Anyone who attended Tea Party’s Jeff Martin’s acclaimed solo shows recently, may have also experienced the talents of the support act, Tasmanian singer songwriter Bully Hay, who has just released his debut album Black Dogs and Songbirds, produced by Martin.
Bully Hay has kindly spent some time presenting a detailed track x track explanation of his album ‘Black Dogs and Songbirds’ for Australian Musician and here it is :
Wash Off The World
I remember writing this one around 12 years ago. It carries a sentiment I still lug around with me today. At the time I was caught up in a corporate/business kind of lifestyle and feeling a sense of entrapment. Chained to the capitalist environment that most us us are in. The kind of work, sleep, eat, repeat cycle that society forces on us. I’m still in it to a degree. But it was like feeling a little mini elightenment moment of seeing this cycle for what it was. We’re trapped into making money to be able to exist in the way that we want. To do so, we have to work, (which we don’t enjoy) and the product of all of that work is usually your 2 days off for your weekend in which you’re usually too tired to enjoy it. Then you’re back into the slog on a Monday. I just felt like I was a hamster on a wheel. Running on the wheel til we die. Feeling frustrated by that and confused by relationships and not having the time or sense to see a way out. I literally wanted to run and dive into the ocean and wash off the world and refresh. And that is the crux of the message. That the social norm of how we live is busted and feels dirty and sometimes you need to see it and wash it off. The song originally was about 2 and a half minutes long. It came in hot and burned out like a flash. It was a fun, powerful listen but was over too soon. When Jeff Martin got his hands on it, he encouraged me to flesh out the song more and give it the chance to develop, so at his insistence, I wrote another verse and added another chorus. It made sense and ended up becoming this anthemic rock piece. I’m happy with how it turned out and ended up choosing Wash Off The World as the first single as I thought it would connect with most people out there wanting to wash it all off too.
Breathing Out
There are a few songs on the album where the song structure and lyrics remained exactly how I’d written them in the beginning. Breathing Out was one of them.
One of the easiest songs on the record to let it do it’s thing. Its s simple song musically and retains a kind of melancholic vibe throughout. Although the message of “Breathing Out” to me is a positive one about letting go. To me, the song is about releasing self criticism, recognising your faults and letting them drop to the ground. “Take the rusty weapon off my back” is dropping the grudge. “Help me to the shore, I’m not guilty any more and I’m Breathing Out” is seeing myself in a bad place and at fault, realising it and unpacking it, learning from it and moving away from negativity.
Black Dogs and Songbirds
The title track for the album. Interestingly when the album was finished in its entirety, I realised that the entire record carries the sentiment of the Black Dogs and Songbirds.
Black Dogs represents the mental downward trough. Like a negative mood swing. When the Black Dogs are in control, all is dark, all is black. There are no positive thoughts and no good decisions can be made. Its pain and confusion. The Songbirds represent the upward moodswing. The lofty high’s of elation, hope and best expectation. The album is full of these light and shade moments.
But BD&SB was written in a Black Dog moment. Over the years, I’ve had challenges with addiction of many kinds and this one for me reminds me of alcohol. Using that as a crutch to get through tough times. Which was always a false sense of security. Nothing works that way! The song is reflecting a pattern of (when things get tough), taking myself away or blocking myself away from everyone and feeling like all I need is space and time to resolve what I’m going through. But there would always be alcohol or whatnot there with me. Which kind of cancels out what I was setting out to achieve, being in a cloud of excess. Unable to really sort out any issue and coming back to reality worse than before. “Oh my son, take it away from me, beckon me back to this place where I can be saved”. Take that bottle out of my hand, I cant do it myself. Get me somewhere where I can see straight, see clearly. For many that have listened to this song, it speaks to them on different levels and the message can be translated in different ways. Whatever people can take from this one, they’re not wrong. For me, it’s a bit shameful for me to listen to as its sits close to home literally with the lyric.
Musically, I love the sea chanty, folk ballad storytelling method that the song brings. Jeff and I had a great time working through the sections and building them out. I came into the studio with nothing but a Ukelele and our imaginations went wild with what we were going to use to build out the sections with instrumentation.
Jeff played many of the instruments on there, Harmonium, a bit of electric guitar and he’s singing in there too, albeit you have to listen hard as hes sublty back in the mix anchoring the choruses with the deep baritone voice. We had strings in there too, lots of vocal harmonies and the production is rich and layered.
