JACK DAVIES

Writer: Keeley Thompson

It’s a parched day on the hill. A brittle haze blankets the imposing glass towers of the city while the pendulous branches of thirsty trees sway in the peppery breeze. 

It’s the kind of day that makes her wonder whether it’s the heat or the humidity that’s the issue.

Perched on an old tablecloth repurposed as a picnic blanket drinking cold-press coffee from a recycled beer bottle, the song of a willie wagtail harmonises with the sound of dancing leaves. This spot, just three kilometres from the city, provides her refuge from the passage of time.

A scientist could probably explain it; maybe it’s the density of the air, or maybe it's just human nature, but something about the weather carries a deep sense of nostalgia. The crow’s call sounds the same as it did at school lunches, sitting behind demountables seeking shade and the privacy to talk about your first crush. The sunburnt grass is the same shade of amber as the freckles that appeared after consecutive weekends of beach trips with friends. 

As the sun momentarily passes behind a cloud, she returns to her surroundings, remembering that she can make peace with time's arrow by simply slowing down. 

Enter, Jack Davies (and The Bush Chooks). 

A musical reminder to notice the smaller, intimate moments of life, Jack Davies is the acoustic, folk pondering project of Boorloo (Perth) based Jack Davies and The Bush Chooks (Elise Hiatt, George Gare, Chet Morgan, Jack Annear and Hector Morlet). 

There’s a familiar, whimsical innocence (but by no means naivety) to the music of Jack Davies, a softness akin to your mothers hug or the way hot sand tickled between your youthful toes. With an inherent warmth to his music, Jack Davies both celebrates the innate beauty of life and ponders existential troubles with the saccharinity that is hope. 

A comforting brew of softness, sentimentality and spirit, Jack Davies (and The Bush Chooks) provide a musical salve to the 21st century nervous system. 

KEELEY: How are you going? You’ve been touring a fair bit, how was that? Is it still going?

JACK: Sort of, it's kind of indefinite at the moment. I figure I can sort of survive with gigs if I just keep travelling, so for a little while, that's the plan. I've kind of been doing lots of little tours in a row and they've been really good.

It's a lot more economical by yourself, but it's also a lot more lonely, without a band which is a shame. 

KEELEY: Have you found it hard to adjust to playing solo? 

JACK: Well I got into music gigging by myself. I was mainly busking and wasn’t doing really many bigger gigs, so the band was formed around that with the goal of doing more festivals and things. I’ve always played solo gigs alongside playing with The Bush Chooks, so it doesn’t feel like I have to take those songs and reclaim them.

Some of the songs work better on my own, some of them work better with the band and some work well as both. I haven’t tried to rework anything, if it doesn’t feel good playing on my own, I just don’t play it.

I’ve mainly just been playing new stuff. It’s cool because as you travel and you write more, you can slowly change the setlist and build it up with new ones. I do miss the band though, they’re all my best friends. I’m looking forward to playing with them again in the future.

KEELEY: Have you been writing much while you’ve been on the road? 

JACK: A bit. I wish I did more, but I'm trying not to force it.  I've definitely done a few, and I've liked them more than usual.

I'm not really bothering to write the whole thing if I'm not into it now. I just bail on it straight away, and if I do like it, I've forced myself to actually finish it. 

I’ve written a few songs and I’ve recorded some too. I actually recorded an album with JB Paterson not long ago. I did 15 songs, but cut it down to 11. We just sort of smashed it out in a day and a half. We just did everything in like one or two takes and then and then just layered some banjo over the top.

KEELEY: That sounds awesome! Do you have an idea for when that will be released? 

JACK: I have no idea, hopefully in a few months, but I don't know, I kind of was like “oh I've recorded now and I can relax” and realised I've actually got to do all the other things now, which is like not the bit I like. 

I’ve gotten really into animation, so I want to draw some animations for each track and make a whole thing for the album. It won’t be a full music video length or anything, but just a snippet of a video for each song - more of a creative landscape that the song/s can live within.

It’ll take a while to do, but I’m excited about it. I’ve just got to find the time to actually sit down and do it. 

KEELEY: How did you get into music? 

JACK: My mum's boyfriend was a guitarist when I was a tiny little baby. He got me a guitar but then he took it away. I think that gave me a vendetta to get really good at it and I just kept playing. That was probably when I was four? I sort of just played guitar ever since. I mean I played guitar for probably like 10 years before I had any lessons.

I got into busking because I was walking past a cafe one day with my guitar on the way to school and the owner asked if I’d come play there. He was trying to raise money for charity. Half the money I earnt from busking went to charity and the other half I got to keep. I did that twice a week for four years. 

When I got older I started busking in the city and then started playing gigs. Busking was a great way for me to get into playing gigs because it took a lot of the initial fear out of it. I’m not sure I would’ve ever played gigs if that’s what I had to start with. 

KEELEY: Where do you get inspiration from to write your music? 

JACK: That’s hard to say. Listening to other music, enjoying that experience and wanting to create that experience. 

KEELEY: What does your creative process look like?

JACK: A lot of frustration. Hyperventilation. I don't really have a clear creative process because I’m pretty chaotic with my organisational skills. A lot of the songs never get finished and get scrunched up and thrown in the bin. The ones that do get finished generally hit a point where I can't be bothered working on it anymore.

Very rarely do I have one that I actually feel good or finished with. A  lot of the songs we recorded recently weren't finished. I just cut out a couple verses or changed it slightly on the spot when I recorded it. Listening to it back a week later I was like “okay cool, that’s a song and I actually like it”. Recording for me is often the only point where I feel finished with the songs. 

KEELEY: Do you write your songs in books or on your phone? 

JACK: I used to write in books, but it’s so inconvenient. 

The only issue with using my phone is that sometimes I’ll go back to edit things and I’ll be super brutal with it I and I'll literally change the entire thing until it’s completely unrecognisable and none of the original lyrics are there, but I don't like it either and I remember really liking it when I first wrote it. 

But by that point I'd completely destroyed the idea by getting too obsessed with it. I think when you have a pen on paper you can always go back and look at it and you’re less inclined to completely destroy it from the very core of what I originally was.

KEELEY: What’s coming up for you? What should people look out for? What can we expect? 

JACK: We'll put out this very quickly made album. Itt won't be the most polished recording I've ever made, but I like to think that it has an air of personability to it.

I'm looking forward to that and then I'll probably just do a bunch of gigs. By the time I get around to releasing that album and doing those gigs, I'll probably have written other songs and be sick of the others, so I might be playing different songs. 

I think you're meant to record and release it and then play the songs, but I've been doing this cycle the wrong way around where I play the songs and then record them and then I never play them again.

KEELEY: Well there you go people! You better go see Jack live soon because you might never hear the songs again! 

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