The Last Fan is the third and final Gloomchasers album. What was going to be an album of new songs written since 2010’s Play All Night has ended up being a collection of unreleased tracks, demos, singles and live tracks recorded between 2004 and 2010. Since Play All Night, the band has changed so much that I realised that the new songs we’d been recording for the ‘next record’ weren’t the  Gloomchasers!

For starters – apart from three songs – they aren’t country enough. These new songs had electric guitars and keyboards on them, which the other two albums didn’t have. Over the last few years, the live band has morphed into an outlet for reviving songs from previous bands of mine (Godstar, Plunderers, Love Positions) and the occasional Velvet Underground cover. So far removed from the original idea of a bluegrass-inspired folk-rock band with banjo and mandolin on every song with the only electric instrument being the bass.

The Gloomchasers played their last show in November 2019 and the new songs we have been recording will now be released in 2021 under a new band name, whereas the songs on The Last Fan are true to the spirit of what the Gloomchasers set out to achieve. This is partly due to the lyrics of Lucy Lehmann, who created a character –  a ‘rocker now trying to settle down’ – and I was more than happy to make fun of myself singing her words. The other important thing is that all the original songs were either written in the country or were written about the life I lived for over five years in Morongla Creek (fifteen minutes south of Cowra, in NSW’s Central West).

There was a drought on the whole time I was living in the country and “I Want Rain On Christmas Day” is a song Lucy and I wrote about a farmer who wishes for rain whilst not being able to afford Chrissy presents for his kids. “The Diva” is a fictional tale based on reality when I caught a train from Sydney to Melbourne on Melbourne Cup Day in 2005 and the race was being relayed to the passengers over the PA. I took note that around race time the train went past a town called Henty so I imagined a Henry Lawson-esque story where all the passengers disembark and watch The Cup in the Doodle Cooma Arms hotel. When I told Lucy the idea for the song she went off and wrote eleven verses!

The oldest song here is an alternative take of “There He Is” (the Sneeze song we covered on Home Of The Big Regret) performed by Cowra bluegrass band The Lynch Mob in 2004. Inspired by an album by Nashville guitarist called Jerry Kennedy Plays: With All Due Respect To Kris Kristofferson I asked Tim Kevin to add the melody line on electric guitar. Tim’s guitar is all over this album and his wife Kym-Louise Barton also sings harmony on “Miss Fortune”, a song I wrote with Stella McDonald.

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November 2019: After fourteen years, the Gloomchasers have been switched off. The original idea of a folk-rock band with a whiff of bluegrass had morphed into a live act with no direction: covers by Daddy Cool, Taylor Swift and the Velvets sat next to old Godstar and Plunderers songs, whilst the new originals were turning to each other and asking what are we doing here? You only have to listen to this version of Smudge’s “Scary Cassettes” to hear the difference compared to the earlier releases.

Thanks to the recent line-up of the Gloomchasers – Luke, John, Elmo, Peter, Kathryn and Jonathan – for your time and talent and playing the occasional show with no rehearsals. The new album the band started recording in 2017 will now come out in 2020 under the name The Dairy Joys. Some of it will sound like the two albums the Gloomchasers put out in 2005 and 2010 – both heavy with banjo and mandolin – but most of it won’t. The electric guitar and keyboards are back.

Back in 2005-06 the Gloomchasers were based in Melbourne and had a line-up consisting of Lucy Lehmann on the gut string acoustic, Ben Mason on the electric bass, Lachlan Franklin on the drums, Paul Rigby on the banjo with Nic Dalton on the acoustic guitar and mandolin. They all sang. Most of the songs were from the Home Of The Big Regret album and the ‘new’ one the band was about to record – Play All Night – which came out four years later.

The band was a lot different from the one that evolved when Nic moved back to Sydney in 2006. They were definitely a country/folk-rock/bluegrass band. “We hadn’t gone electric yet! ” Nic said. Two live shows from the ‘Melbourne line-up’ were recorded and are available online, The first one from a show at the Empress Hotel in October 2005 and the second one from the Hopetoun Hotel in July 2006.

Musical chairs

From about 2011 onwards Nic started to play the electric guitar in the Gloomchasers (as well as keeping up the mandolin and the acoustic guitar). The big change was Lucy leaving the band. Luke has been the constant bass player since the turn of the new decade and the Gloomchasers have a revolving line up including Katherine Brownhill (violin, accordian), John Encarnacao (keyboard), Peter Velzen (drums), Elmo Reed (guitar), Peter Timmerman (drums), Tim Kevin (guitar) and Jonathan Nix (cigar box guitar).

The live band (2007-2010) in Sydney: Luke Russell on the bass (replacing Kevin McClaer who moved down to Melbourne), Danny Heifetz on drums, Nic Dalton on lead vocals/guitar/mandolin and Lucy Lehmann on gutstring guitar/backing vocals. Gavin Farley came down from Morpeth (near Maitland) when he could to pick some banjo.

In Melbourne, the lineup (2005-2006) was Paul Rigby on the banjo/mandolin, Ben Mason on the bass, Lachlan Franklin on the drums/guitar, Nic Dalton on lead vocals/guitar/mandolin and Lucy Lehmann on gutstring guitar. Everyone sang harmonies.