Bushfire Moon
I can remember standing out on the verandah of my mother in law’s house in Lewisham (Tasmania) in the summer of 2013. And we could see the beginnings of this very large bushfire taking off on the hill. It wasn’t coming towards us, but moving south and sadly continued on to burn about 29,000 hectares of the tasman peninsula. It cut the peninsula off and people could only get there by boat. Just about anyone that had a boat were heading back and forth down there ferrying supplies and people and the community rallied around and helped as best they could. You can imagine hundreds of boats of all sizes all heading up and down the coast with families finding each other and bringing them back up to town.
I had this fictional character in my head when I wrote the song. A volunteer firefighter, battling the blaze. At a certain point he realises the fire is raging out of control. Nature in all of its fury is unbeatable. So he down’s tools and has to get out of there. All he can think of is finding the love of his life before it’s too late. The main raods are closed down with fallen trees and debirs, so he’s taking the back roads, the old roads, any way that he can to find her.
It’s the easiest song on the record to play for me as a guitar player, its much more of a standard Aussie Rock ballad. Acoustic guitar at the heart but the full band tears in and starts driving it. In the studio, Jeff had an idea of a slide guitar hook. Sometimes I think a song is done… Until I realise it was lacking an element I just hadnt heard yet. So, in comes Hellhound Brown, a good mate of Jeff’s and he lays down a slide guitar part in the right hand side. Then Jeff with his 70’s Fender Telecaster (B-Bender) takes the left hand side and there it is. Suddenly, it’s a country song! Adding fuel to that fire, Jeff had Luke Moller come in and add a fiddle part to the song too. I never thought I would be writing country songs, but this one is pretty country! Albeit a cross over between that Oz Rock Ballad and dabbling in country.
The World Is On Fire But You Look So Great
I remember the writing process of this one vividly. The opening guitar line itself was an old one that had sat in my phone. Recorded as a voice note a long time ago. Sat there dormant, patiently waiting for a chance to be something. With the date set for the first recording session coming up within a few months, I was writing and recording demos at one of my best mates (Drew Castles – Drummer) house. We got the song structure hashed out and we’d recorded all the music first. I needed some kind of vocal tracer placed down on the track as I had the melody of the vocals done in my mind, but no words yet.
I had this idea of “The World Is On Fire But You Look So Great” to be the main kind of theme behind the song. Its supposed to mean “Everything has gone to shit and although you’re doing it tough, you are doing so well.” Like slow dancing in a burning room. Refusing to give up despite the heat and the challenge.
Lyrically, it’s the most obscure on the album. I gave minimal thought to try to deliver any kind of message. It was seriously just a stream of consciousness way of writing. Just brain dumping sentences and tying them together. I had actually thought to go back and rewrite the words to get them to make some kind of sense. But once I heard it back, I realised that I didn’t need to. Its become this kind of feminine appreciation song. Tipping the hat to mothers, daughters, wives, lovers, sisters. A song of thanks I suppose. Then again, its not that direct and so people will discern their own meaning for this one and I like that.
Musically, its my favourite on the album. The guitar parts interest me, the descending guitar line in the prechoruses remind me of Jeff Buckley or some version of early Radiohead, the vocal harmonies in the bridge hit me in the heart and the song is given enough time and space to breathe. It doesn’t try to be anything (not that the others do either) but it’s not conforming to a 3 minute radio friendly length or anything like that. It just exists as long as it needs to an ends where it should. It builds and builds into a crescendo with a very satisfying melodic guitar solo from Jeff and just when you think it cant fit any more elements into the sonic landscape, it fades away.
Cinnamon Perfume Cabernet
This song again comes back to the light and dark of life. Particularly around relationships. It wasn’t meant to be sad or melancholic, nor is it a happy uplifting song. Its about the ebbs and flows of long term relationship. How everything is Cinnamon, Perfume and Cabernet in the beginning. Wining and dining and a full cup of love. But as time goes on, “You cannot have the light without a little bit of darkness”. The honey in the milk sours. There is power and control. There is expectation. There are let downs and there are moments where it just isnt working. A dynamic in the relationship forms that becomes difficult to navigate. To keep on, you have to put your back into it. There isnt a resolution to the song, its just a grainy polaroid memory for me of a point in time where I was. Starting to see that things are not black and white and we’re often swimming through the grey area. I love how the tension in this song builds. It starts with a single acoustic guitar and ends with a woven tapestry of the full band, mellotron and a string quartet. Echoing the sentiment of the song. Beginning with simplicity and ending in a complex array of sound, both beautiful and sometimes uncomfortable.
