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An overnight success ten years in the making...
Muirsical Conversation with Dan Patlansky
Picture
To all intents and purposes it seems as if South African blues rock musician Dan Patlansky came out of nowhere to burst on to the UK and European blues rock scene in a blaze of throaty and distinctive Strat-tone glory in 2015 on the back of Dear Silence Thieves, the rave reviews received for that album and a prestigious special guest slot on Joe Satriani’s 2015 UK & European tour dates.

His reputation as a great live performer and deliverer of outstanding studio material was solidified in 2016 with the release of the Introvertigo album and as special guest on King King’s spring tour.
 
But the truth of the matter is Dan Patlansky has more than paid his dues to the blues to make that fully deserved impact outside of his home town of Johannesburg and the music clubs of South Africa.
P
rior to Dear Silence Thieves Patlansky already had six studio albums and fifteen years of touring and performing in South Africa under his blues coloured belt; he also lived and played in New Orleans for a short time.

Opening for Bruce Springsteen in front of 64,000 of The Boss’s biggest fans in Johannesburg in 2014 didn’t do his blues rockin’ stock any harm, nor did the championing of his work by the US music website Blues Rock Review.

Dan Patlansky sat down with FabricationsHQ to discuss the albums and career path that led to Dear Silence Thieves, his surprise and delight at how well that album was received in the UK and touring Introvertigo, his most accomplished and dynamic release to date…

Ross Muir: Something that very seldom happens with you, certainly in the UK, is any discussion about your pre Dear Silence Thieves albums, due to the fact they were never released here.
So to set the records straight, so to speak, if I could take you back to the start and Standing at the Station…

Dan Patlansky: Well that first album was back in 1999, before I was a solo artists – I suppose you could say semi-solo artist because the band was called Dan Patlansky and the Mississippi Muthers, a completely different band from where I am now.
It was also the first time I ever went in to the studio but, in my opinion, it was a little bit too early to go into the studio because I don’t think the recordings are too great. I cannot stand that album to be honest with you!
But then everyone has a first recording and not everyone is going to be happy with their first recording.
We didn’t really sell it commercially, either; we sold about five hundred copies of the album, at our gigs, and that’s about as far as that album went.

RM: It's interesting to hear you say that because I’m in total agreement with your comments
 – Standing at the Station, for me, doesn’t represent you at all, certainly not where you are now as an artist.
It’s almost as if it’s recorded from a blues template, or blues by rote – a traditional blues here, an AOR blues there, make sure there's a shuffle – to be totally honest with you, it’s totally unrecognisable as a Dan Patlansky album…

DP: I couldn’t agree more; even back when I was doing that album I didn’t feel it represented who I was.
When you’re younger and recording for the first time you’re still kind of looking for what you believe in and where you are going, direction-wise; or you take the producer’s word for everything because you put your trust in the guy. But you learn of course that isn’t necessarily the way to go.
It was a good learning experience, though; being in a studio for the first time and seeing what that was like.

RM: A good learning tool indeed but the point you made about it also being a little early to be in the studio would seem to be borne out by the length of time taken to get to your second album.

DP: Yeah, that was five years later, when I signed a deal in South Africa with EMI Records.
The album was called True Blues because at the time I was in to the more traditional blues stuff; I wasn’t really in to the blues rock thing and not really into song writing, per se – it was about playing the guitar over traditional sounding blues tunes.
We had a recording budget for True Blues and we had a producer too – a very nice chap – but I have to say I was very disappointed with that album when it came out.
Certainly not disappointed in the way I was with Standing at the Station but I was thinking "well, this is still not representative of what I do" because we had a three piece horn section on a lot of the songs and live we were a power trio
– and the album wasn’t like a power trio at all.

Short of sounding like I was really disappointed with everything I recorded for those first couple of albums [laughs] I have to say I was, honestly, a little disappointed with True Blues, but it did help to put me on the map in the South African music scene.
Being on a big label helped too. We got a lot of TV advertising to promote the album, which led to playing outside of my home city of Johannesburg and the surrounding area to getting people out to see us in other South African cities. So overall, it was a good thing.

RM: I’m not as critical of True Blues as you are but I agree that it’s still not representative of Dan Patlansky. That said there are a few great songs on there; one that still surfaces from time to time in blues talk and YouTube circulation is the slow blues Heart of Stone.
There’s some great playing on that song; you also show great feel for the space between the notes being as important as the notes themselves.

