Bernard Fanning: We've Never Played The Album In Full Before

Bernard Fanning phoned in to have a chinwag with Lisa & Russell. 20 years since the release of his solo album Tea & Sympathy, Bernard reflected on the changes to the music industry over the last 20 years and there have been A LOT of them. Tune in to hear the full chat. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bernard Fanning is coming to town on his Tea and
Sympathy Tour at Kingspark March. The first tickets are available
through Bernard fanning dot com slash tour that he's with
us this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hello morning, Bernard.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Yeah, twenty years.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Cheers for not helping me feel any younger this morning,
twenty years. How do you.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Feel about it?

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Oh man, I've been talking about it for the last
two weeks. It's interesting. Look, it is amazing, isn't it?
That time literally flies by. You just can't even imagine
that when you're fifteen, imagining when you're thirty five.

Speaker 4 (00:38):
Yes, crazy as so much has happened over the last
twenty years too.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
I know the whole landscape has changed.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Everything has changed with regards to the music industry, absolutely.
I mean it was still people were still buying CDs
in two thousand and five. So yeah, all of the
whole model of the music industry has changed. I guess
the thing that hasn't changed is that songs are still
at the center of the whole thing.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
Yeah, no matter how we longed to them, we still
love Yeah, great music that never goes away.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Well, a lot of people bought this CD. It was
your first solo album after powder Finger. It went straight
to number one and it led to three areas including
Album of the Year. Well, I mean it's certainly you
know that was there was huge success. It would have
laid any fears you had pretty quickly. But how nervous
were you after because powder Finger, you know, we've always

(01:36):
said ended on a high, which is why it never
a week goes by where you're not, you know, hassled
to give it another round. But you know, how nervous
were you about going from the band to doing something
that's just you.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Well, I wasn't really because my expectations were so low.
I didn't really you know, I mean powder Thing was
just on hiatus. That was still five years before we
ended up finishing. Anyway, I honestly didn't really have high expectations.
I just wanted to make a record that sort of
sounded different to the band, with different sort of instrumentation

(02:13):
and stuff like that. And I thought, you know, we'll
go out and have a tour and hopefully people will
get behind it and that'll be it, and then I'll
go back to my real job. That was kind of
how it looked at it. And then wish you Well happened.

Speaker 4 (02:26):
Yeah, because you did describe it as just a little
bit of a side project at the time, something I guess,
you know, to keep you occupied. And then and then
you drop this single and then basically just about every
radio station in.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
The country out of it, and that little side project
became something well not so little.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, it sort of took on a life of its
own with wish You Well, which you know, that song
only arrived three days before I left to go and
do the recording. It wasn't even really part of the
part of the demos or anything those stories. Again, Yeah,
it just sort of fell out of me one morning
when I was really really hungover, so kind of describing

(03:10):
a hangover in real time.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
And then it ended up topping the Triple J Hottest
one hundred in two thousand and five, which it was,
you know, in two thousand and five. That thing, and
I say this from another radio that thing was huge,
you know.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Oh yeah, I mean that has a massive catapult effect
and especially if it's an Australian song, people love that. Yes,
and it had only happened a few times prior to that,
I think, so, yeah, there's no describing what a massive
difference that makes when you've released something, it's huge, and

(03:51):
you know those things like topping poles or winning an
award or whatever. Those things are great, but they're actually.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
For me.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
They're more gratifying to the people around me than for
me personally, because it is a bit of a validation
for your family and all the crap they have put
up with, and your management and label and all the
people that do all the work that doesn't get any recognition.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, because you're not the only person who makes it happen,
that's right.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
It's a massive team, family effort.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
I guess the gratification for you comes from things like
playing the album for the first time in twenty years
a week ago in Brisbane. How was that?

Speaker 3 (04:38):
It is amazing? It was really amazing. We've never played
the album in full. Even when we did that original tour,
there was a song on there that I didn't have
the ability to play and sing it at the same time,
so we just ditched it and didn't do it called
further down the road. But I've been practicing for twenty years,
so now I can play it and sing it at
the same time.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Years.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Yeah, but it's it's just the warmth in the room
when we played the other night was incredible. That energy
coming back to us of people still living the record.
You know that it means a lot to people still
those songs, and I'm really really proud of that. That's

(05:24):
that's kind of the the most satisfying thing I think
as an artist when you get people telling you that
you've done something that's improved their lives. But yeah, that's
an incredible that yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Yeah, and you've got to mark the twentieth anniversary. You've
got the special anniversary edition Off to You and Sympathy
coming out on vinyl, which of course is making a comeback,
so you can have it on CD and vinyl, CD
or vinyl.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
It's very retro.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
What's that on the way?

Speaker 3 (06:02):
No one there?

Speaker 1 (06:03):
It's a cassette.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
That's become pretty hits as well, have they? Oh?

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah, yeah, these people haven't had to you know, wind
their take back on with a pencil while they're driving
down the freeway exactly. But I love the The twentieth
anniversary reissue includes outtakes, demos, and covers of your songs
by other artists. How did you go choosing what you
were going to you know, there would have been plenty

(06:30):
to choose from.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
We just went out some people that we knew, like
in the end, Gem Cassadaily and the Paper Kites were
the ones who kind of put their hand up to
cover those particular songs from Bird and Belief. And they're
both acts that I really liked and respected, and I
just wanted them to do whatever they wanted. It wasn't

(06:54):
any I had no creative input to it, No, I
mean it's kind of windless asking someone to do an
interpretation of it and then around. Yeah, but it's been
very It was very interesting, like Jem and Troy cassa
Daily doing Songbird, having a father singing to his daughter

(07:15):
in response to what she's been singing totally flips the
lyrics into a different universe. Yeah, it's a beautiful kind
of parallel that changes the way I had originally written
it well, and I love that.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
We can't wait for all of it, especially the show
at Kings Park on March. The first tickets are available
through Bernard Fanning dot com slash Tour. Thank you so
much for joining us this morning.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Thanks for having me guys much.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, we'll see you up in Kings Park.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (07:48):
Absolutely, that's going to be fantastic, number one album, Platinum
five times over,