Flinders Street Station
To lift the mood here, Flinders Street Station for me is all about a bit of fun and having a good time. I’m not sure why “Flinders Street Station” features in the song. It just rolled off the tongue. But I guess in my mind I was thinking of travel, holidays and good times. I can wallow a bit in the darker side which can be a bad habit. But this song is chiseling a few chunks of ice off the heart and opening up again and letting the sun come in. Some nice Australian imagery in here. “Take us to December when the warm wind blows, with your shoes in your hands and the kids in tow”. The song is kind of saying, “Come with me, lets go! Life is for the living”. I don’t think on this one too deeply or take it too seriously. Just smile at it and enjoy.
Such Confidence
Here’s one that sticks out as quite a different style/genre from the rest. It has this kind of Sound Garden’esque riff at the core. I came up with it on a tuned down Chapman electric guitar and thought it sounded nice and dirty and loud. Behind that, I could hear a bass line reminding me of Rage Against the Machine. The guitar and bass then have this dueling combative’ness across that riff with solid thundering drums tying the two pieces together. It weaves in and out of a few different sections. I’m not sure which part is the chorus or second chorus. It just works. And its one of my favourites to crank up really really loud on good speakers or headphones. Jeff Martin does a stunning guitar solo in this one and threw in some interesting elements to fill out the top end in the song, like some mellotron throughout the choruses. So it kind of also reminds me of a couple ot The Tea Party songs which just had me tickled pink, being the big TTP fan since I was 14 years old.
Lyriucally, “Such Confidence” came from a place of pure frustration. At the time, I was running a business and feeling like everyone around me just wanted a piece of the pie. I can get pretty bullheaded when I’m locked onto an idea, like I have blinders on and I’m just charging ahead, refusing to give up—even when it’s probably to my own detriment. So this song became my little anthem of, “Alright, I had this great idea, I didn’t see anything else, and now everyone’s trying to grab a piece of it. Fine, just take what you need and F$#k off!” The lyric “If you want such confidence, just pretend and the rest will follow” is that classic fake-it-till-you-make-it vibe, wrapped in some mild trepidation. Like, you’ve made a decision on something and outwardly you’re staunch and stoic about it but inside you’re really hoping that its going to be okay!
Here’s where it gets funny: there’s a line in the song that says, “Hold me down and take what you need from me.” Now, if you know the backstory, it’s about feeling drained and taken advantage of in a professional sense. But apparently, some people have interpreted this as a super raunchy, sex-fueled song about… well, being held down in other ways. Definitely not what I had in mind when I wrote it, but hey, whatever floats your boat, right? It’s one of those moments where the listener’s interpretation takes on a life of its own—and I kind of love that!
Arrest The Youth
When I had the news that Jeff (Martin) was going to produce my album, I went down a deep rabbit hole, listening to a lot of The Tea Party records. I was just excited that I’d be up there working with Jeff and it was psyching me up to do this. And so naturally all of these open tunings and middle eastern sounding riffs were occupying my mind at the time and I came up with the guitar parts for Arrest the Youth in a flash. I knew that it sounded a bit like The Tea Party but I didn’t care. I did it on purpose. In the lead up to the recording sessions, I had about 20 songs that I’d demo’d in different ways. Jeff and I were whittling these down into the best 10 at the time. When Jeff heard Arrest The Youth, his ears pricked up. “This one’s right up my alley” he said. I smirked because I’d purposelly put that one in there to peak his interest. For me, it was such great fun working on this one with Jeff. I had a clear idea of what I wanted on there, but it was really interesting watching the cogs turn with Jeff to see where it would go. And GO it did. Into the middle eastern, Moroccan Rock and Roll vein. Arrest the Youth fit well into the album after Such Confidence as it was the bridge between the acoustic and electric world to give the album that flow that it has. No one song then stands out like a sore thumb.
I Can Be Your Lover
We are all a product of our own experience. Everything that we do, what happens to us or around us shapes us into who we are and how we behave in a certain moment.
“I Can Be Your Lover” are little formative snapshots of my memory through different times in my life. 8 yrs old, 13, 18, 29.
When I was 29/30 yrs old, I lost my best friend to suicide. He and I had been friends since before we could walk. We also played in bands together from our teens onwards. Losing him had a huge impact on my life but also like shockwaves, all of the people he knew. His friends and family and beyond. The song’s chorus “I hope you can understand, I can’t be your friend, but I can be your lover over and over again” means this: All of these things that have happened have jarred me to the point where I’m not sure I can give you what you need from me. I’m here but I’m not here. I’m trying, but something is blocking the energy and until I’m all healed up, I can be your lover at least. It’s not an excuse for not being present enough. But it is an attempt at an explanation. The album is in dedication to Jules.
