New Zealand musician Delaney Davidson Photo: Supplied
Award-winning musician Delaney Davidson talks to Charlotte Ryan about his tenth - and he says possibly final - studio album Out of My Head.
He wonders if these days, the album format itself may be obsolete.
"I realised the album format is something we're all so used to, and I'm not sure why we're hanging onto it so hardcore.
"The whole idea for me of an album, I'm like, so many people aren't even thinking that way, they just release singles, they put out their work as they're making it, which seems so much more natural.
"So for me I'm like, why am I hanging on to this album concept, and is the 10th album I do the last actual album? That's something I've been thinking about in my mind."
Most of the songs on Out of My Head were written during lockdown, Delaney says: "waking up, making a pot of coffee sitting at the table and writing."
"It felt to me so much more thoughtful than other albums I've done that feel more action-based or more driven. This one felt like a lot about pondering and thinking.
"It's definitely a reflective time for me, turning 50 somewhere in the middle of this process as well and starting to think about my life."
Delaney says he wanted the album to sound "super luxurious".
"I always wanted to make this album you would wake up on Sunday morning, and you would put this album and you know, drink some coffee, slowly eat some food, just take it easy, live in the Sunday morning world ... that's from listening to Lee Hazlewood or Kris Kristofferson or some of those sort of things.'
On Out of My Head, he offers listeners "solace and also solutions".
"It's not 'let's go ahead and get smashed on Friday night' but there is a little bit of that, the general feeling is much more 'feet on the ground'."
The album cover for Out of My Head by NZ musician Delaney Davidson Photo: Supplied
While recording the album, Delaney travelled from Lytellton to Diamond Harbour to spend days working with producer Mark (Merk) Perkins.
"Me and Marlon [Williams] talk about him as the 'ultimate enabler', sort of helping you realize these dreams you've got very easily.
"[Mark and I] live in such different worlds that maybe bringing those two worlds together was really exciting for both of us. "
Delaney's good friend and frequent collaborator Marlon Williams was quite heavily involved in the making of Out of My Head as an "outside set of ears".
"He did a lot of the vocal coaching for me, which was so great to have someone steering. I'd just say 'You're not going to hurt my feelings. Tell me if it's crap or whatever, just make it work. And treat me like an instrument. I'll sing, you just tell me what to do.'
"That was a really nice stage to get to after working so much together in the past and just seeing what Marlon is capable of in terms of production was totally awesome."
Many moments while writing the songs on Out of My Head, Delaney says he was wondering whether he was in love.
"I was like 'What the hell's going on?' Then after a couple of days, I was like 'Oh, I just needed to write the songs. I'm okay. I'm not in love. I'm still on my little tracks here. The world's not going to change'. But there was there was something about going through those feelings considering them. Are they real? Are they not?
"I think that what we all experienced with the lockdown was super personal, and we could dive right into those worlds and explore them without too much interruption from outside. So it has that feeling of quite a distilled world that isn't maybe subject to the crazy whims we're used to dealing with in everyday life."
Delaney met up with classical crossover singer Hayley Westenra in a Christchurch cafe at the suggestion of Bic Runga.
"We got on really well and I was like, let's go back to my place because I've got the piano, I got guitars, we can write stuff. So we went back and we were tinkering around with all these ideas and then the song just sort of fell out of nowhere and all of a sudden that was just there.
"I was like, What the hell? Where did this come from? It was getting dark and she had to leave because she just had a learner's license."
Over time, live performance has felt "easier and easier" to Davidson and he wants the live performance of the songs on Out of My Head to "feel just natural".
"I'm not opposed to dressing up and there's always some diabolic presentation going on. But yeah, it'll be curious to see. For me, the rehearsals we've been doing for the tour have felt just very easy."
As an independent artist, Delaney says he "scrapes through" financially and doesn't take relative freedom for granted.
"If everything else that you rely on - for the bigger picture, whatever you want to call it - falls over, if you're independent, you're still doing your own thing to some degree. You're doing it for the rewards of the work. it's not based on commercialisation or returns or anything like that. You're just gonna keep doing it even if there's no one else around."
Next month, Delaney Davidson plays five special Out of My Head shows with Chamber Music New Zealand:
April 4 - Nelson Theatre Royal
April 5 - Hawkes Bay Arts and Events Centre
April 19 -Wellington Public Trust Hall
April 20 - Q Theatre, Auckland
April 27 - Great Hall, Christchurch
