Darren Hanlon: Swede Soul Music.

Darren Hanlon plays the The Zoo on Saturday.

Overdue hardly begins to describe Hello Stranger, Darren Hanlon’s solo debut. Following a five years stint as a member of The Simpletons, Hanlon jumped ship to follow his solo muse in 1998. In the years since we’ve seen the acclaimed Early Days EP from the Sydney based songsmith as well as a couple of singles, appearances on a couple of Candle Records compilations and more legwork than you can poke a stick up.

The wait has been worthwhile. Hello Stranger is a gem of an album, ten tracks of unpretentious and mainly acoustic pop, elegant in its simplicity and sweet in its sentiment. Oddly enough, for a solo album four years in the making, Hello Stranger is the result of a frantic burst of activity.

“There was so much midnight oil burned we were all looking like Peter Garrett,” he jokes. “It’s been quite rushed, really. The artwork was all done in a single night – we didn’t finish it until seven in the morning. The disc was printed up and ready pretty much a week after the recording was finished. We actually had to speed them up at the pressing plant to get it done in time.”

“Some of the tracks really turned out exactly as I wanted them to,” Darren  says of the hasty recording process. “Tracks like He Misses You Too, You Know and Security Leak especially, because I don’t play that one live, so it was a more enjoyable experience for me. Operator… Get Me Sweden came out really well. There were a couple that I think didn’t really hit the mark for me. Like for The Last Night Of Not Knowing You, I actually enjoy listening to the demo more than the final track that was recorded.”

…Um, that was one of the tracks I enjoyed most on the album.

“That’s good. I’m glad you said that,” he remarks. “It justifies spending the money on the massive studio that we used to do that one. We ran out of time in the studio we were in. We kind of didn’t really know what to do. We were going to do it in a hall with an old piano. It kind of sounds a bit Billy Joel to me. The demo was all done with one mic in a room, and there was something magic about it. It turned out really nice, something you can’t ever get again.”

Did you consider just tweaking the demo and putting it on the album.

“Oh mate, I considered that… we went through a few meetings about that one, but it would never have matched any of the other songs.”

Producer Chris Townsend had previously spent time tweaking the knobs on the Portishead sound desk.

“He’s a madman, he’s so energetic. I don’t know how he juggles a family and a business and a band and a dog. It’s a very high maintenance dog. It’s in the studio like 24/7. It follows him around everywhere. It understands about 800 words apparently. If he hears ‘that was a good take’ he comes and sits in the control room. He knows when you’re going for food, you have to spell it out because he knows the word.”

Bear, the German Shepherd actually made it onto the record…

“There’s a few barks on there. He loves the mounted police in Surrey Hills (where the studio is located), so whenever you make a clip clopping sound he just goes nuts. There’s also a police siren on there somewhere. If you can pick it you win a trip and a tour of the Candle offices. But you have to travel by bus. I haven’t told anyone where it is, but if you listen on headphones it’s there. It’s actually pretty loud once you know where it is.”

“There’s another thing on Frida’s vocal on track seven (Cast Of Thousands). We did the vocals in a closet, and you can actually hear the coat hangers in the first couple of bars. It gives it a bit of character.”

Cast Of Thousands, a simple tale of a relationship’s wake, is the only track on the album not to feature Darren vocal gymnastics. Darren met vocalist Frida Eklund while he was touring in Scandinavia.

“The song was written from the point of view of a female and I just wanted to do something a little more literal. Frida was singing the track when she was touring over here. She sings in a Swedish band who are recording their debut album at the moment. I met them at a university gig in Sweden. They were all a bit crazy and they all liked the odd drink.”

“They’re partial to this Swedish tobacco which makes you pass out and vomit if you haven’t had it before, as I found out. They just gave it to me and said ‘you must eat this now, put it under your lip’. It’s like chewing tobacco, but you just hold it in your mouth. Then they said ‘you will vomit now if you don’t take it out’. I had to lie down until my head stopped swimming. They’re weird, Swedish people.”