coral snakes

_{"The stars, baby, the stars": Tex Perkins with Dave Graney at The Beasts' "Black Milk" show in Melbourne. Amber Schmidt photo}

Dave Graney Top 12 for 2025

1. Dave Graney and the Soft n Sexy Sound 30^th Anniversary Sound tour.
This was so enjoyable for me. So great to play the music and crack the codes to the album. Extremely challenging to perform it and to present it to people. Very tense to start it each time we did it on the 21 date tour. It had peaks and it flowed. It started from silence and ended on a long fadeout.

_{The 2025 Coral Snakes.  Meredith O'Shea photo.}

If you were alive to Australian music and culture in the mid-1990s, you couldn't avoid Dave Graney. It wasn't so much that his band dominated the charts - but 'The Soft 'n' Sexy Sound” was unavoidable.

Having been nominated in the Best Male Artist at the 1996 ARIA Music Awards, he wore a hot pink crushed velvet suit (beneath a toe-curling wig) to the award. To the evident astonishment of presenter Chrissy Amphlett, Graney had beaten John Farnham, Paul Kelly,and Tex Perkins to the top spot. Dave began his unrehearsed acceptance speech by declaring himself, with deep irony, to be “King of Pop'” 

Such TV moments are pivotal, iconic, magnificent (and easily locatable on YouTube). Right up there, in my view, with Iggy Pop bouncing up and down on a chair in the “Countdown” studio calling Molly Meldrum “dogface”, and innumerable Norman Gunston interviews. The difference is that Graney possesses an immutable grace, style and a vein of rich, droll humour.

It’s 30 years since the “Night of the Wolverine” album and to mark the occasion,  Dave Graney is reforming The Coral Snakes and going on the road to promote a vinyl pressing.           

Originally only available on CD, “Night of the Wolverine” was the breakthrough that took ex-Moodists leader Graney to overground success and his eventual crowning as Australia’s Kling of Pop.  

The 53-minute album will be pressed over four long player discs and isw available via Graney's Bandcamp.

Graney will be joined by original Coral Snakes Clare Moore on drums, Rod Hayward on guitar and Robin Casinader on keys and violin, and his frequent sideman Stu Thomas on bass.

“We will be playing two sets, the first being the 'Night Of The Wolverine' album and the second filled with songs that came before and after that breakthrough (for us) record,” Dave says.

For those waiting for the grooving Dave Graney to re-enter the rock world, wait no more. The Golden Wolverine, High Plains Drifter and The Savage Sportsman is reforming his hard-arsed but grooving 1990s chart outfit, The Coral Snakes, for a handful of shows.

Graney, Rod Hayward, Gordy Blair, Robin Casiander and Clare Moore were The Coral Snakes and they had a string of major label albums, pushing their way into the mainstream. They ain't afraid to be heavy and rock and roll is where Sir Dave hides  

Dave Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes 2015
AUGUST
7 & 8 – Memo Music Hall, St Kilda
SEPTEMBER
4 – Newtown Social Club, Sydney
5 – Lizottes, Newcastle
OCTOBER
23 & 24 – Crown & Anchor, Adelaide

Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes
The Gov, Adelaide
Friday, November 21, 2025

Words: ROBERT BROKENMOUTH
Pictures: MANDY TZARAS

It was one of those “where to begin “kind of gigs. Long story short, I've been in a rather horrible tunnel for the last three or so years. Looks like I'm slowly re-emerging, though; but I'm not the only one - and they've been in the shit far deeper and uglier.

Saw The Animals and Friends at The Gov on Wednesday night. Top show, vivid, crisp and filled with bittersweet pills, grim memories and the kind of songs which cry out for audience engagement. Which we got in spades. Norm Helm's jazz-flecked bass is a joy to watch, as is Barney Williams' piano and synth work. Danny Handley's vocals and sweet blues guitar drag me in every time. And, propping the lot up at the back, 84-year old John Steel, one of the original Animals. Just about everyone in the crowd had a smile on their face.