Dave Gleeson is a busy man not only are The Angels about to embark on the 40th Anniversary Tour for their second album ‘Face to Face’ which they will be playing in its entirety along with a blistering ‘best of’ set; but Dave’s ‘other’ band The Screaming Jets is also about to rock the nation along with Boom Crash Opera on the Rock Radio Riot Tour. Did we mention that both bands are also in the process of producing new albums? Let’s find out all about it from the man himself.
Mark: Thanks so much for chatting with The Rockpit today Dave, let’s start all the way back, when did you first hear ‘Face to Face’ by The Angels?
Dave: I was only ten years old when ‘Face to Face’ came out, but I had two older brothers who I shared a bedroom with and they chose the playlist and The Angels were one of my older brother’s favourities so I heard that album first when I was ten, maybe eleven. But The Angels used to play at a place called Cardiff Workers Club which was in the town I grew up in – a bit of a legendary Rock and Roll/violence venue back in the day (laughs) and they’d come home and they’d be talking about the drinking and the girls and the fighting and the music and I couldn’t wait to be 18 so I could go an experience it myself and in the end I think I managed to get in a year early.
Mark: The good old days when Rock was Rock and big bands like AC/DC, The Angels and Rose Tattoo ruled the roost.
Dave: And the touring schedule back then was so different to now, obviously if you were one of those big type bands you could play any night of the week, but as touring bands go these days those Tuesday and Wednesday night gigs, they don’t exist anymore, and quite often not even a Thursday night so you end up doing Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It’s certainly changed now from being out on the road for weeks on end and playing gig after gig.
Mark: Definitely, you’ve got quite a lot of dates though in May going all the way into July, I’m just looking down the list of shows and seeing plenty of familiar venues like the Miranda Hotel down there in the Shire, I used to live down that way.
Dave: (laughs) was that where Carmen’s was?
Mark: The same venue I think, many a beer soaked memory…
Dave: A rotten joint! (laughs) You know we never went in there but we’d drive past it on the way to Wollongong or maybe Slyvania, we’d drive past and I’d say “I never want to play there” it’d be two in the morning and there’d be people laying in the street, girls carrying their shows around, it was disco mayhem!
Mark: Now you’re taking me back! I had a mate who bought a unit round the corner just so he could be closer to the action!
Dave: (laughing)
Mark: As far as the Tour set is concerned what are you going to be playing for the fair citizens of Miranda and elsewhere, is it going to be the whole of ‘Face to Face’ from start to finish?
Dave: Yes there’s the ten songs and eleven with the inclusion of ‘…Face Again’ which is going to be on this one, so we’ll do that in its entirety and then you’ve obviously got another hour and a half, or at least another hour to fill so Rick and John will take us through the songs that they love playing and the crowd loves hearing and there we go. Sometime soon Rick will send me an e-mail with the songs and I’ll go”Beauty” and I’ll do a bit of catching upon them.
Mark: So what’s the rehearsal process like for a new tour, how soon do you get together before that first date?
Dave: We normally get together a day before, obviously a lot of the songs are in the set all of the time so as soon as we’d finished the ‘Red Hot summer Tour’ playing all round the country on huge stages to 6 or 7 thousand people a night, which was fantastic, we were ready to go. So everyone’s firing on all eight, and we just get in the day before, run through it and off we go.
Mark: Being a fan before you were the singer is there an Angels song you’d always wanted to play but never got the chance? One you’ve maybe not been able to convince the boys to dust off?
Dave: Well there’s one that we did once when I first started with the band, we did the ‘Dark Room’ album at the Annandale Hotel and (Dave sings) “Knocking at the window, standing in the rain, Ulysses smiles as he takes his pills” (pause) and I love the bit where it goes “I’ve got my hands in the water dipping in the dirt, there might be a witness I better keep out of sight” I love that song ‘Wasted Sleepless Nights’ from ‘The Dark Room’ the one with the scary voice! But there’s so many songs I’d love to do with them – we had a go at ‘Don’t Waste My Time’ but my timing was out so I guess we’ll get to that later! (laughs)
Mark: So much history and such a fantastic band I reckon I could pick a dozen or more without even stopping to think.
Dave: Oh definitely.
