Exiles From Eden title track

“The most complete album of my career. This one seemed to take forever to make. Not in a bad way, but I wanted a fairly majestic production and it took time. Sometimes these collections seem like pieces from a soundtrack to a movie or something. They hang together.

The reviews have been pretty stunning, though you have no idea how it’s going to turn out when it’s being written. You just have to stay true to it, I guess. I like to read the reviews because sometimes I get to learn what a song is about when often I have no idea myself.

I was listening to a lot of Hasil Adkins when I wrote ‘Angelica’. He made records alone in the backwoods in the States in the 50’s. I played electric 12 string on the title track a-la the Byrds. It’s a mid 60’s Fender. I like the old guitars. There’s a ’56 Martin on ‘Flash Guitar’ and a ’59 Gretsch doing all the fat electric stuff. I play the resonator in a folk guitar style, not bottleneck. It’s made by Greg Beeton and it’s serial number 4. It’s on ‘She’s The One For Me’ and ‘All’s Well’ and some others. I get lots of emails about ‘Invisible Ink’. I’m playing the Beeton on that one too. It’s a mysterious kind of song.

Tracks: 1/Exiles From Eden 2/Angelica 3/Cold Out There 4/Watch Out (Love Gonna Getcha) 5/Invisible Ink 6/Drive That Car 7/Life Of The Party 8/Flash Guitar 9/Water Into Wine 10/Uncharted Waters 11/Face The Day 12/She’s The One For Me 13/Catch Me If I Fall 14/All’s Well (That Ends Well)

“Many songs that are live favourites come from this collection. There’s a tougher delivery on some tracks that works well onstage. Asylum Blues. Water Finds Its Own Level. I play a little bottleneck on those, though it’s used as an aggressive texture rather than a lick or lead line. I’ve always been interested in playing rhythm guitar.

This is an album of ghosts. Elvis. The old Cloudland Ballroom in Brisbane. Knockin’ round the old haunts.

I love the dancers reflected in the Elvis sunnies on the sleeve. I guess this record suggested that I meant business and wasn’t going to do my disappearing trick again. ‘Mr Happy’ was used by the producers of the Spike Milligan DVD ‘I Told You I Was Ill’ and ‘Free To Fly’ is featured near the end of the film, the part where Spike’s children are going through his old stuff. ‘Free To Fly uses a lot of flying and falling imagery in the lyrics.”

Tracks: 1/Water Finds Its Own Level 2/Strangers 3/Wild In The Summertime 4/Elvis At The Checkout 5/Asylum Blues 6/Dancing The Years Away 7/Mr Happy 8/Free To Fly 9/House Of Mirrors 10/Come Back To Me