Dan Kelly
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Dan Kelly

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“Some of it I’ve written my stories into the songs and I’ve danced over the top of it, and some it is pretty straight up,” Kelly says. “But I’m not going to say exactly what I did and didn’t do. But I definitely just didn’t sit in my house in North Fitzroy making it all up.”

What is true is that Kelly has spent a large part of the last five years travelling. Occasionally – whether it was in Greece, Byron Bay or even in Northcote – inspiration would strike and a song would be born.

“The songs are kind of based on my travels, so there’s a thread, and I kind of extrapolated,” Kelly says. “Some of them are pretty verbatim, and some of them are what I wished I was doing. When I’m lying on the deck on a ferry in Greece smoking Greek cigarettes, the idea that I’m a gigolo on an aircraft carrier isn’t that hard a leap to make. And when I think back now, I think, ‘Was I?’ [laughs].”

The geographical reference points on Leisure Panic are largely accurate: Kelly did spend a short time in Berlin, though it was in Byron Bay that he spun discs. The juxtaposition of these events forms the album’s concluding track, Jet Lag, in which Kelly assumes the persona of a DJ running a Berlin-themed nightclub. 

“The time in Berlin ended up mutating with my time in Byron, so I ended up constructing part of the song around running a Euro dub club in Byron,” Kelly says. “But that was a mixture of what I’d been doing in Berlin, where I’d been going to this club, and the next thing I know I’m on the beach in Byron, surrounded by this roots lifestyle.”

Kelly also sent time living in northern New South Wales, not far from the southern Queensland region where he grew up. While the popular image of northern New South Wales remains crystals, hemp clothing and the discourse of peace, love and understanding, the reality isn’t so simple.

“This time I was staying with a friend in a community, and what I realised that now you have artists there who’re trying to get their shit together; North Sydney real estate agents who’ve dropped out but still want to succeed; the children of the Age of Aquarius who’re doing all kinds of things; and your urban ice freak scene, skaters, tough local surfers, backpackers – it’s a really vibrant scene,” Kelly says. 

On the song Everything’s Amazing, Kelly delves into the complex sociology and psychology of the area. “They have a theory that area is where the Aboriginal men would take the young men for initiation around that Mount Warning area, and not a lot of them would live around there because it was super powerful and you’d go a bit mental if you stayed there. Which is why I reckon it feels so amazing when you go there – which is why I wrote that song.”

Leisure Panic follows 2010’s Dan Kelly’s Dream and Kelly hopes it won’t be another five years until he releases his next record. “I’m writing now, and I’ve got a studio now with a friend. I’ve got three songs recorded already, and these days when you’re not going to make any money from recordings, I think it’s best to just keep getting stuff out.”

BY PATRICK EMERY