Half a century after helping redefine Australian pub rock, Dave Warner is still creating, still touring and finding new ways to tell stories. From music to crime novels, television and even artificial intelligence, the award-winning artist says curiosity – not age – has kept him moving forward.
When Bob Dylan was asked during his 1978 Australian tour whether there were any local artists who had caught his attention, his answer surprised many.
Among the names he mentioned was a then little-known Perth musician named Dave Warner.
For Warner, the endorsement wasn’t something he read in a headline first. The news came via his own bandmates, but the story behind it began months earlier after a nervous Melbourne gig.
“I wandered over and started chatting to a group of blokes at the back of the room,” Warner told Starts at 60.
“It turned out they were from Bob Dylan’s band. I’d been selling these homemade cassette tapes of our songs after gigs, so I gave them a couple. They played them on the tour bus.”
Later, one of Dylan’s musicians told Warner the legendary songwriter had become a fan of his work. Although a meeting with Dylan never eventuated, the compliment has remained one of the highlights of an extraordinary career.
“Of course it felt great,” he said.
“It’s wonderful when people of that stature enjoy your work. But it’s also great when someone like Marnie from Nunawading loves your music too. When you write and perform you put your ego on the line, and wherever positive feedback comes from, I’m appreciative.”
This October, Warner will celebrate another remarkable milestone as Dave Warner’s from the Suburbs marks 50 years with a five-date reunion tour that could be the final outing for the iconic line-up.
For the 72-year-old, however, the anniversary isn’t simply about looking backwards.
“There’s still a lot of me that’s the same,” Warner said.
“But everything you do has an impact – performing, the interaction with audiences, the life you live.”
What hasn’t changed is his appetite to create.
“The one constant is that I still really enjoy being a creative person – writing books, writing songs, performing. I still love it.”
While organising a reunion has become more complicated with the passing years, Warner says the chance to reunite with longtime bandmates and perform songs spanning five decades is something he’s excited about.
Although many Australians know Warner as one of the pioneers of suburban rock, music became just one chapter in a remarkably varied creative career. He’s since written more than 20 books, including 15 crime novels, won the prestigious Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction, penned screenplays and television scripts, and continues developing new stage productions.
Warner doesn’t see those achievements as separate careers and long before he fronted bands, he dreamed of becoming an author.
“It’s the same storyteller using different tools,” he says.
“When I was about 12, we had to fill in a form at school saying what we wanted to do. I wrote that I wanted to write books.”
Music arrived first because it offered an outlet while he was still young and later came comedy, musicals, television and eventually the crime novels he’d always wanted to write.
“I couldn’t write novels at 14 or 15, so I followed my other great love – rock music,” Warner says. “I enjoy both pursuits. They’re different, but they’re both incredibly satisfying.”
Warner believes many people reach later life thinking opportunities have passed them by.
He couldn’t disagree more.
“Passion and satisfaction,” he said, when asked the secret to reinventing yourself.
“I decided as a young man I had enough confidence to make a living doing what I loved. Whether it’s a late career change, going overseas, or going out on a date, there’s passion and there’s self-belief.”
Then comes the line that perhaps best sums up Warner’s philosophy after five decades of creating.
“Don’t tell yourself, ‘I can’t do it.'”
He recalled writing a recent song about an older man nervously returning to dating after many years and at first the character questions whether he still remembers how.
Then everything changes.
“He realises it all comes back and he feels like howling at the moon,” Warner explains.
“The point is, even at that age you can find love and connection. It can be scary, but take the step. You never know what will happen.”
Warner’s songwriting became famous for capturing ordinary Australian life long before it became fashionable.
While he believes today’s Australia has become far more culturally diverse than the country he wrote about during the 1970s, he also thinks something has been lost.
“When I started writing about the suburbs, it came from the idea that Australians should have people singing and writing about their own lives,” he said. “Back then, audiences across Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide instantly recognised the same references.”
Today’s music industry, driven by global streaming audiences, tends to favour more universal themes.
“There’s much less emphasis on local socio-cultural storytelling,” he said.
One of Warner’s most surprising views concerns artificial intelligence. Rather than seeing it as something to resist, he’s already using AI to breathe life into projects that had sat unfinished for years.
“I’ve been using some AI tools on old songs I’d never have been able to properly record,” Warner says, pointing out technology can become another creative tool, provided artists continue receiving proper recognition and compensation when their work is used.
“You can’t go backwards and you can’t stop it. It’s here.”
Instead, Warner encourages fellow creatives to adapt: “Maintain your originality and individuality, and make the tool work for you. It’s like moving from typewriters to computers.”
Of all the songs he’s written, one has taken on new meaning with age.
Oklahoma was inspired by his relationship with his father while Warner was living in England during the mid-1970s. At the time, his father was 69.
Today, Warner has reached an age older than his father was when he first wrote it.
“It’s always had a special place,” he reflected.
“But it’s even more special now.”
As Dave Warner’s from the Suburbs prepares to celebrate 50 years together, that’s perhaps the strongest message from a man who’s never stopped creating. The songs may evoke memories of Australia’s golden pub-rock era, but Warner isn’t interested in becoming a nostalgia act.
He’s still writing, learning, and still finding new stories to tell.
Dave Warner’s from the Suburbs celebrates its 50th anniversary with five special shows this October, taking in Sydney (October 9), Brisbane (October 10), Tweed Heads (October 11), Melbourne (October 17) and Perth (October 24). Tickets are on sale now via the Dave Warner official website. For long-time fans, it promises to be a rare chance to relive one of Australia’s most influential pub rock acts – and quite possibly the last opportunity to see this line-up perform together.
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