With a career spanning twenty five years, Jeff Lang makes a welcome return to the Far North for a special performance at The Tanks Arts Centre on Saturday 4th November. The triple ARIA award winning songwriter will acquaint the Cairns audience with his new album ‘Alone In Bad Company’ and various selections from his sixteen album back catalogue.
Speaking to Jeff ahead of his trip up North, he was excited to be performing again at The Tanks for the fourth time.
“It’s one of my favourite venues in the country. It’s got a great sound and the people who run the gig are really good. It’s one of those really love places that you look forward to coming back and playing at.”
Blending rock, roots, folk, blues, ballads, instrumentals, improvisation and a devastatingly high level of musicality, ‘Alone In Bad Company’ presents one of our most inspired musicians and songwriters at the peak of his exceptional powers.
“I recorded this one in a bit more of a spread out time then what would usually happen. I have my own studio in Melbourne that I record other people at. Because it’s my place, I can work on songs when I felt like it. I ended up accruing a big batch of material and had to cull it down to be an album. My usual process would be to record the songs and mix later, but this time around I was recording the track then mixing it that day. So I was accumulating a big batch of songs. It was an interesting way to do it because you could be a bit more spontaneous. Definitely a slower process but I wasn’t in a rush anyway.”
With the album featuring elements such as acoustic fingerpicking, slide guitar, electric lead, banjos, mandolins and blue-eyed soul singing, each song is rendered such that an alternative approach is unimaginable. With steadfast cohorts Danny McKenna and Allison Ferrier delivering on cue, the album also features collaboration with master songwriter Don Walker who shares his peerless wit on two songs.
“I’ve known Don for quite a while and we did some gigs in the early 2000’s, and we had spoken a little bit about writing some stuff together. I got in touch with him last year and headed up to his place to write the song ‘Half My Luck’ which made the album. Don also had a title for a song which made me laugh, ‘With You I Can Throw Away The Pills’ and I said to him you should write that one, cause at that stage it was only a title. A little while later he got back in touch with me and said he’d finished it and I should have a crack at it. He’s a great man and it’s a bitter-sweet finale to the record.”
‘Alone In Bad Company’ presents one of our Australia’s most inspired musicians and songwriters at the peak of his exceptional powers. Don’t miss this special opportunity to see Jeff Lang at The Tanks this Saturday 4th November.
Jeff Lang peforms at The Tanks Arts Centre on Saturday 4th November. Doors open 6.30pm. Show starts 7.30pm. Support by Sunny Ray. Tickets from Ticketlink.
Mitch Sullivan
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