Fanning Dempsey National Park On Seizing New Opportunities: 'We Wanted It To Feel Bigger Than The Two Of Us'

Who doesn’t love a supergroup? When it became clear that Bernard Fanning (Powderfinger) and Paul Dempsey (Something For Kate) were whipping up something special in the studio, The Music—and our readers—lost our collective minds.

How often does a collaboration actually work? We can think of a few – Audioslave, boygenius, The Highwaymen, The Postal Service, Atoms For Peace – but more often than not, the results of beloved musicians joining forces can often feel like a letdown, despite being happy that artists we love are doing something they want to do.

Fanning Dempsey National Park, the new project spearheaded by the two Aussie rockers mentioned above, quickly assured fans of their respective bands that there was nothing to worry about.

This isn’t Powderfinger or Something For Kate 2.0; it’s an entirely different hybrid, a record that wouldn’t sound out of place besides the likes of Split Enz, Kraftwerk, and David Bowie. There are keyboards and bright, chirpy synthesizers, with lyrics and soaring melodies to match their optimistic vibes. It’s simultaneously a throwback, with calls to modern production techniques and instruments and a daring look to the future.

Nowhere was it clearer that Fanning Dempsey National Park were interested in the throwbacks of album production than last night, when they sat in the hot seat with Richard Kingsmill for the inaugural The Music Sessions.

Their debut album, The Deluge, is out today, but last night, fans got to hear it early—on vinyl, no less—with the pair getting interviewed by Kingsmill at the end of Side A and participating in an audience Q&A at the end of the album. It was a night of meaningful engagement with the album experience and the community—defining factors of Fanning Dempsey National Park if you ask us.

At the end of track five, the stunning Blood, Kingsmill kicked off the conversation with Fanning Dempsey National Park by quizzing them about the lyrics, which they previously spoke about in this week’s The Music cover story.

“There was a state funeral, and his granddaughter, Sophie Taylor Price, did the eulogy, and she talked about his life and his effect on them as grandkids,” Fanning began in the chat with Kingsmill. “But she said this line, ‘My blood is your blood, my stories are your stories’ in the eulogy. And I just thought it was a really powerful, beautiful line.”

When asked if he remembered that line since the funeral, Fanning confirmed that he wrote it down and was aiming to use it when writing a song about his children. From there, the duo spoke about the band's name, revealing some of the names that were left on the cutting floor.

“Defenders Of The Realm,” Dempsey replied.

“We both still think that’s better,” Fanning quipped.

Dempsey added, “We couldn’t slide that one past management,” the pair receiving laughs from Kingsmill and the audience.

And, of course, going by Bernard Fanning and Paul Dempsey was off the table from the beginning.

“We wanted it to feel bigger than just the two of us,” Dempsey explained. “We wanted it to feel like—I mean, we're not a band where we're a dynamic duo, but you still want it to feel like more than, you know, Simon & Garfunkel. It needs to have a little bit of gravitas. Maybe Defenders Of The Realm is too much gravitas. But, you know, National Park seems just right.”

Fanning jumped in, “Let's not forget that we wanted it to be as pompous sounding as possible. We really wanted to sound like a pair of absolute wankers.”

“I mean, hey, I just use the word gravitas, yeah,” Dempsey said, the duo again receiving laughs.

But there were a few names that came up: Fanning Dempsey Electrical Company, Fanning Dempsey Pool Cleaners, and Fanning Dempsey Airlines.

“I'm going to be somewhat serious,” Dempsey said after giving away some of the names in contention. “We liked National Park because the record is not exactly organic; it's more synthetic.

“There's a lot of synthesizers, and the sounds are quite, you know, synthetic. It's a nice juxtaposition that it's called National Park, and the artwork is the synthesizer waveforms, but you can sort of see water and mountains. So, it's just kind of playing on the idea of a national park, but from this very synthetic juxtaposition.”

On the album cover, designed by Jonathan Key, the CEO and Creative Director of Studio 3 in Sydney, Fanning revealed that they’d workshopped a bunch of ideas, knowing that they wanted the album cover to be minimalist and reflect the music on the record.

Working together was easy because it was fun. “We said, ‘Okay, if we're going to do this, let's just make sure that we're enjoying it and that it's fun,’” Fanning said. “Even before we'd really finished a song or had too [many] musical ideas, we were planning where around the world we were going to eat. So, like, let's eat in Argentina, New York, and Denmark. That was the idea. So, we had some grand concepts before the music even came along.”

