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We caught up with Aussie Rock legend Dave McCormack to have a chat about his band Custard's new album, their upcoming live show in Cairns at The Edge Hill Tavern and being a cartoon dad.

Dave
How are you going? Sorry, I'm a bit late.

NDK
No worries buddy, just let me check something. Hang on one second.

Dave
Yeah, check, check, check. One, two, two...

NDK
Sorry, what was that?

Dave
I was just doing my check one two voice.

NDK
I was turning on the recording so I didn’t have to write the whole thing out

Dave
Can you get AI to transcribe it

NDK
Yeah, I wonder what chat gpt would say if I asked my interview questions and got them to create answers by Dave McCormack ?
What do you think chat GPT would say?

DAVE
Yeah, god yeah. Although I put it into the Facebook, you know, the Meta AI , I said write a, you know, 400 word Custard bio. It was so wrong. You know, it's got some of the names, right, but it says people at last and then joined on other instruments.

But I think on the surface, it gives you an appearance that maybe it is artificially intelligent, but it spits out and still has got a long bit of a way, hey.

NDK
I think it's great skimming the internet and it's only good if what is on the internet is any good.

Dave
Doesn't make any sense. Yeah, that's right. It goes like, I found this. I'll put that in there.
So I did an interview. What was it for some magazine a year or two ago when we were doing a regurgitator tour? And I said, write answers to the question with reference to 90 video games. So that was really good because it could do all that sort of deep dive 90 video games up and make it into a cohesive center.

NDK
But it's pretty cool. Does it help with songwriting? Have you tried AI? songwriting.

DAVE
I haven't. Somebody showed me an AI songwriting program, you know, where you put in parameters and then a genre and it'll do it.
Like a full band arranger with vocals and um it was pretty cheesy but I was pretty impressed with that. I think it depends what kind of music you're trying to make really. Well, we put in like, you know, Jack Johnson and it's a pretty, you know, serviceable song. Imagine in 10 years.

NDK
Now, totally random question to start with. The album Dave McCormack and the Polaroids, I bought one off you, that you just released last year.

Dave
That was recorded this year in 2024.

NDK
So you released that and then you released the Custard album.

Dave
Well you know what's weird Nathan, we went down and recorded the Custard album last November at Mona.

NDK
Oh in Tassie?

Dave
Yeah in Tassie, which was cool and I had a little get together and I've invited some of the Polaroids along and we all went, oh we should do it man, like there's all these songs we don't play and we played a gig and I thought oh wow this sounds pretty good.

So I quickly gathered together eight songs and then we recorded that in one day in I think February or March. And so that happens after we recorded  the Custard record. I was in a sort of elliptical of a creative purple patchwork.

I don't know if for some reason I just felt like we could do more recording. So yeah after doing all the Custard stuff straight away just the Polaroid stuff.

NDK
That's funny because that's a cool little album, I really love it.

DAVE
Yeah thanks man, I'm into it. It's like just a different little, like I said it all happened really quick and it's nice that you know like any social creature, like I get a vibe off who I'm working with or you know interacting with and yeah just after the Custard recording that was really great and creative and fun.

It was fun to do the same sort of thing with different people.

NDK
It was a cool little present into the universe. I felt like I wasn't even expecting it. I think it just came up on my Facebook feed and I'm like I'm going to get one of us. It was just so great and I'm going to get that album.

DAVE
Thanks man, it was totally art for art's sake in that you can't buy it in record stores. You can only buy it from me and then for quite a while I didn’t do  the strreaming service because I wanted to be only people who bought it to be able to hear it, but I sort of reneged.
So many people were like oh come on put it up there and I thought if people really want to buy it they'll still buy it so I didn't want to be too obstructive.

NDK
It is cool. So where are we talking to you from today?

DAVE
I'm in Sydney. We got back from Canberra and Adelaide on the weekend, we got back here today and then we go to Perth and Fremantle on Friday.

NDK
You are covering all the bases, all those people in Perth that never get shows, they'll be happy.

DAVE
Yeah, we've got a lot of shows that rolled out over there so I'm pretty happy and then I'm hanging around over there for an extra day to do a little solo acoustics thing and it could be fun.

NDK
So you've recorded this new album, Suburban Curtains, and it's your ninth album. So how did this come about? How did you guys go, hey, let's record now because it's double-sided. There's a lot of songs on this album ?

DAVE
So the last album we recorded, I think in 2020, and then COVID happened, everything got pushed back. I wasn't even sure if we'd do another album, and then I had a couple of new songs, and I dug up a couple of old songs, and the four of us got together at Glenn's house, and just got around in his shed with everyone on guitars, had those song ideas, you know, writing down cheat notes, we sort of gathered together 21 songs, so we just thought, let's record it.

Look, I must admit, I'm guilty of wanting to do a double album just because we could.
So normally you go, oh, that song's had it, this song had it, you know, we've got to get it down to 13. It was a little bit of the opposite of this one. Glenn told me how many minutes of music we could really try, so I was like, no, come on, let's do it.  Paul, let's do another one of your songs, Glenn, let's do another one of your songs. Come on.

And also, Nathan, not to be sort of morbid or pessimistic, but realistically, I don't know how many more albums we're going to do, because it seems to take a while to sort of get the, the impetus to get up and actually get our act together, so it's a big five more years to put an album out, that'll be, what, 2029, oh shit, surely someone would be dead by then.

NDK
Yeah, I didn't want to mention that, but as you did.  I think with COVID, a lot of people have started to go, hey, if there is stuff we want to do, let's do it now.

