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We Caught up with Paul Dempsey, sometimes lead singer of Something For Kate, sometime collaborator with Bernard Fanning in his Fanning dempsey National Park but all round good bloke and icon of Oz music ahead of his Shotgun Karaoke show in Cairns at Tanks Arts Centre on the 23rd of July.

NDK: Where are we talking to you from today?

Paul Dempsey: I'm in Melbourne, and it's freezing. It's been really cold. The weather's been great, but today it suddenly decided to become winter.

NDK: Funny, because when it's winter down there, it's suddenly beautiful up here—27 degrees, sunshine, and finally the rain has stopped.

Paul Dempsey: I'm not going to get up there.

NDK: It's still a little while away until July, so I thought it'd be good to have a chat and get things moving.

Paul Dempsey: Absolutely. Thanks for your time, I appreciate it.

NDK: I actually met you on New Year's Eve. I photographed the show at the Opera House and one of the photos ended up on your socials.

Paul Dempsey: It was a pretty good one—one of the best New Year's Eves I've ever had. A spectacular location.

NDK: A pretty special place for New Year's Eve. Best in the world, I reckon.

Paul Dempsey: I think you're right. It doesn't get much better. I remember spending a Fourth of July on top of a very tall building in Manhattan, and that was up there with it.

NDK: You're coming up here to perform your Shotgun Karaoke show. It's a pretty wild concept. I haven't seen you do this before because last time I saw you, it was a more traditional show. How did Shotgun Karaoke come about?

Paul Dempsey: It started back in 2013 when Something For Kate were on a long tour. Around that time, it had just become possible to film something on an iPhone and upload it to YouTube instantly. After soundcheck each evening, the rest of the band would challenge me to learn a cover in five minutes. They'd film me backstage somewhere playing it on an acoustic guitar, and we'd upload it to our YouTube channel.

It became this fun thing where every night there was a new cover version from somewhere on the road. By the end of the tour there were about 30 covers online, and people started saying, "You should make an album out of this."

So I recorded Shotgun Karaoke Volume 1 in 2013. I kept the spirit of the idea intact by recording everything live with just an acoustic guitar and vocal. No overdubs, no embellishments, no attempts to make it bigger than it was. I wanted to keep it simple.

Now, all these years later, I've done Volume 2 and stuck to exactly the same approach. They're all live takes. You can hear mistakes on the record because the point is to celebrate songs I genuinely love and present them in the most stripped-back way possible. A song like Cher's If I Could Turn Back Time is this huge 80s rock production, so hearing it played acoustically by me becomes something completely different. It's fun.

NDK: Thank goodness you had friends willing to embarrass you online forever to get the whole thing started.

Paul Dempsey: Exactly. It's actually turned out really well. I've done a couple of tours with this concept now and it's just so much fun.

I've been fortunate to have a great career with Something For Kate, my solo work, and Fanning Dempsey National Park. This is another creative outlet that keeps me busy and gives me the mental space to keep writing. We're currently working on a new Something For Kate record, so it's nice to be able to focus on that while still playing shows that are relaxed and enjoyable.
There's no elaborate touring production. I just travel around with an acoustic guitar. It's simple.

NDK: What can audiences expect from the show?

Paul Dempsey: The repertoire keeps getting broader. I've got two full albums' worth of covers now, plus dozens of others I've performed over the years as B-sides or one-off performances.
Before the first show of this tour, I sat down and made a list of every cover I'd ever done. I still don't think I've got them all. At the first show, instead of a setlist, I just had a pad with about 60 songs written on it.

I ended up playing four songs I'd never performed live before. If I hear something in the supermarket and think, "I love this song," I'll go home, work it out, and if it feels good, it goes into the set.

That means every show can be different. I leave as much as possible to chance. I like the audience getting involved and suggesting songs. If I know it, I'll have a go. If I don't, I'll learn it for next time.

Recently I added Better Man, a David Gray song, and Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Cole—songs I'd never played in front of an audience before. At some point I stopped worrying about whether I should or shouldn't do certain songs and just started having fun.

I used to be nervous about covering songs like Losing My Religion, Last Goodbye, or Better Man because they mean so much to people. But the response has been really encouraging. Eventually I realised it's just music. If I love a song and enjoy playing it, I should just do it.

NDK: How did you decide which songs made it onto the album?

Paul Dempsey: I simply recorded the songs that felt ready. I did everything at home and didn't spend ages trying to perfect anything. If the performance felt good, that was enough.
I liked the fact that the track listing was a bit strange. You've got R.E.M., Cher, Superchunk, Don Henley and Bright Eyes all sitting next to each other. It's a weird collection of songs, but I love them all.

Hopefully the consistency comes from the way they're interpreted—just voice and guitar.

NDK: It's like your personal playlist shared with the world.

Paul Dempsey: A friend made a really interesting observation recently. He said it's a bit like the old days when DJs introduced you to music you'd never heard before. Their job wasn't just to play the hits; it was to broaden your horizons.

I love that I can play something universally known like Boys of Summer and then introduce people to a Bright Eyes song they might never have heard. Maybe someone walks away asking, "What was that song?" That's a great feeling.

NDK: That's one of the things I always loved about music—the curation and the connections between artists and songs.

Paul Dempsey: Absolutely. That's one of the great things about these shows.

Live music always brings people together, but when it's just me and an acoustic guitar in a room with 800 people, everything becomes more intimate. People can hear themselves singing, they can hear the person next to them, and I can hear them too.

When everyone joins in, you really feel it. It becomes less about me performing and more about everyone sharing the experience together.

The audience is incredibly broad—teenagers through to grandparents—and seeing all those different people sharing the same moment, forgetting whatever happened during their week, is pretty special.

NDK: If you had to choose the perfect karaoke anthem, what would it be?

Paul Dempsey: This might surprise you, but I've only done karaoke once in my life.

NDK: That genuinely surprises me.

Paul Dempsey: I know. The title Shotgun Karaoke is more about capturing the spirit of karaoke—the fun, slightly messy, spontaneous nature of it.

But the one and only karaoke song I've ever done was Aces High by Iron Maiden.

NDK: That's a great choice. You mentioned earlier that you're working on a new Something For Kate album. It's been about five years since the last one, so fans will be excited. Where are things at?

Paul Dempsey: It's still early days. We've been getting together and working on musical ideas, and there's already plenty of music.

The music comes quickly. Lyrics take longer. So there's still a bit of work to do.
We're hoping to have an album's worth of material written by the end of this year, which would hopefully mean a release sometime next year.

NDK: Fantastic. One last question from my son, who insists I ask everyone this: What's your favourite bird?

Paul Dempsey: That's a great question.

My first thought was an albatross because they're so huge and majestic. But actually, I'm going to say the crow.

I've read books about crows. They're incredibly intelligent. Their brain-to-body ratio is impressive, and they're capable of remarkable problem-solving.

There are a couple of crows that live on my street. I've walked past them for years while taking my kids to school. They know me and I know them.

I've got a lot of respect for crows. And I suspect they'll eventually rule the planet, so I'm getting on their good side now.

NDK: Excellent. I'll let him know. Thanks for your time today, Paul. Looking forward to seeing you in Cairns in July, and good luck with the new Something For Kate album.

Paul Dempsey: Fantastic. Thanks very much.

Paul Dempsey Brings his Shotgun Karaoke show to Cairns playing at Tanks Arts Centre on the 23rd of July. Buy Tickets HERE