DP: Exactly, and thank you. It’s great, and interesting, for me to hear you say that because I’ve always felt the platform of a slow blues is the easiest for me to express myself. They are still my favourite moments of any show I play and on any album I record; I really believe that’s where, as you said, I feel it the most.
But, as I said earlier, I didn’t think True Blues represented the power trio or what I was doing live, so I kind of got fed up with taking a producer’s advice – although as I would later find out it was more a case of making sure I found the right producer or, before that, doing some of it myself.

RM: You’re alluding to Real…

DP: Yes. Two years after Standing at the Station we recorded Real; that album was fully self-financed, not done through any label and was the first time I had a hand in the production.
But that was a scary thing in itself because now it fell on my shoulders to produce a good album! [laughs]
But I do feel that Real was the first album where I started to find my own sound and started to head in the direction that I wanted to go – I was in the developing stages of my own sound and it was a great experience doing that album.
I’m also a bit of a control freak [laughs] so found that having a hand in the production of the album was quite a comforting thing – but at the same time quite intimidating!
​
That album did pretty well in South Africa for us and it also got us our very first review in the UK – that was the first time we had ever got a review outside of South Africa, which was great.
Just before I recorded that album I was spending a little time out in New Orleans – in fact I lived out there for a while
 – and the final track on Real is a live radio performance of a tune I did with my New Orleans band…

RM: That’s a great example of your slow blues expressiveness we mentioned earlier.
So, by spending some time in New Orleans, and through Real, you’re starting to get some notice outside of South Africa?

DP: Yeah, Real was a great album for me in that respect but Move My Soul, which was three years later and recorded in a different studio, was a completely self-produced album
– I didn’t have any other producer in their helping on that album, which meant I could get the sound I wanted.
I see albums as time capsules of where you are at that particular time in your life; at that time in my life I was in to getting a particular sound, or wanting a particular sound.
Move My Soul was also a real fun project to record and we slowly started to see some more reviews from outside of South Africa.

RM: But being noticed outside of South Africa was still through a very slow, isolated trickle of review recognition?

DP: Yes, because Real and Move My Soul were independent albums; I was working with distribution deals through small, independent labels just to get the albums out across South Africa.
Physical product still wasn’t being released anywhere else in the world but I think the company I was working with at the time did make Move My Soul digitally available, through iTunes and whatever other digital platforms they were working with, but I did hit a bit of a brick wall in South Africa at that point.
I had great fans and they seemed to be enjoying the albums but I was still playing the same sized venues – I guess I just didn’t have the know-how, or the right team behind me, to get beyond South Africa and push it to that next level.
That's when I signed up with Clear Entertainment and Franie Kotz, who had managed some of the most successful rock bands and the more commercial sounding acts in South Africa.
Franie had never managed a blues or blues rock artist before but I felt it would still be a good fit because he may not have a say in that particular type of music but he knows how to get the music out there, no matter what type of music that is. And he’s still my manager today.

RM: This was all around the time of the 20 Stones album in 2012?

DP: I actually recorded the 20 Stones album just before I started working with Clear Entertainment.
That was another self-produced album but recorded in a completely different and better studio; that's where I met Theo Crous, who produced Dear Silence Thieves and Introvertigo.
I think, with 20 Stones, I started finding my feet with the direction I wanted to go in and where I wanted to be.
I also felt my voice was getting a little better
– I was working on my vocals more – but I suppose that all came from the experience I now had in my playing, performing and writing.
I started to get more into the songwriting and the importance of not just writing any old tune to play the guitar solo over, which had obviously been the priority when I was younger [laughs].
The studio had great equipment too, equipment I had never had the chance to work with before, and Theo offered to mix the album, which he did. That was my first introduction to how Theo did things in the studio.
​
20 Stones was by far the most successful album I had done to that time; we got some reviews in from the Netherlands and Germany and Blues Rock Review in the States covered it too – when they did their top twenty albums at the end of that year it came in, I think, at number ten.
So we were starting to get the word out there, beyond the borders of South Africa, and with the new management we started to play bigger and better venues in South Africa and started to market things properly – we finally had a plan in place! [laughs]
​RM: You provided contrast to 20 Stones by following that album with Wooden Thoughts, showcasing the acoustic side of Dan Patlansky. 
​ 
DP: Actually the only reason we recorded that album was because we had been doing so much full band electric touring in South Africa that we thought we should take a break from that and do something completely different, like an acoustic show.
I was very sceptical about the idea though because the acoustic guitar was never the most comfortable instrument in my hands [laughs]; it’s obviously a very revealing type of set to play and there’s not much to hide behind – it’s a real, honest form of music.
But we did an acoustic tour and it was so successful that we decided to go in to the studio to record some acoustic songs; we weren’t planning to release them, it was just to see how it would all sound.
We ended up really liking what we heard though and released it as the album Wooden Thoughts.

