Dan Wilson says he found inspiration for his career in the Neil Young biography `Shakey`.
In an interview with Undercover’s Tim Cashmere, Dan said, “I thought it was a wonderful book as a drama, just as a book, but it was also so insightful about his motivations. I found it inspiring on a geek musician level, but also just as a story of someone who can’t help himself, he has such incredible integrity. He can’t help himself but to act on it”.With thanks to the book, Dan found a lot of ideas he was able to take into his recording sessions. “I stole a lot of ideas from Neil Young from the book,” he said. “One of the ideas was that I didn’t want to do an overdubbed heavy layered filled out computer process and reading about Neil Young and his obsession with capturing everything with the musicians all playing together, he also has a very strong flag that he waves for having the singing happen first. You sing with the band and that’s the vocal take. You don’t redo it or anything, you just sing with the band and if the vocal sounds bad, you do the track again. I got so inspired by that and I really tried to take that as far as I could on this album. There are a few that I redid here and there, but I really tried to do it with the whole band”.
Wilson is the lead singer of Semisonic (Closing Time) and wrote most of the songs on the last Dixie Chicks album.
He will be in Australia next week for shows with Martha Wainwright as well as his own shows in Sydney and Melbourne.
Tour dates are:
November 12, Sydney, Enmore Theatre (with Martha Wainwright)
November 13, Melbourne, The Forum (with Martha Wainwright)
November 14, Melbourne, Northcote Social Club
November 18, Brisbane, The Trivoli (with Martha Wainwright)
November 19, Sydney, The Factory Theatre