Mark: The last time I heard the music of the Angels was on the ‘Blood Sweat and Beers’ tour and I notice that you are playing The Ravenswood Hotel, where I saw that show, this time . That show of course takes in the music of Aussie rock icons: AC/DC, The Angels and Rose Tattoo and also includes the Screaming Jets – how does it feel these days not only to be fronting The Angels but also that The Jets are now being mentioned alongside such legendary company?
Dave: (laughs) it’s been along thirty years down the track and a lot of hard work but we’re still underlings to the likes of Barnsey and Chisel and The Angels and Midnight Oil and AC/DC and all those bands, and obviously you reach some heights and miss others and that’s the nature of Rock and Roll but it’s a huge honour to be thought of in that kind of company. But I guess to have ‘Better’ as a song, one that it’s essential to play at the local night clubs on a Friday and Saturday night by the DJ alongside ‘Khe Sanh’ or ‘Face Again’ that’s a very big thing for us.
Mark: I’ve got a true story I’ve never told anyone before but I was waiting to have a word…
Dave: Here we go (laughs)
Mark: I was at my local club Rock City in the UK many many years ago and I heard that song ‘Better’ at the Club I’d just finished Uni and was looking to do something and I thought “Jeez These Aussies already have AC/DC, Rose Tattoo and The Angels and now they’ve got these guys. I better go and have a look to see what’s going on, so I got on a plane and I never made it back”
Dave: Awesome! Saved by Rock and Roll I love it! Thanks for that, what an honour. I remember playing Nottingham Rock City, I think it was after one of those gigs that Brad Heaney and us decided that we were no longer going to be working together. So it was a bit of a turning point old Rock City for us.
Mark: It was that first gig there?
Dave: Yes, I guess it was that first tour. When we got on the tour bus there were these two dudes who used to get stuff signed, they followed us allover the country, they’d take days or whole weeks off work so we caught up a few times with them. Anyway Brad gets on the bus and me and Grant had just signed something for the two dudes so I said “Brad the boys are here, can you sign this?” and he looked at the stuff and said “I’ve signed that stuff for you guys before, I know what’s going on here -you guys are selling this stuff!” And I looked at him like (affects English accent) ‘Are you having a laugh?’ and when I realised that he was serious then all hell broke loose. It kinda came to a head after that and he was on a plane pretty soon after.
Mark: I wish I could sell some of the stuff I’ve collected over the years, I just can’t seem to part with any of it! I can just imagine those guys explaining to their wives and girlfriends that they can’t part with that particular Screaming Jets record as its the one the drummer wouldn’t sign in Nottingham back in 1991! And no e-bay in those days either.
Dave: (laughs)
Mark: Later in the year of course The screaming Jets have a tour of their own with ‘Boom Crash Opera’
Dave: Yes the ‘Rock Radio Riot Tour’ or the Radio Rock Riot something’ (laughs)
Mark: Let me check the press we’ll get it right! That hits in August September and it’s a great if not an immediately obvious pairing? You were sort of contemporaries?
Dave: Yes they started out in about 1985 and I guess The Jets hit the national scene in about 1990. But we really wanted to do a tour this year as next year as I said is our 30th Anniversary and we’re working on a new album for then so everything’s kind of gearing up towards that but we wanted to go out and do a Tour as we do, and we all came out with the idea to record an album of covers so we’ve done like a ‘Mad Australian Rock Party Set’ and I can’t wait to get out and play it. It’ll be awesome.
Mark: It’ll be fantastic and so soon after the The Red Hot Summer Tour where you were sharing the stage with the likes of Suzi Quatro, The Baby Animals and Moving Pictures, was that a blast?
Dave: Oh it was, we’ve done a tour with Suzi before when we previously did The Red Hot Summer Tour she got me up one night to do ‘Stumblin’ In’ with her subbing for Chris Norman, so I got up and did that one night. And on this Tour I got up and did it with her in Tasmania, and then got the call during the week to ask if I’d like to do it every night. I was pretty blown away and I called my brother right way as he always loved Leather Tuscadero (the character Suzi played on the ‘Happy Days’ TV show) and he sent me a text back saying dd you know she was born on the third of June which is my birthday, so that became a big thing and she was making a big noise about me so it was great, there’s nothing like being lauded by the ‘First Lady of Rock’ that’s for sure.