RM: So Wooden Thoughts was, in effect, based around the set of the live acoustic shows?

DP: Yeah, that’s why there’s a couple of standards on it, a few from 20 Stones and quite a few covers, including Kashmir by Led Zeppelin.
Once again Blues Rock Review covered it and this time, at the end of the year, it came in at number sixteen on their top twenty albums.

RM: The first track I heard of yours was the cover of Kashmir; I was instantly intrigued – and impressed – that anyone would think to do a stripped back version of such an iconic rock song and do it so well.
Good as 20 Stones and Wooden Thoughts were, you took a giant step forward with Dear Silence Thieves…

DP: Thank you. After the acoustic album I decided I wanted to get back to a full-band, electric album but this time start from scratch with Theo and have him as producer, not just mixer.
Theo is also the guy who changed how I look at writing – making it about the best possible song you can write and then, from there, start worrying about the guitar solos, the sound and the performance element.
That was the first time since Real, almost a decade before, that I handed the producer’s reins over to someone else and that was difficult! [laughs]

RM: But an inspired and, as it would turn out, very successful decision…

DP: Yes it was but I have to tell you I fought with Theo every single day in the studio on the direction of the songs and this, and that, and the next thing [laughs]; it was really quite a tough period.
Even just before the album was released I didn’t quite know what to think of it or if anyone would like it!
But, again, it was Blues Rock Review who gave us the first good review and this time they had it as their number one album at the end of 2014; that really opened the doors for us in the UK and Europe because Peter Noble of Noble PR contacted us the day after it was featured in Blues Rock Review!
Peter quickly put a team together for us, including a UK agent and a promoter; we got Dear Silence Thieves released the next year, 2015, in the UK and Europe.
​
We had actually played the UK a couple of times before Dear Silence Thieves, but in a very small way – you know, the one-off London show type of thing and then straight home 
– but the release of Dear Silence Thieves, and the fact it got picked up in the UK, really got the ball rolling for us.
We went with Theo again on the Introvertigo album and we’re heading back to the studio again in a few weeks to start work on the next album.
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     The Real Dan Patlansky was heard for the first time on his third release; four albums later Dear Silence            Thieves put the noted South African singer songwriter guitarist on the UK and Europe blues rock map. 

RM: Both Dear Silence Thieves and Introvertigo got fantastic reviews in the UK, and deservedly so.
It's also great that we have seen so much more of you in the UK and Europe on the back of their success.

DP: Yeah, we toured Introvertigo in the UK last year and came off our second Introvertigo tour just a couple of months ago; but I’m really excited about going back in to the studio with the news songs, I really am.
You never know how it’s going to turn out until you have recorded the songs but I think we have some really good stuff here; we're also hoping to be able to play a couple of the new songs on the UK tour with Joanne Shaw Taylor later this year – we won’t have the album ready to go but we should be in a position to have it on pre-order by then.
So the shows with Joanne will give some of the new songs a test run and a little pre-promotion; the plan is to release the album in the first quarter of 2018.

RM: Great to hear how excited you are for the new album but it’s also been interesting to hear you enthuse about the albums that preceded Dear Silence Thieves because, for me, that’s where you started to define the musician that is Dan Patlansky.
That earthy and edgy Patlansky Strat tone started to shape itself on Real and Move My Soul while the big, beefy blues-rock sound of 20 Stones truly defined you to that point, both musically and vocally.

DP: Exactly, I couldn’t agree more. That’s definitely the way I feel about it too.
If I had my own way and we ever get to the stage of rereleasing back catalogue in the UK and the rest of the world on a proper, big distribution scale, my suggestion to management and anyone else involved would be to release from Real onwards. Those two earlier albums don’t represent me at all.

RM: I think that Real to 20 Stones period is when you also started to define yourself as a blues rock player.
Actually, when asked about you I respond "great blues rock player but rock is spelt r, a, w, k [loud laughter]. There are some great subtleties in your playing and you express yourself beautifully on slow blues numbers, as we mentioned earlier, but your calling card is, for me, unashamedly rock, sorry [accentuates] rawk, with a blues core.

