Dave Graney ‘n’ the Coral Snakes bring back the Soft ‘n’ Sexy Sound for 30th anniversary tour

Enigmatic Australian rock singer-songwriter Dave Graney returns to the stage with The Coral Snakes this October to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the group’s much-lauded long-player The Soft ‘n’ Sexy Sound. Playing the album in its entirety alongside a set of fan favourites and hidden gems, Graney and Co. will be hitting up Freo.Social on Friday, October 24, and Margaret River’s River Hotel on Saturday, October 25. Ahead of his sojourn west, MICHAEL HOLLICK caught up with Dave Graney to find out what made the group’s music just so soft and sexy, the trials and tribulations of being a frontman and what he thinks is the key to success for musicians in the modern landscape.

I see you’re in the rehearsal studio at the moment getting ready for the upcoming tour. How’s that going? 

We’re getting to grips with the material at the moment. We only played about half of the album live when it was released, so there’s a lot of new elements for us to consider and play with. And it’s been great getting back with the original gang: Rod Hayward on guitars, Robin Casinader, who now lives in Canberra, on keys, and of course, Clare Moore (drums).

As you’re going back over the tracks, what is your take on Soft ‘n’ Sexy? And what are you most proud of from that record?

As a whole, I like all of the record. I know the song that connected most with people was Rock and Roll Is Where I Hide; that’s a real kind of epic, hypnotic rock and roll song. It has no chorus; it’s a long kind of story with no harmonies or other flourishes on it, but it sticks out. It has a real groove. There’s another one called Morrison Floor Show that we’ve played live a lot, and that too is also a bit of a groover. I’m very proud of the album opener, the dramatic song-story, The Birds and the Goats, because it’s so simple, yet it has everything I wanted in there.

I believe one of the things that made Soft ‘n’ Sexy different from its predecessors was the amount of collaboration that occurred? 

Yes, everyone had musical input on this record. On a track like I’m Not Afraid To Be Heavy, that was a true all-band composition, and that was the album’s first single as I think it really showcased the album as a whole. I recall Rod wrote the music for a song called Apollo 69, while our bass player, Gordy, wrote one called Outward Bound, and Robin wrote a song called Salty Girls. So musically it was quite a mixture of collaboration, and in terms of texture, there was me and Clare working out the production concept.

At the time of writing and recording, we were thinking about the album’s thematics, about trying to achieve a softer kind of recording. We really loved a lot of the hip-hop and trip-hop around at the time that was coming from America and the UK, and those recordings had that softer yet lush sort of feel to them.

How did that sound come to fruition in the studio? And how will you translate it out on the road?

That’s in part thanks to Robin. He did a lot of the strings on the album. He really loves that sort of thing, and the results were beautiful. We’re able to hear those denser parts on the road with us these days thanks to technology catching up. Robin is able to tap into those sounds with a Mellotron via his keyboards. But to be honest, you can even get an app on the iPad for a Mellotron these days.

I recall back in the 1980s there used to be only one Mellontron in the Southern Hemisphere and Split Enz owned it. They used it on their first record. But those things used to go out of tune in the hot sun, and the tape would stretch, all that kind of stuff; you just couldn’t travel with it.

Complementing the music is, of course, yourself, Mr Dave Graney, the frontman. Was the Coral Snakes your first time up front sans instrument?

Clare and I started out in The Moodists, and I was the stand-up singer there, and that then continued into the Coral Snakes. Even though I wrote the songs, I didn’t perform with a guitar. When the Coral Snakes finished at the end of ’97, I started playing guitar again on stage, as I was interested in a different style of performing. But for these shows, I’m back behind the mic, being a lead singer. It’s kind of exciting.

I think a lot of people have a dream about being a front person, out in front of a band, really rocking out to an adoring crowd.

Have they really? It’s harder than it looks. I recall that Clare was in a band once. They used to do these gigs in Melbourne at The Tote called Rock Karaoke, and they would do it amongst a theme, so say there was one of those and it was classic Australian songs, and they would have a house band, and Clare was the drummer in it.

It was an all-girl band, and people would, you know, apply or put their name down to sing a certain song, and they would get up, and I remember on this night that they started doing (The Saints classic) I’m Stranded. And the guy selected to sing had never been on stage with a band before. To start with, he came up on stage all kind of puffed up and looking tough. And then as soon as he had the drums thumping behind him and the amps blaring away and it was just him and the microphone, looking out into the audience, all his bravado disappeared. It was funny to see that realisation play out in real time.

There is a certain mythos, a sense of the ‘outsider’, that is exemplified in your work. Where do you think that comes from?

It’s just who I am, you know. I come from a pretty working-class background in regional South Australia, so I was at home there, but, you know, making and performing music meant travelling away, so every other place I went to you’re coming from outside in a way. And the music scene in Melbourne, and a lot of Australia in general, is people from well-off backgrounds from private schools. So, in a sense,  you are an outsider before you even begin.

Going back in time again, Soft ‘n’ Sexy represents the Coral Snakes at their commercial peak. What do you recall about the musical environs of the time?

We never were and never have been played on commercial radio, but triple j went national around 1993, and it was quite a very powerful signal. It still is; you can get it anywhere in Australia. Also at the time there were also lots of shows on television that had live performances, even if it was only a live vocal, like Hey, Hey, It’s Saturday.

No matter what you think of the show, they would let anybody on there, and that put acts into people’s lounge rooms, which is a really good thing. And there were a slew of shows, from Andrew Denton to Elle McFeast, Roy and HG, Steve Vizard and even daytime television shows, like Bert Newton. It was incredible.

Now we just have reality TV. I don’t know why they don’t have live performances anymore because that’s much better than a bunch of people playing pranks on each other out in the jungle. But there were also magazines at the time; it was quite a rich music culture around that time. And I gotta say that record companies were putting out a lot of Australian music. Like, just on the label we were on, there was The Fauves, The Underground Lovers, The Cruel Sea, The Falling Joys, The Clouds, and Kim Salmon and the Surrealists.

Do you see these changes as cyclical? Do you have any insight into what it takes to make it in music in the Australia of 2025?

I do a radio show on Triple R in Melbourne, so I keep up with a lot of contemporary music, and on my show I pretty much only play Australian music from the year. There’s lots of great music in Melbourne. And lots of it never gets out of Melbourne. I don’t know why. I think triple j kind of dropped the bundle in many areas, but that was a big bundle they were having to carry because commercial radio doesn’t do anything.

I think it’s gone back in many ways to live performance. Some of the biggest acts in Australia, like say Tame Impala or King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, they have just done what they liked, and people responded to it. King Giz play at stadiums in America. They’re huge, and they just did everything kind of wrong, you know? They put out like six albums in a year, and then they let people have it for free after the physical copies have sold out. I absolutely love what they do.

There’s other artists like Leah Senior and a great Melbourne band called Gargoyle. They’re very underworld, and lots of older artists are still operating, like Machine Translations and The Cruel Sea, who put out a new album this year. It was really great, and they did a big tour of it.

I think anybody who believes in the Internet too much really shouldn’t. I think you just have to go out and do things, and I think that word of mouth and people seeing you in the flesh is the greatest, most powerful thing. No amount of money you can spend or PR can beat that.

Dave Graney ‘n’ The Coral Snakes bring their Soft ‘n’ Sexy Sound Tour to Freo.Social on Friday, October 24, and The River Hotel on Saturday, October 25, 2025. Tickets are on sale now from davegraney.com