And when the music did come along, Fanning Dempsey National Park ended up mining their influences from the ‘70s and ‘80s to form their own aesthetic that they didn’t want to be predictable.

Dempsey explained, “If there was any extra point or imperative to doing this, it was the fact that it affords us an opportunity to do something different and new and fresh, and it's kind of a waste if we didn't seize that opportunity to push into some other territory.

“That, I guess, is why we then started to go, ‘Okay, well, we're not going to write [with] guitar.’ We write songs with acoustic guitars, and we're not going to. When we talk about all that music from that time that we do love, you know, Duran Duran, Gary Numan, David Bowie, you name it, then the defining characteristic of so much of that music is that it relies on synthesizers. It's really just the sort of tools that people were using at the time. So, it's a different [process], put the guitars away and grab some different tools that we didn't know how to use that well.”

“Just to go further on what Paul was saying, that technology was all new,” Fanning added. “It was coming along very quickly. All these new instrument companies and old ones were tapping into this new technology, which allowed you to synthesize sounds.

“Moog and Roland were making Junos and all that sort of stuff. And as Paul explained before, there were new songs coming out that would have a brand-new sound that had never been recorded before. So, Prince, for example, would get sent a prototype of one of these company’s synthesizers. He would just dial in the preset sounds and use that because it was a new sound, and that would become the sound that everybody copied. Then it just kept happening month after month, you know, there'd be three or four released a year.”

Dempsey continued, “These companies were really clever because they knew that if they had a new synth product, all they had to do was get it into the hands of Prince or Stevie Wonder or someone, and they would use it on their very next recording, and everyone would be like, ‘What the hell is that sound? I need that.’ And it would sell 100,000 synths.”

Discussing the spark for forming Fanning Dempsey National Park, the pair confirmed that celebrating David Bowie in 2020, their longtime friendship, and Paul Dempsey’s wife and Something For Kate bandmate, Stephanie Ashworth, inspired their formation.

“We've known each other for a really long time,” Dempsey said. “From the late 90s through the noughts, we did a whole lot of touring together, and you all probably know that. But then, we both got on with our lives and didn't see each other for a while. And, so, I guess the celebrating David Bowie thing was probably just the beginning of us being back in touch more frequently.”

After that, Something For Kate recorded their most recent album, The Modern Medieval, in Fanning’s studio. Bernard Fanning also features on the song Inside Job. It was during those studio sessions that Ashworth popped the big question: “Why don’t you guys make an album?”

The idea grew from there, Fanning said. “We just said, ‘Let's throw some song ideas at each other’. Paul sent me something; I think we talked about it, and then nothing happened for a few months. And then Paul suddenly, out of the blue, sent me an idea. He said, ‘Look, I've just bought some new recording gear and was just testing it out. I just sat down and started playing this, and it's actually kind of like a song. Do you want to see what you think?’

“And I just sat down and listened to it,” Fanning continued. “I was like, ‘Fuck, this is great.’ So, I put something on it [a vocal] that night, I think, and sent it back. And he was like, ‘Holy shit. How did you do that so quickly?’ But for me, I have much lower standards than Paul does, so I don't mind having an idea that's not fully formed if it is going to give a song idea some momentum and push it along.”

Dempsey said, “When Bernard did send back that track so quickly with an amazing vocal on it, I just did the quick mental calculation that this could be half as much work for me.”

“And twice the money,” Fanning added.

The Deluge is out now via Universal Music. Head here to listen to/buy the album. To learn more about Fanning Dempsey National Park, check out The Music’s cover story.

FANNING DEMPSEY NATIONAL PARK

‘THE DELUGE’ AUSTRALIAN TOUR

Friday October 11 – Meanjin/Brisbane, Fortitude Music Hall

Saturday October 12 – Eora/Sydney, Enmore Theatre

Friday October 18 – Tarntanya/Adelaide, Hindley Street Music Hall

Saturday October 19 – Naarm/Melbourne, The Forum

Sunday October 20 – Naarm/Melbourne, The Forum

Thursday October 31 – Boorloo/Perth, Astor Theatre

Friday November 1 – Boorloo/Perth, Astor Theatre

Saturday November 9 – Meanjin/Brisbane, The Tivoli

Tickets: fanningdempseynationalpark.com