DP: That’s great [laughs]. I’ve always felt that there are some artists who can get away with playing traditional blues and the twelve bar stuff, because it takes something a little special to be able to pull that off.
You can either do that really well, or you can’t.
I’m still a massive fan and lover of traditional blues and the old school stuff but I’m also a lover of Led Zeppelin and Rival Sons, so there’s a whole bunch of bands and styles that I love – I think of it as stirring them all into a stew and creating this whole melting pot of ideas to come up with something different.

RM: Stevie Nimmo is another who has that cross genre, melting pot of ideas to draw from, albeit Stevie’s influences and songwriting style are more Americana and country-blues as well as rock and British blues.
I define what Stevie does as "progressive blues" and you’re much the same
– you are always looking to broaden the sonic palette.

DP: That’s exactly it but, let me tell you Ross, not everyone’s chuffed about that; every country in the world that I play I call them the Blues Police! [laughs].
Our shows are usually advertised as blues shows so there are always some guys who will come along, check it out, then complain afterwards that "hey, that wasn’t the blues!" And I agree with them!
It definitely wasn’t traditional blues but I consider everything I do as coming from the blues.
That’s its soul; that’s its DNA.  

RM: And that’s what comes over on Dear Silence Thieves and Introvertigo, your best albums to date.
Dear Silence Thieves did exceptionally well in the UK as regards critical review, and the tracks Backbite and Fetch Your Spade did very well as choice cuts for Planet Rock radio airplay.
But how pleased – or perhaps surprised – were you at how well received Dear Silence Thieves was in the UK?

DP: It was fantastic it did so well but, yes, it was a shock too; it really was.
When Peter Noble got hold of me and we got a UK release for the album I thought "OK, let’s give it a go" but as an artist you always have reservations about how well your album will do – Blues Rock Review made it their number one album the year before that’s still only one publication in the entire world, it doesn’t mean the UK or Europe is going to like it!
But it was really a great feeling to see it get so much attention and for those tracks to get the airplay; that got our foot in the door in the UK and on the back of that we got more tour offers.

RM: And as regards those tour offers – getting the special guest slot on the Joe Satriani European tour in 2015 did you no harm at all…

DP: That was such a highlight for me, it really was.
Joe obviously plays a very different type of music from me and has a different audience but it was a guitar loving audience, so playing twenty-five dates across Europe and the UK with him helped continue our growth.
It was just such a memorable experience; it really was a milestone moment for me.

RM: Then in 2016 you had the more blues rock orientated UK tour offer as special guest to King King.
That was just a perfect fit and a great blues rock dovetailing.

DP: I've always loved King King’s stuff – I bought their first album when it released and really enjoyed it
 – but I had never met Alan before that tour. I had met his brother Stevie, though, at a festival in the Netherlands; we chatted about his music, about Alan and King King.
So when we got booked for that tour I was really excited but, for me, it was actually very similar to Joe Satriani but in a more focused way because an audience at a King King gig is obviously more like the audience I want to tap into.
And, like the Joe Satriani shows, it’s a guitar loving audience – Alan is a fantastic player – but King King’s music, like mine, comes from the blues.
I also have to say Alan’s songwriting for me is really inspirational and to hear and see him live every night was great.
They are great guys and a fantastic live band; in fact they are honestly one of the best live bands I have seen.
I wouldn’t want to have to go on after King King, let me put it that way! [laughs]

RM: Alan has worked his arse off with that band; it’s great to see all the hard work starting to pay dividends.
I agree with you as regards their live performances – I’ve stated many times that I believe them to be the premier live act on the British blues rock circuit.

DP: And it’s everything about the live show. My question to Alan at the end of the tour wasn’t the typical guitar-geek, technical question about an instrument or the sound, it was "how do you get the audience in the palm of your hand like that, right from the first three seconds of the set to the end of the show?"
I’ve never seen anyone do that quite like Alan does, it was just great to watch.    

RM: That’s a good point, because while fans and critics tend to cite Alan as a great singer and guitarist, of equal importance is the fact he is an exceptional, and totally ego-less, front man.
It’s about having a genuine rapport with the audience, bags of stage charisma and presence, a touch of cheeky chappie and a liberal dose of je ne sais quoi.