I Know What You’re Saying Love
The track that never was and wasn’t going to be… Until it was.
In the beginning of the process, Black Dogs and Songbirds was going to be a 5 track EP. But at the end of the first block of recording, we were having such a good time and the songs were coming out so well, Jeff and I decided we had to do more and make this a full album. There were too many good songs that we were having to cut in order to shave it down into an EP. So I’d bitten the bullet so to speak and committed to another 5, making it a 10 track album. One evening we were having dinner together and a few drinks (Jeff, myself and Jeff’s wife Melissa) and I had mentioned something around all of the 10 songs that we’d done so far coming out so large and varied in production. Big soundscapes across them all. I thought it would be cool to have just one song that was just me and a guitar. A short and sweet solo sounding tune. Jeff smiled and clapped me on the back and said he had been thinking the same thing. So we drank a bit more and headed straight up to his studio that night and tracked this last song in a single take. Just me and a fender telecaster, with a little touch from Jeff on keys in the background to the end.
I Know What You’re Saying Love is receiving a parting letter from the one you love. You know what the letter says before you’ve opened it and its like watching a train crash in slow motion. A lingering last kiss goodbye. Closing out the album as the last track, like a whisper.
MORE ABOUT BULLY HAY & HIS ALBUM BLACK DOGS AND SONGBIRDS
Along with Bully Hay and Jeff Martin’s incredible fingerprints across the entire album, Black Dogs And Songbirds also brought onboard Paul Pilsneniks (Silverchair, Dope Lemon, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard) on engineering, and Grammy Award-nominated Joe Carra (The Teskey Brothers) on mastering duties, as well as sonic inspiration spanning Soundgarden riffs, Rage Against the Machine basslines, Jeff Buckley, Paul Kelly, Powderfinger, Crowded House, The War On Drugs and, fittingly, Jeff Martin’s own band The Tea Party.
Opening with buoyant empowerment via Wash Off The World, Bully Hay bursts into vivid view with heartrending melodics, acoustic flourishes and a glistening sonic reflection of the ocean itself in all of its cleansing and naturally wild beauty. From here, Bully Hay flits between wistful twangs (Breathing Out and I Can Be Your Lover), pensive, stripped-back ruminations (Black Dogs And Songbirds), swooning country hues (Bushfire Moon), an indie love ballad that melts and charms with measured simplicity (The World Is On Fire But You Look So Great), potent storytelling set against swelling textures (Cinnamon Perfume Cabernet), as well as injections of Aussie rock, both upbeat (Flinders Street Station. And whether diving headfirst into woozy and heavier territory (Arrest The Youth and Such Confidence) or buffeting across the album’s gossamer closing track (I Know What You’re Saying Love), Bully Hay not only showcases his dexterous abilities across a sea of different genre elements; he also effortlessly captures the entire gamut of the human existence in 11 powerful tracks.
“All of the song themes are taken from real life inspiration and reflection,” shares Bully Hay of Black Dogs And Songbirds. “Musically, I’m definitely a product of my listening habits and these vary so much from classical and folk music to grunge and metal, rock and acoustic singer songwriters. So perhaps this is why the songs vary a lot in style and are tricky to pinpoint. It’s a very self-reflective album. Most of the songs are about change and dealing with those changes in different ways. That could be rejecting change, embracing change or just noticing that something is happening whether you like it or not. Being true to yourself and recognising your own flaws and unpacking them. The songs differ quite a lot in style and feel. So, the album itself takes the listener on quite a journey. One of the songs on the album (Cinnamon Perfume Cabernet) has a lyric in there: “You cannot have the light without a little bit of darkness” and this very much sums up the experience of listening to this album. There are plenty of moments of light and shade and a little in between. Sums up the highs and lows of life in general.”
A sixth-generation Tassie boy currently based in Southern Tasmania, Bully Hay’s upbringing saw him utterly immersed in music, with his musical family helping to ignite his lifelong passion at an early age. Ultimately sparking his desire to become a musician by his father, who introduced Bully Hay to some chords on the guitar at the tender age of 14, the rest well and truly was history, with the self-taught Coleman going on to learn music by ear, and performed in bands and as a solo artist for the years to follow. Settling on the moniker Bully Hay for his solo endeavours, the name was inspired by Coleman’s uncle who was one of “The Rats of Tobruk” in World War II.
Black Dogs And Songbirds is out now