AUSTRALIA was coming out of economic times described by then Prime Minister Paul Keating as “the recession we had to have”, vinyl records had disappeared from shelves as the compact disc took over, bands were emulating the grunge sound from Seattle with Nirvana releasing their third album and the X-Files was the weekly highlight on television.
The year was 1993 and Dave Graney and The Coral Snakes released their acclaimed Night of The Wolverine album. It sounded like no other album and cut a path that would take Graney, who had fronted The Moodists for almost a decade, into mainstream success.
“We just got airplay on Triple J as it was going national and it was kind of serendipitous and they were great for us and we were great for them and just got some public exposure otherwise, working live is all you’ve got,” Graney said.
“It was quite a busy period. We had two albums come out in 1992. We had I Was The Hunter … And I was The Prey, which we recorded in 1990, but took two years to come out on a British label. Then Lure of the Tropics came out which was on an indie label. Then we recorded Night of the Wolverine in late 1992 and it came out in ’93.
“So it was three albums in about 12 months and you’re just doing a lot of playing. That’s what happens. I guess it’s a bit like you’re tunnelling through a mountain or something and you’re not really conscious of or expecting things.”
“Night of the Wolverine was slower than the next three [albums],” Moore added. “Because we weren’t working with a big label then. So that album didn’t really get the huge push the following three did. But at the same time, it is the one that grabbed everybody’s attention.”
The success of the album was something Graney said caught up with the band a few years later.
In 1993 Dave Graney and The Coral Snakes toured for six weeks opening for Hunters and Collectors, followed straight after with a tour with The Cruel Sea before doing their own tour.
“When we first put out Night of the Wolverine, we never got to play it much live because we went out straight away opening for Hunters and Collectors in 1993 and the audience was quite ferocious and the music was quite delicate. So we switched to playing more of a rock and roll kind of show. So we never got to actually present it as such as a record release or anything like that.”
Dave Graney and The Coral Snakes in a 1993 promotional photo.
Graney and Moore kick off a national tour in Canberra on Friday, reuniting with The Coral Snakes to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Night of the Wolverine.
“It's really good for us to reconnect with Rod Hayward on guitar and Rob Casinader on piano. They’re really nice guys,” Graney said.
“And in some ways, it is quite a joyful thing because it is for a short period, everybody knows what songs we are doing, and it is a certain period. We’re not asking everybody to commit to a dream or anything like that, or to worry about a longer period.
In a two-set performance, the original members of Dave Graney and The Coral Snakes will perform ‘Night of the Wolverine’ in full, plus classics and deep cuts from their mid ’90s on a 13-stop tour that takes in 6 states and territories.
“It is quite a semi-acoustic in some ways, singer-songwriter album, and we’ve done lots of different types of songs and even within The Coral Snakes. Before that we were quite a rock band and after it we were a rock band and so we do a second set of songs from before and after, because it is the two sides of the music we played in The Coral Snakes period,” Graney said.
“Some people remember that stuff more, you know, like Rock n Roll is Where I Hide and things like that,” Moore said. “Sometimes people think that those songs are on Night of the Wolverine so we’ve been doing those. The second set will be a mixture of other things.”
“We were back in the era of the large record companies who were really good for some things, great for promoting and in that in some other ways there could be a pressure to write things. So it is just a very pleasurable experience to just go out and simply play the songs. They’re all still there in your head somewhere. It is amazing how you remember them, because we played them so much back in the ’90s.”
The anniversary also sees a new film clip for Night of The Wolverine and the album released on vinyl for the first time.
“People are hearing it for the first time and I think a lot of the music we made has been before its time or before people were ready,” Graney said.
“It is odd that it is finding a place now. I don’t think it is all nostalgic in some ways, with people hearing it.
“To go out there and work it we had to add some sizzle to it or something. We might have done a bit too much sizzle at some point and people couldn’t approach the music as if it was a singer songwriter, or just any great band, just making their own thing.
“Our music was hot, and it was unique and we didn’t have many other contemporaries we were scared of or intimidated by.”
Dave Graney and The Coral Snakes Night of The Wolverine 30th Anniversary Tour comes to Queensland next week at HOTA, Surfers Paradise on August 4, The Old Museum, Brisbane on August 5 and The Imperial, Eumundi on August 6.
