Davey Craddock & The Spectacles launch a new single, Better Alone, on Saturday, May 2, at The Odd Fellow with help from Odette Mercy & Her Soul Atomics and DJ Peter Barr.
Tell us about the new single, Better Alone, the background and its intent?
Better Alone started as a writing experiment – I’d never written a duet before and was really interested in writing a Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris type song like Love Hurts where two parties in a relationship both have a whine together. I wrote it with the intention of having a guy and a girl trade verses but due to my manic and urgent approach to studio scheduling I didn’t have the female vocalist arranged in time for the session so I sung it all myself. I really like the result – it’s a happy accident. Now it sounds like an angry dude reading sad letters and responding to them.
It’s a very sad song in many ways, from varying viewpoints…
I write barely any songs about relationships because so bloody many have been written and I find it difficult to offer anything interesting on the subject. So, acknowledging that, I thought I’d try and write a really honest and unglamorous song that acknowledges how confusing and untidy things can be. It’s not a breakup song and it’s not a love song, it’s a ‘after much discussion, we both agree it’s better this way’ song. Maybe I foreshadowed Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow’s ‘conscious uncoupling’.
The story in the song is much less glamorous than a dramatic blow up but maybe more interesting and realistic? There’s a line in the bridge about how love songs are usually simplified and Hollywood-ised – ‘And those love songs aren’t meant to end this way, it’s all straight lines, clean cuts and no fray. It’s all come, go, cheers, tears, please just stay. Hold the credits. Fade to grey’. I think I’ve just worked it out – it’s an anti love song, love song.
What’s the rest of the year look like?
I’m going to be playing some solo shows in Sydney and Melbourne in May and July and then I hope to bring the full band over to launch the album in the last quarter of the year. The Americana community is really growing in Australia at the moment and my main aim is to make sure all the relevant people have heard us, and if they haven’t send them a bunch of flowers, a preview of our album and a nagging email.
