Taste Test: Dan Kelly

THE FIRST ALBUM I BOUGHT WITH MY OWN MONEY
Arena by Duran Duran. I went to this little shop in Beenleigh, near where I went to school, to buy Seven And The Ragged Tiger, but they didn't have it, so I got the live album. Simon Le Bon is singing out of tune on it; it's quite odd that they left it in, considering how much was spent on the record. I remember feeling quite disappointed by it, because I was very excited by Duran Duran at the time. They were pretty flashy, and Queensland wasn't a particularly flashy place in 1984. They almost felt like science fiction.

THE ALBUM I'M LOVING RIGHT NOW
I keep going back to the Dick Diver record. I listened to that a lot in summer, when I was living out in Pascoe Vale – wait, this is funny, I'm getting nostalgic over something that's meant to be current – and I had this great big backyard; I'd put it on and potter around in the garden. The songs are catchy and arty, there's a Go-Betweens thing with them but they're not quite so twee, or fey, or something; it's one of those records that really stays with you.

MY FAVOURITE PARTY ALBUM
I've got this Atlantic Rhythm & Blues: 1947-1974 compilation, it's really good for parties. It starts out with this proto-R&B, which is almost jazz, then it gets into your classic Atlantic '50s sound, then into more of the dancey soul, Bar-Kays kind of stuff. It naturally just goes with the flow of a party. I like being able to let this one thing go, rather than sit at the stereo all night.

MY FAVOURITE COMEDOWN ALBUM
I literally used to comedown to The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld when I was 20. But it's been a while since I've comedown from anything, I'm getting a bit old these days. I get a bit of insomnia, so often wake up at three or four, and I'll put on Brian Eno and Harold Budd, The Plateaux Of Mirror. It's classic ambient, and it really helps me get back to sleep. I'm not sure if that's a compliment.

THE MOST SURPRISING RECORD IN MY COLLECTION
My sister wanted me to sing a Ben Harper song at her wedding with an opera friend of hers, which was a bit torturous, but I love my sister, so I got the record to learn the song. I really wasn't comfortable doing the whole 'You look like gold!' kind of singing, when I really don't like that 'roots lifestyle' period of music, which is thankfully almost dead, but we did it out of love. I haven't got around to deleting it yet, so there you are: I'm a closet Ben Harper guy.

THE FIRST GIG I EVER ATTENDED
I was maybe six, we'd just moved to Queensland. It was the opening of this new estate called Windaroo, out back of Beenleigh, and Wickety Wack, this novelty rural Queensland covers band, they played. And I think Eric Bogle was supporting, and I really liked And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda as a kid. I may've seen a Paul Kelly soundcheck before that, but that was my first official rock'n'roll show.

THE WEIRDEST GIG EXPERIENCE I'VE EVER HAD
I had this band called Nord – we took our name from this Swedish pornstar, Inge Nord – on the Gold Coast, and we got a gig playing Beach Road nightclub as part of the Indy 500 celebrations, which was predictably just full of idiots. We played with this band Load; two classic teenage Gold Coast bands named after porn references. Semi-macho pornographic arty-noir, that was my early genre. Load hired the sound engineer and he brought the PA, and it turned out he was a midget with a stutter. We'd all taken acid, and it was really unpleasant, and we were all freaking out. Load played, and that was pretty horrible, just having to watch them. Then Load left, and my band all left, and even though I could barely stand up, I had to haul all the gear out with this stuttering midget.

THE BIGGEST NON-MUSICAL INFLUENCES ON MY MUSIC
This really sounds really 'roots lifestyle', but: geography, bushwalking, travelling, looking at maps, finding undiscovered beaches. My songs are all pretty geographical; I think of them in those terms. And also conversations with friends, your friends' sense of humour; that kind of frames who I am, in a way.

THE COOLEST PERSON I'VE EVER MET
I met Leonard Cohen once. He was pretty cool – not acting like Fonzie, but he looked great, he was very poised, he offered me some pretzels. We chatted for five minutes. It seemed to me like he had an aura about him, this semi-religious aura, whether I just put it there or whether he just naturally has it.

THE BIGGEST CELEBRITY CRUSH
I'VE EVER HAD
I remember falling in love with Claudia Karvan when I saw The Big Steal when I was 15. It was quite a visceral feeling; I had the butterflies in my stomach like you would on a date. I was smart enough to know at 15 that she was not a real person, but the feelings were so real, which was strange.

IF I COULD HANG OUT IN ANY TIME
AND PLACE IN HISTORY
I don't have that yearning for any historical time. There was that Anal Cunt song I Went Back In Time And Voted For Hitler, and I thought of that with this question. But, maybe Polynesia, about 500 years ago, no white people there. The head of a tribe, maybe; heaps of wives, people roasting chickens and bringing them to me, swimming every day, throwing people in the volcano if they pissed me off.

IF I WASN'T MAKING MUSIC
I was quite into cricket when I was young, but most modern cricket players have no personality. I'm more into the earlier era, these chivalrous, cavalier men of the British Empire. So if I wasn't Dan Kelly, maybe I'd be Keith Miller.