Mark: A definite icon. Take it all the way back for us if you can. How did you get started with this Rock and Roll thing in the first place? When did you realise it was going to be your life?
Dave: Well there was always music in the house when we were growing up, my brothers were listening to very diverse range of music and my sister was listening to Sherbet and John Paul Young (laughs) which now doesn’t sound so bad, it was like listening to the Bay City Rollers or something. So my brothers and her didn’t get on about music and my old man used to listen to Nana Mouskouri (laughs) and my Mum used to listen to Perry Como and Dean martin and a lot of the crooners so I had a real well-rounded knowledge of the songs I liked and when I was in High School I had this thing with Grant Walmsley and his mate Frank who was a drummer, and had we known all these years later that was all you needed for a band we might have gone a bit longer, but that lasted four years and it finally managed to scupper my dreams of being a leading Rugby League referee and Policeman.
Mark: (laughs) That would have been good I do remember seeing you at the Footy Show though many years later
Dave: I’m a Footy Tragic! I had an accident doing a bad tackle in the Under 11’s and loved the game so my old man said “why don’t you get into refereeing, that will keep you involved in the game?” and that’s where I learned what hate was!
Mark: (laughs)
Dave: (laughs)
Mark: So plenty on, lots of dates both with The Screaming Jets and The Angels, you mentioned new music from The Jets but what’s the chance of new music from The Angels in the bear future?
Dave: The Angels, we’re about tree quarters of the way, maybe more through the recording of an album we’ve been working on for the last twelve months when time and finances have permitted. We’ve got some great songs on there, Nick Norton’s written a few songs again, the drummer, who’s written some great songs in the past. And just to be writing with Rick and John is a real thrill. That will be coming out some time later this year because what they’re doing is re-releasing ‘Face To Face’ – we re-recorded all the songs off ‘Face To Face’ in Adelaide about two months ago so that’s gonna be like a companion to the old 1978 version.
Mark: That is definitely a release to look out for, sounds great.
Dave: Yeah, it was great to do that and so easy, everyone knew what to do – it was kinda like ‘these are the words and these are the melodies and let’s just smash it out!’ and we did it in two days and it sounds mighty!
Mark: And you mentioned before a new Jets album, any more progress details?
Dave: Yes myself and Paul have been doing a lot of songwriting together and apart and I suppose that writing songs together these days is mostly about ‘over the e-mail’ which I guess might take a little of the personality out of it, but then again you don’t talk so much crap! (laughs) ‘Cause when you get together to write songs you do bang on about stuff! But that will be ready for next year and the 30th Anniversary of The Screaming Naked Jets – it’ll be a new album and a big tour to go along and celebrate people keeping us rocking on for 30 years!
Mark: Some big milestones on the horizon for sure, it makes me feel a little bit old!
Dave: Me too mate! (laughs) I’m just rocking on me porch with a shotgun on me lap!
Mark: (laughs) You know what hat means don’t you?
Dave: What’s that? (laughs)
Mark: There’s another Blues album coming up!
Dave: (laughs) Well I did that Blues Rock, Rootsy, Country album in 2002 surely you all heard! (laughs) but that’s a style of music I like to write on my own and living up in The Hills it’s a good place for me to write those songs. I seem to find that Country style of writing and that Blues kind of writing a little more heartfelt than trying to come up with a three word slogan that will keep ringing round people’s heads forever. Not that there’s anything wrong with that either.
Mark: Just a couple of minutes left and a couple of quick ones to close – if you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any classic album just to witness how the magic happened – what’s the one that you would have anted to have been there for?
Dave: I would say The Eagles ‘Hotel California’ ’cause that would have definitely been something to see! And I love every song on that album and for me I suppose it has to be the perfect album.
Mark: And the really easy one we save till last – what is the meaning of life?
Dave: (laughs) You get born, you grow up, you live, you die, and here lies David St Hubbins and why not?
Mark: And a nice classical note to end with. Thank you so much Dave, it was great to chat, catch you on tour!
Dave: No worries Mark, good on you mate. Not long now. Cheers.
