Dale May

WITH nothing more than his guitar, surfboard, backpack and a head full of dreams, Dale left Australia to travel the world.
A year later his debut album was born.
That wasn't his intention as he headed for the beaches and mountains of South America. But it didn't take long before his experiences became the lyrics to his songs and his moods were translated into the music to accompany them.
“I don't suppose I was influenced by any single musical genre,'' says the surfie-turned-muso.
“When I was growing up I was exposed to a lot of rock and soul music from the seventies. Mix that in with my classical guitar background and my love of blues, jazz, serious country and even a bit of Bob Dylan and Irish folk and you get a musical mix that's hard to define.
“I guess my songs are the mirrors of my heart and my music is drawn from the mood of the occasion.
“The songs I have written all relate to some kind of experience in my life.
“Travelling on my own opened up the floodgates for the words that came out.
“It didn't matter what I was writing when I was abroad. It became a way of expressing myself.
“I wouldn't always write only songs either. I just had to write about my experiences, my thoughts and the best way for me to express myself I found was through my guitar.
“It was great to listen to the different styles of music that were played overseas ... and to fall in love with cities and their sounds ... like the country-blues in Austin, jazz and original music in New York, gypsy punk in Montreal, Greek music on Crete, church music in Medjugorje in Bosnia.
“I listened to it all and somehow the people, the places, and the music on my journey changed me.
“When you are travelling, various forms of transport obviously play a big part in your life and, when I think about it now, the majority of my songs were written around some kind of transport ... ferries, trains, planes, terminals, airports.
“I became addicted to the act of travelling and the new places I was about to visit.
“Every time I set foot in a new city I'd walk around the streets with this stupid grin on my face, lyrics and melodies nagging me until I scampered back to wherever I was staying and locked myself away and emerged with a song.
“Most would only take a day or so to write but the exception was `Give Me a Ride' which seemed to be made up of bits and pieces off scraps of paper I had written on in airports and stations.
“The first time I wrote some lyrics for that song was at Sydney airport where I remember sitting on my haunches waiting for a connecting flight, staring at people, curious about where they were going. Another place that comes to mind would be the train station in Milan as I headed for Spain.
“I never played that song when I was travelling. The lyrics and chords just seemed to come and go but it didn't seem important to finish it at the time. It just kinda finished itself when I was sitting in a friend's lounge nine months later and I sang it from start to end for the first time.
“Hell, I wasn't even going to record it, but a few days after finishing it, I walked into the studio and decided to lay it down. And it was incredibly easy to do.''
By the time the upbeat ‘Por Qué’ was born, Dale had left South America, crossed Mexico and the States, and was sitting on the other side of the Atlantic where the sounds of Eastern European music captured his imagination.
“The words of the song were inspired from travelling through countries where you could see the scars of war. The people were happy and friendly, but there was still a deep sadness in their eyes that no one could hide.” He says, “It just felt right that the music take on that gypsy interpretation.”
At the other side of the musical spectrum is ‘Goodbye’. It's a song from deep in the heart, a haunting musical tribute to a close buddy whose life was cut tragically short.
“It's sad. But that's what my music is all about. It is created from the heart and you can't only have happy memories and experiences,'' he says.
“I want my music to be honest and have some meaning.''