DAVE
Yeah, so it was Hey, why don't we just put all of the songs on the record and release that rather than save a few because we don't know when we're ever going to do that. It could be a big nuclear wasteland, so let's live it up while we can.

NDK
Yeah, and like you talked about the Polaroids album, that's just having like a fun couple of days with some good people. Why not do it? It kind of leads into my next question, which is, is making your ninth album more fun and easier than making your first two or three albums?

DAVE
Oh, God, yeah. It's complete freedom and enjoyment, and I was going to say we know what we're doing, but we sort of do. I've been playing music with these guys since the early 90s, and everyone's excited about this, and I'm often sitting in the studio, and Glen will do his drum bit and Matthew will do his bit, and I'll be like, oh, wow, that's so cool.

Whereas in the early days, you know, in the early 20s, I thought I knew everything. And we're so precious in our 20s. Oh, God, it'd be like, I don't know. Maybe it should be like this, or like that, or the drums should stop there.

And what I've learned is you get the right people around you and let them do what they want to do, and it's so much better.

NDK
You seem pretty relaxed and comfortable these days. Like, I read an interview you did recently, and you just seem to be in a very pleasant zone in your life, you know. And what are you putting that down to? Like, everything kind of seems like fun for you at the moment.

Dave
But everything is something really nice, and so there's no overarching need to achieve or do anything. Like, and I don't want to, I don't want that to sound like I've achieved everything, but there's nothing that I really want to do. I enjoy just doing everything as it is now.

In the 90s, it was always oh the next record's got to be higher in the hottest 100 than the one before and we've got to get more festival shows and we've got to be quite a bit of this or a good indicator of that now we  know it doesn't matter. We all do other things and it's every year we could get together for a couple of weekends and play a bunch of shows and we're happy.  

So it's like the the passing of time you know and then you just go hey we can do this we're happy doing this it's like someone who's had an office job their whole life and then they become grey nomads and we're like the grey nomads cruising around.  You know it's not gonna make us but we're just gonna go see nice people

NDK
I saw you guys play with Regurgitator at Tanks, I'm going to say a few years ago, but that might have been four years ago now, and that was such a fantastic, fun show, and you guys were supporting, and you guys just looked like you were having the time of your life.

DAVE
Absolutely! Look, I'll tell you a secret, Nathan, I'd rather when you support that for a really popular band like Regurgitator. You get all the good side of it, and none of the downside. What I mean by that is, there's going to be a really good venue with a lot of people in it, because Regurgitator are popular.

We're going to be on that sort of sweet spot, time slot, where it's not too early and it's not too late. You're not headlining, you're not going on at 11 till midnight. You're going on about 9 to about 9.45, and that's a sweet spot.

Everyone's had a couple of beers, but they're not tired, or too pissed and then you can just go, or hang around, or mingle, or have some more beers, and I love doing that.

NDK
So the tour sounds like it's going pretty well so far.  You've got these sold out shows in Perth, and I've just kind of been following your Facebook adventures. So what are the shows looking like? What can people in Cairns expect from a Custard show?

DAVE
There's a little bit of chaos sneaking into it now, and because we've done a bunch of shows now, we're playing pretty good. The first show was the biggest show, this show we did in Sydney and we were a bit all over the place, but there's a lot of chaos.

I've got all these percussive instruments that I bash away on stage, and I hand them out to the audience, and they play along with us, and I've got this loud halo that's got a really cool siren sound, and now we've got the set organized.
It's all working really well.

NDK
It sounds like it's going to be a great gig. And the Edge Hill Tavern is like an old-school kind of pub.

DAVE
Yeah, I thought we played there four years ago. I think in 18, 2019 we went up there.
We just loved it. Yeah, so that's on the 14th of December.

NDK

I also have to ask you. You are Bandit. You are Bluey's dad.
100%.
How did that even happen? Tell me the story.

DAVE
This is absolute fact, right?
So I work in the music business doing music for TV shows. And Next Door to Us, that's my company called Tonar Music. And Next Door to Us is a company called Unity Sound. And they do post-production for TV shows and stuff.

And they said they had a client who was doing a seven-minute animation for a show about a family of dogs. And it wasn't animated yet. it was just, you know, like still images. Yeah, storyboards

that's what it is. And the two next door was like, oh, do you want to do it? They need a dog. And I was like, dude, I can't do that. I don't know how to do that. And then I thought, I thought I haven't done it before, sure. We went in and I voiced one episode and I thought it was going to be on YouTube, you know, like a YouTube short or something. And then months later, they showed it to me fully realized. And I was quite impressed.

It's incredible. And then I said, do you want to do some more? And I said, yeah. And then, you know, then now we've done 150 episodes. I don't know.
Everyone asked me to do the voice, but it's just my voice.

NDK

So how was that change in life? Did your kids think that's cool or you were in a really cool?

DAVE
Yeah.

NDK
What's cooler for your kids being in the 90s rock band or being Bandit ?

I know for me, they're both cool. But the great thing about Bluey is the show is actually pretty good. and I get to like travel around now, go to all these places and meet people instantly like me because they can't tell the difference between me and Bandit. So all the good work Bandit has done. I instantly get that cachet.
So it's pretty nice. It's cool.

NDK
Yeah, well thanks for talking to me and I'm so glad that you just decided hey let's do the 21 songs on the album and bring some vinyl because I'll be buying one on the night.

DAVE
Right, I'll have everything you want.

NDK
Great.

Dave
I'll put you on the door, right?

Custard play The Edge Hill tavern on Saturday December 14th

Grab Your Tix HERE

There new album Suburban Curtains is availaible now you can grab a double Vinyl or CD HERE