has what it takes. He’s a Triple J darling, appeared in the Australian film Bran Nue Dae and has a new album, Get Out While You Can, tearing up the charts. He took a moment to chat to OUTinPerth about his busy life… and being called ‘The Black Elvis’.
For the readers who might not be familiar with Dan Sultan, what can you tell us about your musical style? Well, I grew up listening to a lot of soul music and a lot of rock n roll and later I got into country music and I find that country and soul music, they’re like brothers or sisters, you know what I mean? Or like cousins. I find the similarities between the two are endless, really. So I really got into country music growing up on soul music… the ballads, in particular. You know, like Georgia on my Mind; Willie Nelson sings it and Ray Charles sings it and I think for anyone to say that it’s a country song and not a soul song or vice versa is selling it a bit short. I personally can’t pick them. So my music, if it was anything, it would be country-soul-rock’n’roll.
The Black Elvis, is that a fair call? Well, look, that’s something that you don’t want to take too seriously. You know what I mean? I just take that with a grain of salt, man. Look, don’t get me wrong, it’s a compliment; I’m not being totally blasé about it, but at the end of the day I don’t actually think that I’m a black Elvis. You don’t want to start believing that shit, you know what I mean? You just take it with a grain of salt. But look, I think Claire Bowditch called me that and she was giving me a compliment when she said it and Elvis, I love Elvis but as far as I know there’s only one black Elvis and that’s Nicky Winmar and he used to play for The Saints in the 80s and 90s, number 7 for The St Kilda Saints. His name is actually Elvis Nicky Winmar. But that’s the only black Elvis I know of.
Have you considered doing an Elvis cover at some point, or do you do an Elvis cover? Sometimes, as a party. If I whip the guitar out and my friends want me to sing a song I might do an Elvis song here and there, y’know.
So no jumpsuits? No jumpsuits, not yet, no. We haven’t got the budget for that yet.
What can you tell us about your success at the moment? Why do you think you’re so successful? I’m not sure, you know. I work very hard, I always have worked very hard and I’m very passionate and I’m also very lucky. Not to say that it’s all luck, because as I said I do work very, very hard, but a lot of people work really hard and they find it really tough in this industry – because it is, it’s a bloody tough industry. I released a record a few years ago which I really liked and I was really happy and proud of and radio didn’t touch it, really. There was community radio and a lot of ABC radio that would, but your Triple J or your more youth-based stations where it’s going to help to sell records, they wouldn’t touch it. So I don’t know what it is about this latest record; it all just seems to have come together. I consider myself very lucky, but like I said, I work very hard.
What sort of impact do you think appearing in Bran Nue Dae has had? Oh, obviously it’s not bad for the profile. It’s pretty good for the old profile, as a profile builder. It was something I just couldn’t pass up, I had to actually sacrifice quite a lot, not only just professionally with the group but also personally, my personal life. A lot of things got put on hold and a lot of things actually went to shit within my personal life. But you know, no regrets at all. It was one of those things that I just had to do, no matter how hard it was going to be.
Have you since reconciled those personal issues? No, no. Shame. And look, everything’s fine; there’s no malice or hatred or anything like that, but nah, it’s gone.
Do you have a festival horror story that’s either happened to you or someone you know? I made us all miss a flight to Hobart when we were going down for the Falls Festival a couple years ago because I was looking for a jumper or something. So we missed the flight anyway and so we had to get another flight but the best we could do was get one to Launceston, so we got one to Launceston and then it was about 6 or 7 of us piled into a convertible Holden Astra hire car and a Hyundai Getz little two-door thing and just barreled down to Hobart. Well, to Marion Bay, which is just North of Hobart. And yeah, we just made it and luckily our backing singer was already there so kind of represented like ‘Nah, they’ll be here, they’ll be here!’ and we made it with about two minutes left to go before we had to go onstage. We had the top down, and even in summer it can get pretty cold in Tassie – it can get really, really hot but on this day in particular it wasn’t too warm but we had to put the top down.
So missing the flight, did you find a really nice jumper? I did! Thankyou, I did bring my jumper and it served me well in the convertible when we had the top down.
West Coast Blues ‘n’ Roots happens Sunday March 28 at Fremantle Park in Fremantle. www.westcoastbluesnroots.com.au
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
