Features March 10, 2016

This Record Changed My Life: DMA’S

Tomorrow, one of Australia’s most benchmark-setting bands, DMA’S will release their debut album, Hill’s End. It’s been two years since the trio’s single Delete turned cold hearts to gelatine, invited praise fromDave Rowntree andlead to one of the quickest US and UK label and agency deals the industry’s ever seen.

Ahead of LP’s release and the ensuing national tour in support of it, DMA’S linchpin Johnny Took has written about the albumwhich changedhis perspective on music; Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks.

Bob Dylan
Blood On The Tracks
– by Johnny Took

“Whether or not this album changed my life I’m sure not, however it’s certainly changed my perspective on music. The first track I ever heard off this album was played to me by an old friend when I was about nineteen-years-old. We were sitting around with mates on a balcony talking music and open tunings (that’s we were getting into at the time) and how the whole of Blood On The Tracks was in either open D or open E. Buckets of Rain is the final track on that album but was the first I heard.

“I remember loving hearing how you could get so much melody and chords out of a guitar at the same time. Life affirming lines like ’Life is sad life is a bust, all you can do is do what you must, you do what you must do but you do it well, I’d do it for you honey baby can’t you tell’ mixed with borderline nonsense such as ’got all them buckets coming out of my ears’ drew me to this songwriting.

“Listing to this album at an age where I was experimenting with different styles, and being quite impressionable, the songs particularly resonated with me. There seemed to be a timelessness to the lyrics that lured me to listen again and again. Songs like Meet Me In The Morning gathered my love for Dobro and later introduced me into bluegrass music.

“From the opener Tangled Up In Blue to the Spanish undertones of You’re a Big Girl Now and the relentless harp and lyrics in Lily, Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts andYou’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, each have drawn me in one way or another. Particular for my age and situation at the time.”

DMA’S HILLS END ALBUM TOUR

MAY / JUNE 2016

With special guests to be announced

Presented by triple j & The Music

Tickets on sale now via www.dmasmusic.com

Fri 27 May The Zoo | Brisbane, QLD (18+)

Fri 3 Jun Fat Controller | Adelaide, SA (18+)

Sat 4 Jun The Rosemount | Perth, WA (18+)

Fri 10 Jun The Metro | Sydney, NSW (18+)

Sat 11 Jun The Corner | Melbourne, VIC (18+)

Sat 12 Jun The Corner | Melbourne, VIC (18+)

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