DP: Well I’m not like Alan in that respect, I can tell you that! [laughs]

RM: The King King tour also helped you push and promote Introvertigo.
That album got you another best blues rock album nod from Blues Rock Review as well as rave reviews and honourable mentions on many publications and music websites, including FabricationsHQ.
Introvertigo also features that r, a, w, k element, especially on cranked up songs such as Run, Sonnova Faith and album closer Queen Puree, which we’ll hear later.

DP: Thank you so much; that’s greatly appreciated you would say all that.
We really had a lot of fun recording Introvertigo and we have had a lot of fun touring it, too.

RM: One such tour being the recent set of UK dates with Ash Wilson, an emerging talent on the British blues rock circuit, as your special guest support.

DP: We did, yes and what a treat that was!
I had never heard Ash before the first show we did with him, which was in Poole, and I was blown away.
He’s a great songwriter, great guitar player and a great singer; just a top class guy.

RM: You and Ash have different career backgrounds but there are similarities in your UK impact.
Many UK blues rock fans were, initially, under the impression Dear Silence Thieves was your first album, so under the radar were you.
Similarly, Ash seems to have appeared from nowhere with an excellent debut album but the reality is he has done his apprenticeship and worked at his craft in a number of different bands to get to this stage.

DP: Yes, we’re the overnight successes that took ten years! [laughs]

RM: That's not far off the mark. You’ve also just come up with the title of this conversational piece! [laughter]
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​​RM: Having discussed your earliest albums and the ones that helped shape who you are as a singer songwriter guitarist, I want to touch on those very weapons of choice.
You’re a Fender Strat man…

DP: I am, yes…

RM: …and I know Old Red, your ‘62 Stratocaster, was your favoured six-string until you picked up a 2004 Custom Shop Strat you called The Beast.
But a couple of years ago you took the hardware, scratch-plate, pickups and neck of Old Red and attached them to the body of The Beast?

DP: That’s absolutely correct, that’s exactly what I did! 

RM: That must have led to a fair number of vintage Strat fans and guitar aficionados around the world crying in unison "he did what?!"      

DP: Yeah, I think I had death threats coming at me at one point [laughter].
For me though, it’s a simple thing to do because Strats are guitars that you can pull apart and put back together again pretty easily – I can put Old Red back together again at any point.
Actually, I’m going to be doing just that pretty soon because the tour we’ve just done is the last tour I can ever do with this guitar because the neck’s all twisted, as old neck’s will eventually do
– in fact by the end of the tour the neck was virtually unplayable, so it has to be replaced.
I have a '64 neck, which I’ve had lying around for a while, getting re-fretted right now; that neck will then get attached to the body of The Beast.
I’ll carry on with that guitar while Old Red gets put back to her original glory, but she’ll be on my wall, because that neck really is unplayable now.

RM: I’m glad to hear Old Red will be given display status because that guitar has served you well, particularly across some of the albums we’ve just discussed.

DP: That’s true but it will still be a sad day because I’ve been playing that particular neck since 2000, so for seventeen years I’ve been on that neck and no other neck ever felt quite like it. It feels like home.
But all good things must come to an end and now I just have to get used to this other '64 neck, which will take a month or two, just to fully get in to its subtleties.

RM: So next time we see you no part of Old Red will be with you?

DP: Right, because it’s now arrived at a point of complete craziness, where it’s just choking up on the neck everywhere; it’s becoming a real pain in the butt to play, to be honest with you.

RM: And that next time, in the UK at least, will be as special guest to Joanne Shaw Taylor in November, as you mentioned earlier.

DP: Yes, we’re touring with Joanne on her seven dates across the UK. We’re really looking forward to getting back out there and playing to British blues rock fans again.

RM: As we close out this conversation I’m going to play out with the song that closes out Introvertigo.
A big number for a little bundle of fun, I believe?

DP: [laughs] That’s right. That song was written for my little daughter Sofia and how someone so small can rule your world!

RM: Love it [laughs]. Dan, thanks for chatting to FabricationsHQ and revisiting the album path that led to Dear Silence Thieves and Introvertigo.

DP: Thank you very much Ross, it’s been great fun and I really appreciate all your support.
See you again, and all our UK fans, in November!

​Ross Muir
Muirsical Conversation with Dan Patlansky
June 2017

​Dan Patlansky official website: http://danpatlansky.com/

Photo credits: Adam Kennedy (top image); Allan Jones (lower image)


Audio tracks presented to accompany the above article and to promote the work of the artist.
No infringement of copyright is intended. 
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