Play It Again, Sam

With a gravelly voice just settling into the day's first cup of tea, Charles Jenkins wakes up recalling the house party he played the evening prior, sharing how lucky he feels to be in the midst of a run of six very different gigs in six days, all just a tram ride from his Melbourne home. On tour to promote the release of Love Your Crooked Neighbours With Your Crooked Heart, Jenkins talks about the process of putting together his fifth collection of solo songs.  

“I had a few country… folk songs I reckon they're called, because they didn't have choruses as such that repeated words. They were tales, very descriptive things, which I've written in the past,” explains Jenkins, who initially intended to retreat to the Adelaide studio of good mates The Yearlings to finish writing, but instead ended up recording with their help.

“When I bought [the songs] back to Melbourne and listened to them about a week later I realised that those guys were great, but I wasn't really pleased with what I had done… So the heartbreak occurred when I had to make the decision to record again, and then in retrospect [it was] glorious. It worked out beautifully, but it was a bit of a tough slog to go through the songs again… I was very pleased that gave me the opportunity to get [backing band] The Zhivagos on board and Davey Lane [You Am I] had his new ukulele that he'd just purchased and [drummer] Dave Milne was happy to play brushes instead of sticks and all that stuff…

“It was a concentration on the performance, I suppose, the second time around,” Jenkins admits. “And it also gave me the opportunity to recognise the strengths of some of the songs and augment them, and it gave me the opportunity to get Suzannah Espie and Doug [Lee Robertson] from Icecream Hands to sing some beautiful harmonies. It gave me the opportunity to get my son and some guys from his band The Cactus Channel to do some brass arrangements, and I'm very pleased with the result… It's not until you get the title and you get the artwork and you get the disc and you slap them all together that you really know. I think there's luck involved in the decision making process. And I thought that it all worked – I think that it all works well as an entity,” he says.

Heading to Brisbane this week after a fly-in trip involving a house party and a solo Dowse Bar slot last month, Jenkins is looking forward to bringing Love Your Crooked Neighbour… to life with a dear friend by his side this time. “It's gonna be me on my acoustic [guitar] and Davey on his ukulele,” Jenkins explains with a wry chuckle. “I'm not sure what picture that paints for people but we've played a bunch of gigs in that situation and Davey on the ukulele is not like any regular Joe on the ukulele, or should I say it doesn't sound like me when I play the ukulele and sound like some bad Hawaiian! He's a remarkable player of that instrument as well as most things that he sets his mind to – he's a very clever man, Davey, and a wonderful person to hang around. If I had my way we'd play everywhere in Australia consecutively as a duo ukulele-guitar feature so I hope Brisbane is able to come out en masse.”

Charles Jenkins will be playing the following dates:

Thursday 6 December - The Hideaway, Fortitude Valley QLD
Friday 7 December - Notes, Newtown NSW